Look, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, no wait….It’s Curiosity Rover! The new out of this world viral sensation has somehow made discussion over space, a topic of discussion! Over the past few weeks I have been glued to the television, first the Olympics and now the Curiosity Mars Mission (and of course a little Shark Week in between); what an exciting year this has been for us.
If you don’t know, on August 6th, 2012, the spacecraft known as Curiosity Rover, landed on mars…or NASA would say, “Wheels down in Mars!” Some factoids about the voyage are that the aircraft took 8.5 months to land on the Martian planet, about $2.5 billion in operating costs and for what? To study if, there in fact is life on Mars.
The real excitement came from live pictures straight out of the NASA office showing everyone celebrating this victory.
Once I saw the picture, I too got excited, and I high-fived my neighbor (true story). As you know, that’s not why I am here, there’s also a video component. Six days after the news worthy touchdown story, a viral video parody of NASA released and has attracted 2 million hits ever since; let’s call it the viral response to NASA’s excitement.
Not only was this a newsworthy event, but a fun quirky web video creation aka viral video brought this in front of media attention for more media coverage, a real prize for NASA if you ask me! I know you find viral videos silly or not important as news, but if there is a worthy message, it infiltrates people’s reactions, viewership and overall acknowledging that you exist. For viral video my friends, it has served as a strong force of communication once again.
Yours truly signing off.
