As we are first introduced to one of the worlds most popular viral videos, Numa Numa, it is demonstrated to us that anyone can make a video and have it go viral. Michael Wesch, PhD and professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, talks about his own experience with his video that he titled, Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us that he created to talk about how text on paper is virtually and physically different than digital text; how we are able to link to one another through a new varieties of ways almost every day. The number of people who viewed Wesch's grew to be so popular by the fourth day of its publicity, it had reached the number one most watched viral video by noon. Wesch wanted to show that it does not take millions and millions of dollars to create some big, elaborate video for it to become viral. He then goes on to give example of low-life beginners, such as early hip-hop artist Soulja Boy, that are like Wesch and have started from nothing, and become something that people cannot stop talking about all over the world.
Further into his talk about the connectivity of people around the world through new and old media. Wesch references Barry Wellman and his theory of 'networked individualism' and how have values, but we also long to express other emotions and actions that may be different than what we actually we want. Wesch and his students wanted to find the platform between building human connection through screens and how it affects both the user and the viewers, but how connected they both can feel by simply just talking into a camera. The students found that there was a certain sort of equation that people tend to follow when they are "hiding" behind a screen talking to others around the world. Humans feel that there is a deeper connection, somehow, through talking into a camera, rather than actually talking to someone one-on-one in person. Evidence from Wesch's experiment with his students gives personal experiences that allows us to connect more deeply than ever before with one another. When other individuals who only observe the inspirational and moving videos from single humans just about their lives can inspire others to do the same and recreate that experience to get their own effects and feelings out of it, because it is something that humans crave and value.
Throughout the rest of the end of the video other videos, such as Lonelygirl15, were referenced when Wesch describes an 'identity crisis', where people were coming up with their own separate personalities to shield them from the real world so no one knows who they truly are; almost to protect a reputation. Others are outraged by all the "fakes" and "liars" that are out there, and hiding behind their screens; they want the truth to come out of them and for their lives to be publicly displayed. There are also the few who choose to remain simply anonymous from their very first video, to give some perspective and depth about how they want the audience to purposely see their videos. They provide an idea, or a symbol, to give inspiration or hope to people who feel as if they need it; to choose this figure as a "guiding light" to connect each other, which brings us back to the ventral idea of this video.
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