How virality works, why it may be dead, and what Black creators must do now to build value, not views.
Welcome to The Culture Economy, the newsletter where we break down the content, commerce, and community shaping the Black creator ecosystem. If you’re a creator, marketer, or someone who partners with (i.e., profits off? 👀) the culture, you’re in the right place!
Also, if this is your first time reading, congratulations—you’re just like everybody else! That’s because this edition on The Virality Paradox is the first edition of the newsletter. And naturally, I’m about to blast this thing everywhere—YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, X (Twitter, for us holdouts ✊🏿).
The goal?
To go viral, of course!
To drop one Reel, TikTok, Short, Thread, or Tweet so good that I catapult from tens of subscribers to millions overnight. To watch brands start offering six-figure deals. To casually field calls from Netflix and Nike. To become so famous that the Diary of a CEO guy suddenly drops his British accent just to interview me for taking his Best International Podcast of the Year Award—despite me not even being international or yet having a podcast!
But let’s be real.
That’s not going to happen.
Because virality is dead.
Or at least the old version of it is.
You can blame:
- Algorithmic chokeholds
- Platforms prioritizing ad revenue over organic reach
- Short-form’s rise on TikTok
Whatever the reason, the golden age of “overnight success” is indeed…over. Even TikTok—the app that once made anyone famous for eating corn on the cob—now prioritizes Spark Ads over sparks of brilliance.
And that’s exactly why we need to talk about virality in the Black creator economy.
Because while everyone’s struggling to go viral, Black creators have always had a different game to play—and different obstacles to overcome. Even Ashton Hall, who we’ll dig into in a second, is playing a different game.
So, in this multi-part series, examining virality and its uniqueness to Black creators, we’re answering the following questions:
- How do we define virality?
- What makes virality so magical?
- How do algorithms decide who goes viral?
- Why is it getting harder to go viral?
- What actually happens after you go viral?
- What is the Virality Paradox?
- What are tentpole events, and why are they the future of creator growth?
- What is the future of virality for Black creators?
For today, we’ll just be answering the first three:
- How do we define virality?
- What makes virality so magical?
- How do algorithms decide who goes viral?
How do we define virality?
My definition of virality is simple: cool stuff a lot of people see.
But maybe you came here looking for something a little more nuanced. Luckily, plenty of smart folks have tried to define it:
From Jonah Berger, author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On:
“The rapid and widespread dissemination of content through online channels, resulting in exponential growth and engagement.”
From TechTerms.com:
“A digital video, image, or article that has spiked in popularity and has reached a large number of users in a short period of time. While there is no exact number of views that makes something ‘go viral,’ most viral media is viewed by more than a million people in less than a week.”
From Tony D. Sampson, author of Virality: Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks:
“Spreadable accumulations of events, objects, and affects—content built up by popular discourses surrounding network culture.”
From Douglas Rushkoff, who coined the term “media virus”:
“People are duped into passing a hidden agenda while circulating compelling content.”
From Dictionary.com:
“The condition or fact of being rapidly spread or popularized by means of people communicating with each other, especially through the internet.”
From Buffer, the social media marketing platform:
“Going viral is when a piece of content spreads quickly across social media, being shared by thousands or even millions in a short time span.”
So if we distill all that intellectual language down, the definition of virality is what we led with:
Cool stuff a lot of people see…quickly!
What makes virality so magical?
The thrill of a viral moment, why it captivates audiences, and how it can launch careers overnight.
Online virality isn’t all that different from real-life virality.
Think back to middle school—before smart phones took over the world. The moment everyone found out that Andre and Shana liked each other, it was all you could talk about. You whispered about it with your friends, laughed about it at lunch, and found it impossible to look Andre in the eye without giggling. For a whole day, their story was your world.
That same magic happens online.
A viral story, dance, or moment sweeps across the internet, pulling people in. But now, instead of a cafeteria full of seventh graders, it’s reaching millions. And instead of just your school and your world talking about it—it’s the WHOLE world.
Now, what if you’re not just talking about Andre and Shana?
What if you ARE Andre or Shana?
That’s a different kind of magic. That’s YOU going viral. And all of a sudden, the WHOLE world is YOUR world—even if only for a moment.
