Strange Things People Do on the Internet

It’s quite interesting to study widespread subcultures on the Internet – from annoying online memes to things that may be termed really disturbing Indeed, in the chaos of the Internet, there isn’t a single formula guaranteed to click if you go viral. 

The mood of the netizens changes unpredictably, and you would never guess what and why is trendy online these days. For example, some of the media reported that Rick Astley somehow became viral online. Just as thousands of other pop sensations, this singer-composer saw his success somewhere in the 1980s. He retired at 27, but unlike other stars, the fans didn’t agree to relegate him to the pages of history. Ricky Astley somehow became an online sensation for actually no reason, giving thousands of unsuspecting users never-ending agony. The matter is that his music video of 20-year-old song “Never gonna give you up” became a phenomenon known as “Rickrolling”, and this song is usually appended to the end of a video prank.

As you can understand, there’s no standard method as to what makes you a viral sensation online. However, a number of Internet metrics are seen to point to possibly the adolescent audience, which is the most influential in promoting some of these phenomena click.

Another example of what people are doing online is cyberculture, which has sprouted in different directions. However, its most popular kinds apparently stop at places where anonymity thrives. That’s how “Rickrolling” became a phenomenon in the notorious anonymous forum of boards.4chan.org, known online as brilliant and dangerous place at the same time.

You might remember the earliest online memes (concepts that spread across the Internet and become subcultural phenomena) – the LOLcats that saw online users post pictures of their cats, or simply images of cats downloaded from the web with some provocative messages and smiles. The experts say that 2007 and 2008 were the years of the LOLcat flooding the web with such messages as “Is it caturday yet”.

However, there are a number of darker subcultures that you might want to protect their kids from. An increasing phenomenon is “roulette chatting,” which is similar to the game of Russian Roulette. It is about meeting strangers on the Internet and chat with them through text or web-cam video. Despite the fact that the perils of such activity seem quite obvious, today an alarmingly high number of young people from all over the world want to “take a chance” and meet strangers on the web.