A man and his dog, a carjacking koala and how a dress reminded everyone what a viral sensation is supposed to be.
Welcome to the fifth edition of the Best Picture I Saw This Week, with a little extra blah blah blah at the end…
Second runner up: Man’s best photo
I know people in the past have done this — guy wears photo of dog, dog wears photo of guy. But it’s never been as perfect as this, all thanks to the dog’s smile. When my wife forces our dogs to wear clothes they never smile. They hate clothes. They might even hate a shirt with my face on it.
First runner up: Life in Australia
It’s the most Australian carjacking in history. This photo is from a story out of a rural part of Australia this week — when a family found a koala trying to steal their car. He failed — and thus avoided being sentenced to a booting — but could not have looked more adorable in the process.
The winner!
Every single person on social media has already shared their opinion on the colors they see in this dress, so I’m going to talk about it from a more macro perspective. I love this dress because it reminded everyone what a viral trend is supposed to be.
Early yesterday, a couple of llamas got loose in Sun City, Arizona. A video of the llama chase spread around a little bit. It was… fine. Average, really. Plenty of videos are funnier, plenty of videos are less funny.
It went a little bit viral. The usual blogs gave it the usual write-ups (using words like “hilarious,” “riveted,” and “capture[d] America’s heart.”) Buzzfeed, despite being on a quest to prove itself a legitimate news organization, couldn’t resist — and buzzfeeded out a “Which Runaway Llama Are You?” quiz. Time magazine, in its continuing quest to be more like Buzzfeed, put together the best memes from the llama chase. Some people on Twitter made the requisite “Lorenzo Llamas”-style jokes.
The entire thing REEKED of everyone going through the motions. “Welp, I guess this is the viral story of the day, gotta do something.”
And then the dress happened and the llamas vanished.
The debate over whether this dress looks blue and black or white and gold was the exact opposite of the llamas. It was a viral story because millions upon millions of people were organically swept up in it and talking about it. Not just the people who comment on every viral trend — it swept up everyone. Debates were breaking out online and, more important, in real life. Around 9:00 P.M., when I went to Facebook, every single post was someone talking about the dress.
That’s what a viral sensation is supposed to be. It’s not people talking about the thing that’s been deemed viral — it’s something that becomes viral because people are talking about it. The llamas and the dress are on the polar ends of that scale.
So thank you, dress. On the day when Net Neutrality became a reality, you reminded everyone exactly why the Internet is magical. White and gold and magical.
