In today’s internet age, things are spread almost instantly. When a person likes a video, he/she has the ability to share it with a push of a button. What is fascinating, though, is why people share certain videos and not others. Videos such as “Gangnam Style” seem to go viral overnight, when most people in the US did not even know the lyrics! More recently, “Blank Space” by Taylor Swift generated over 1 billion views on Youtube as of 9/13/15. Research shows that there are many reasons why videos go viral.

First let’s investigate the word viral. On Dictionary.com, one of the definitions is “becoming very popular by circulating quickly from person to person, especially through the Internet.” It is a relatively new word, being first used around 1935 -1940, and not being used with the above meaning until less than ten years ago.

There is lots of research on this phenomenon. Research led by Rosanna E. Guadagno at America’s National Science Foundation showed two hundred and fifty-six university students one of ten viral hits on Youtube. They were then asked if they would share the video. Researchers found that the decision to share a video clip stemmed largely from what feeling it evoked. They found that people were most likely to share videos that evoke feelings of joy and humor. Disgusting or anger inducing videos were also likely to be forwarded, because they evoked interest.

A separate study conducted by Jonah Berger, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School found that when people are aroused or excited (heart rate increases, pupils dilate, etc.) they are more likely to share something on the internet. He set up an experiment where he had subjects jog in place for 60 seconds and then read an article. He found that they shared the article more often when they were aroused (had jogged) then when they had just read it without jogging.

This built on his previous work in which he analyzed the top 7500 articles shared on the New York Times list. He expected how-to and informational articles to dominate the list, but instead the most shared articles triggered feelings like awe and anger. He reached the conclusion that we don’t want to share facts – we want to share feelings.

So why do humans want to share feelings? Decades of research in Social Psychology show that people like to bond over strong beliefs and emotions. When you are on the internet, it is difficult to convey these. A viral video or news article just serves as a proxy to get the other person to feel the same emotions as you.

Currently there are eight videos on Youtube with more than a billion views. “Gangnam Style” leads with 2 billion. All of these are songs. Music has repetitive value so this makes sense. Taylor Swift has two songs with a billion views, “Blank Space” and “Style”. Katy Perry has two songs as well, “Roar” and “Dark Horse” featuring Juicy J. One of the most surprisingly cited viral videos is “Charlie Bit My Finger – again”, a 56 second video featuring two young boys that has 827,964,153 views.

It is not surprising that the most popular things on the internet are usually superficial or frivolous. The content of a shared viral video matters less than the feeling it evokes. So next time you receive that video of a cat playing piano, revel in the feeling of humor you and most likely thousands of other people have felt together.