Dan Harden ✨ ✨ ✨

BIG PICTURE REASONS WHY "CHOCOLATE RAIN" WENT VIRAL: • With no algorithms, the Internet was driven by novelty, not loyalty. Weirdness wins novelty. • Myspace was #1 in social media. YouTube was unproven and Facebook had just opened up beyond colleges. YouTube needed a "model home" for what its cultural real estate meant. • One person uploading a video that thousands of strangers parodied became YouTube's behavioral "model home." No other platform had that social dynamic. • Soulja Boy, Chris Crocker, and other talented creators had viral YouTube videos that got widely parodied. "Chocolate Rain" became identified with a type of "shareholder safe" virality. YouTube's human editors promoted it on the front page. • YouTube was an unproven business for both Google and creators. The idea of creators earning Internet money was not mainstream. I was added in round two of YouTube's experimental Partner Program. I believe round one had about thirty creators. • Television remained the eight-hundred-pound media gorilla. Viacom's billion-dollar copyright lawsuit was an existential YouTube threat just as the first YouTube videos went viral. The fact that "Chocolate Rain" began on YouTube and transitioned to me being on CNN, Jimmy Kimmel, discussed by Carson Daly and dozens of other celebrities... came at a time when YouTube needed a Rosetta Stone. They needed to translate a massively subsidized, high-risk venture into understandable cultural value. "Chocolate Rain" became a stenographer of YouTube crossing over. I got parodied on South Park, Saturday Night Live, nominated for a People's Choice Award, sang with Boyz II Men on Tosh.0 etc. HOW DID "CHOCOLATE RAIN" GO VIRAL?: • "Chocolate Rain" was rushed to completion in April of 2007 since I had another song ("Love," made with Kooby) featured on YouTube's front page and wanted other new content. It sat at around 30,000 views until summer. • "Chocolate Rain" got posted on Digg in July of 2007, an early Reddit-style social bookmark site. Someone saw it there and posted it on 4chan. • 4chan worked to meme "Chocolate Rain," "Numa Numa," Rick Astley, and other things. In 2007, 4chan was dominantly "Howard Stern liberal." Being offensive, outrageous, and highly speech-tolerant used to be identified with leftist, avant-garde identity. My first inkling that "Chocolate Rain" was going viral was 4chan prank-calling Tom Green's self-produced show and the caller busting out singing "Chocolate Rain!" MORE FACTORS IN "CHOCOLATE RAIN" GOING VIRAL: • YouTube had no stereo sound in early 2007. I posted a free "Chocolate Rain" MP3 download, with a giant video banner announcing it, purely to circumvent this. I wanted my songs heard in stereo. • "Chocolate Rain" begins with an instrumental and loops. This, combined with the MP3 download, made parodies easy. This was totally unplanned luck. It's like it was made to be parodied. • I looked like Janet Jackson, moved like Mr. Bean, and sounded like Barry White. Not trying to mean-girl myself, just being blunt. I was a unique combination of attributes but also not self-aware. Social internet video of everyday life was a new experience. Like, "If that guy is singing 'Chocolate Rain,' what's MY neighbor doing?" Everyday life was transforming into a democratic video content frontier nobody had given much prior thought to. • It's worth noting that 2007 was before mainstream mobile Internet video consumption. YouTube was overwhelmingly consumed on desktop computers and laptops. The later shift to engagement-optimized and loyalty-optimized social video was heavily influenced by phones. PERSONAL FACTORS WHY "CHOCOLATE RAIN" WENT VIRAL: • I built a bedsheet box in my living room to sing "Chocolate Rain" in because I'm agoraphobic. That's the opposite of claustrophobic. Boundaries supercharge me. It also turns out that lots of people have bedsheets to hang up. • I moved stiffly and sang "Chocolate Rain" with elongated vowels because of dyspraxia, a neurological movement difficulty tied to me being autistic (first diagnosed at age sixteen). • "Chocolate Rain" musically captured my tendency towards echolalia and echopraxia — repetition and reinvocation of speech and behavior. These are adaptations to being a partially verbal autistic who has to blend-in with speaking society. They also help in making catchy songs.