To understand the social impact of viral video, one needs to know what a viral video is in the first place.  The definition of a viral video is a video that gets extremely popular through Internet sharing.  This can be good or bad.  It all depends on the viewer.  One example of bad would be videos to be considered obscene such as the following: “Two Girls One Cup,” “Two Girls One Finger,” “BME Pain Olympics,” “Mr. Hands,” “Church of Fudge,” and so forth.  On the part of good, it has promoted rising Internet stars such as Tay Zonday through his most popular viral music video called “Chocolate Rain.”  

On one end of the spectrum, through the obscene videos, society is going down the gutter.  On the other end, through other videos, the Internet has become a supreme media.

This also gave rise to the popularity of Amber Lee Ettinger who is also known as Obama-Girl.  In a sense, viral videos have been crucial in respects to the 2008 United States Presidential Election.  Viral videos are one example on the social impact it has on political elections.  

One should not take viral videos lightly.  Think about viral videos as being similar to viral marketing.  Viral videos are spread through the Internet.  This is due to the ease of uploading anything onto the Internet through devices such as smart phones.  Through the Internet, it spreads like wildfire.  Viral marketing is similar because it focuses a lot on “word of mouth” by telling one person that acts as the proverbial “host.”  

Entertainment:

The most obvious social impact of viral videos would be overnight celebrities. When you think about it, you can make your own video and upload it onto sites such as YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, and so forth.  Due to that factor, the Internet has become an ideal medium.  On a economic factor, it saves money from being used on rental space, distribution, making, and so forth.  If you are looking to get noticed, viral videos would be an inexpensive and very effective way of getting known.  If you do not have a computer, you can still use your cellular phone.

In terms of voice acting, you can upload a reel onto such sites.  Through YouTube, Christina Vee is now a successful upcoming anime voice actress.  

Through viral videos, there is also the aspect of MySpace “hotties.”  

Politics:

In the 2012 United States Presidential Elections, viral videos will probably play an important part.  There might be more YouTube debates.  For the first time, during 2008, CNN and YouTube worked together to cover some debates. YouTube users would upload videos of themselves with a question to ask the presidential candidates.

Tutorial:

Viral videos have become quite useful for instructional aid.  One example would be the website called eVillage.  That site does also have an account on YouTube.  In this respect, viral videos such as the ones from eVillage have been crucial online training aids.  If you are a martial arts practitioner, you can use such videos to further hone in on your skills.  In this respect, this would shape the way how future education could be changed.  

The Dark Side of the Social Impact:

While viral videos can be good, they can be a dangerous double-edged sword.  Viral videos have been used for cyberbullying.  Cyberbullying is a recently coined term.  Nowadays, Internet access is easily obtained.  Almost anybody and everybody can access the Internet and upload whatever content. Nowadays, cell phones are easily accessible.  Plus, cell phones now have the capability to upload to or download from the Internet.  

One example of the dark side of the viral video’s social impact would be the Tyler Clementi incident.  Clementi, before his suicide, was a student at Rutgers University in New Jersey.  His sexual encounter with another male was caught on video.  And, it was then streamed onto the Internet.  

In this respect, one would have to be careful about ones actions out in public. Almost everybody has access to a cell phone.  Most of those cell phones will have video capture capability.  Those same cell phones will probably have the capability of uploading those captured videos onto YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, and so forth.  In that case, your life is damaged if not completely ruined.  

If you use viral videos to promote yourself and/or your cause, there will be tons of haters in the process.  Expect to get negative feedback.