Virality creates overnight fame. It doesn’t matter if you went viral globally, nationally, or just in your city—what matters is that far more people than you could ever reach on your own are now consuming you as content.
Take Jalaiah Harmon, the 14-year-old dancer from Atlanta who created the Renegade dance. One day, she was just another kid taking ballet, jazz, and tap after school. The next? Her moves were being copied by TikTokers across the country. There’s more to her story (and we’ll get to that!), but in the end, she landed NBA appearances, major interviews, and today has over 600k Instagram followers—where she was last seen partnering with a skin care brand.
Then there’s Khaby Lame, the Senegalese-Italian creator who went viral without saying a word. Dubbed the “Charlie Chaplin of TikTok,” he skyrocketed to fame by mocking overcomplicated “life hacks” with his signature deadpan expression. His virality turned into a career—he’s now the most-followed creator on TikTok.
And then there’s Reesa Teesa. In early 2024, Teresa Johnson turned TikTok into her personal Netflix series, chronicling her wild, short-lived marriage in 10-minute episodes. By the end of her 50-part saga, she’d amassed over 3 million followers and scored a Hollywood deal with Natasha Rothwell.
These stories—though extraordinary—aren’t all that different from how you felt at that lunch table in 7th grade, gossiping about Andre and Shana. You were part of something. And the bigger it became, the more magical it felt.
Until, of course, that viral moment faded away.
Ashton Hall and the 4Ps of Black Virality
Whether you like it or not. Whether you’re laughing or inspired.
Ashton Hall is that guy right now.
His banana peels, random hands giving him food, and library of Saratoga Water are taking him on the magical ride that is virality.
He’s literally the talk of the world right now.
But how did this moment break through?
In the next section, we’ll break down how a creator “mathematically” goes viral.
But for now, I want to focus on the content. Because there is structure to this magical ride, especially for Black creators, where virality isn’t random, it’s coded.
And so, to break down how I believe virality is different for Black creators than it is for all else, I’ve created the 4Ps of Black Virality.
Presentation: What are you presenting to make viewers stop?
- Ashton gave us “main character energy” and disrupted us with a 3:30am wake-up, face plunges, and an all-around crazy routine. And for Black audiences, that routine fought against a trope traditionally reserved for mainstream creators or wellness influencers.
Performance: What are you doing to make viewers stay?
- Ashton hooked you with the visual of him eating sliced avocados in a cold plunge, but he got you to stay with the narrative of a “day in the life” that was so beyond what most of us can imagine. And whether you felt inspired or trolled, you felt. And that drove attention. Plus, for the culture, he did it with some swag. Most disciplinary routines don’t give off Ashton’s vibes.
Projection: What are you saying to move viewers?
- On one level, Ashton made us curious. We wondered if it was real. We wondered if this was entertainment. We asked our friends if they saw it to see if they bought in? But why? For me, it was the contrasting intersection of soft luxury meeting hustle culture. Projecting that life on to an audience that has seen soft life and hustle culture as two disparate online movements created a new wave that could pull both camps in—even if for the wrong reason.
Pathway: Where does it lead?
- For me, it’s imperative that creators can take advantage of the newfound reach. Can you begin to capture that audience? Build new platforms? Leverage the IP? Launch new products? For now, Ashton retention systems seem set on his fitness and life coaching programs. That could work—if he attracted and retained the right audience. If not, he may have fallen into the trap of the Virality Paradox.
As we explore virality, particularly through the lens of Black creators, it’s impossible not to explore what’s going on with Ashton Hall. So consider this just the opening salvo on us using him as a case study. In a later edition, we’ll unpack how most creators, maybe even Ashton, miss their window of opportunity.
How Do Algorithms Decide Who Goes Viral—And When Does Virality Fade?
The hidden mechanics behind platform virality—audience engagement, viral follow-ons, and engagement decay.
We just talked about the magic of virality. But that magic fades—and fast.
But how does virality actually start? And why doesn’t it stick?
Let’s be clear: viral success isn’t random. It’s math. It’s engineering. It’s the algorithm running a series of tests to see how far your content can go before it runs out of steam.
Based on my time at YouTube, here’s how most platforms decide whether your content goes viral—or disappears into the feed.
