The internet is weird

I have noticed how many people upload ridiculous and absurd videos of them and their families to YouTube (I’m not gonna mention names), they always use misleading titles and thumbnails to attract the viewers attention, yet all they have is them doing unimportant stuff. For some strange reason this type of videos seem to go viral fairly quickly, or at least get more than 500,000 views during their first few days.

I have also noticed some users don’t like this, and I have often found comments pointing out that these time-wasters are doing way better than other videos that have better content.

But  the video-sharing communities are not the only ones suffering from this trend. I have found several websites that post absolute crap, yet they have a high number of followers. They can post anything at all, it doesn’t matter how stupid or boring the content is, and they will have a great response from their followers.

I have read many times that having good content is the key to website success; yet I see over and over again how many websites break this rule. Viral content seems to be what’s in these days.

The problem is, nothing can go viral unless somebody makes it so. The internet is weird and chaotic, something that someone may have written 5 years ago may suddenly become the eye of the storm today, while something new and better by the same person may never go viral no matter how good it may seem.

Good content is hard to come by these days. Many times the good content will be overlooked.

Am I saying I have good content? Not by all means. I know 85% of my site is made of jokes, crap, and dreams (or funny-crappy dreams, mind you).

This makes me wonder what I’m doing wrong. It seems to me I am either working through the wrong channels or just wasting my time altogether.

It looks to me that, for some of us, the only way to make a presence on the web is by NOT doing what we like, and should be doing what’s popular at the moment instead.

At the end of the day everything on the web is nothing more than a giant fad, something else will suddenly go viral tomorrow, and those of us who can’t keep up with the times will never make it big online.

</rant>