It was in 1996 when this dancing baby first began doing the cha-cha. The 3-D animation quickly became an internet phenomenon and one of the first viral videos, making its way into TV shows, video games and mainstream media.
Fast forward to January 2010 and another "baby" was catching on like wildfire. There were very few people who hadn’t heard of Justin Bieber or his new hit single. The music video becoming the most viewed and most discussed clip on Youtube, the same site that launched the infamous teen into stardom.
"Up until recently for someone to get that much exposure it would have been years and money and time," said Mike Prasad, founder of bitlovemedia.com.
From Youtube to Twitter, virtual worlds to message boards, Cyber Culture is a driving force for what’s hot.
"When I first used Twitter on a campaign years ago, the news had to explain what it was and now every TV show has a twitter and it’s part of our vernacula," Prasad said.
Prasad would know, he became one of the youngest Chief Techonology Officers of a publicly traded company and is credited as a key factor in Twitter becoming mainstream.
"It started going mainstream and the news talked about it and now grandma and grandpa know what Twitter is, they may not use it but they know about it and they know the affect it has," he says.
It can be something as silly as a cat looking at the camera with the words "I can has chezeburger" – that crosses over into the mainstream.
First posted on the forum 4chan, the "lolcats" meme or idea is no longer just online, now there’s lolcats T-shirts, buttons even magnets.
"You’ll see things that start online in a forum in Japan or in 4chan that comes to a Twitter thing on mainstream and then go to Youtube and then it might have some crazy exhibit where someone paints a wall or something crazy and it will be on the news and then mom and pop who never even go on line who watch the news will see it," Prasad says.
Since the start of the internet a quarter of a century ago its been an information explosion with everything from email to ebay changing the way we communicate, congregate and share information.
"Even mainstream media realizes it and they’re trying to convert into more online things on news channels they incorporate people’s twitters on ESPN they say what lebron james tweeted all these online things so everyone is moving online," says Hawaii-born Youtube star Ryan Higa.
Tomorrow we’ll look at how Hawaii folks like Ryan Higa were first to catch on to this cyber culture wave, flipping the idea of fame and changing the way businesses operate.
See the original article at: KHON2 Local News