1️⃣ The Upload: Can You Clear the First Gate?
The platform runs a quick diagnostic on your content:
- Title, caption, hashtags
- Visual/audio scans (AI + moderation tools)
- Your creator history
The goal? To assess whether your post is quality, spam, or something in between.
If you pass the vibe check, it sends your post to a small test group: some of your most active followers + users who recently engaged with similar content.
2️⃣ The Test: Are Your People Hooked?
This first group is crucial. If your subscribers, followers, and similar users don’t like it, the algorithm assumes no one else will either. It’s looking at:
- Click-through rate (is the thumbnail working?)
- Watch time and completion rate
- Likes, comments, shares, saves
Basically, if your core audience doesn’t respond, you’re cooked.
Even worse, sometimes the algorithm tests the wrong audience. And if that happens and you get negative feedback…Well, thems the breaks.
3️⃣ The Expansion: Beyond Your Bubble
If your post passes the initial test, it gets pushed to larger pools of viewers:
- People who like similar content
- Audiences who match the engagement profile
- High-share users (aka the “curators” of social media)
At this stage, your content is traveling far beyond your followers. Now it’s entering “potentially viral” territory.
4️⃣ The Snowball: When Everyone’s Watching
If engagement stays high, you reach the “viral wave” stage:
- Your post lands on home pages and “For You” feeds
- You’re recommended by content that has nothing to do with you
- You’re featured via the platform’s charts, notifications, and emails
- Your content crosses borders…and platforms!
This is the rare zone where the platform decides: “Let’s show this to everyone.”
5️⃣ The Fade: Engagement Decay + Audience Burnout
Even the biggest viral hits eventually collapse under their own weight.
📉 Everyone who was likely to engage has already seen it
📉 The trend gets saturated
📉 Engagement rates fall
📉 The algorithm moves on
Virality ends not because your post stops being good—but because the math stops mathing.
Virality Wasn’t Always This Way
In the early internet, virality came from humans sharing things directly—chain letters and videos went viral via email. Facebook and Twitter content largely blew up because of shares and retweets. Even in the early days of YouTube, which has always been interest-based, its videos often went viral because of people sharing their videos elsewhere.
However, in the TikTok era, it’s all algorithmic—based on an aggregated notion of what users are interested in. And when collective user interest for a post fades, so does its reach. And the algorithm moves on to whatever else the culture is feeling—even if it’s by mere percentage points.
But that doesn’t mean viral moments can’t stretch…
Case Study: Flyana Boss and “You Wish”
In the summer of 2023, my sister-in-law’s hip-hop duo, Flyana Boss, posted a TikTok of themselves rapping while running through Santa Monica Pier to their song “You Wish.”
It went viral.
Literally, tens of millions of views.
Instead of resting on that moment, they kept it going—with dozens of follow-ups in new cities and increasingly creative settings. That led more and more related posts like:
- TikTokers like Ezekiel Cieslak recreating the run
- Celebs like KevOnStage joining in
- A collab video with Janelle James
- A remix with Kaliii and Missy Elliott on video
- A meta-moment: running through TikTok HQ
- Thousands of everyday people getting in on the trend
And because the algorithm had so much content on this one trend, it could easily identify new uploads, more quickly push them to the millions who had already engaged with the trend, and create a virtuous cycle that led to millions of views for the duo.
In short: Flyana Boss stretched their viral moment beautifully.
But even the best viral waves eventually crash. And the algorithm moved on. I think “One Margarita” by That Chick Angel took the baton next.
But you knew this already. Just think back to the Ice Bucket Challenge—the 237,617th video probably didn’t have the same engagement as the original. Eventually, it lost its novelty. The platform noticed. It stopped recommending it to users. And the moment passed.
That’s the lifecycle of virality. The algorithm isn’t sentimental. People are. And when our sentiment changes, so does the reach of our videos.
The Magic Trick Has a Catch
So, yes, virality is magical.
But it’s also math.
Those who can master making people feel something will be unstoppable if they also can understand the math behind getting their work seen by millions.
But is the change in how things spread making it harder to go viral?
When you do finally go viral, how exactly does your life change?
And what “pathway” is Ashton Hall on now?
We’ll explore those questions, and more, in next week’s edition of The Culture Economy.
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