大象传媒

Despite its many grim news headlines, 2024 had its share of fun moments on social media, bringing whole internet communities together and changing the lives of the people involved. Sometimes these were the result of a post that went viral, others were completely accidental.

鈥淚鈥檓 looking for a man in finance 鈥︹�� is the opening line of one of the most viewed, copied and remixed social media posts of the year. The woman behind it, Megan Boni, aka TikTok鈥檚 Girl on Couch, invented the rhyme as a jokey description of the perfect man she and her single friends would like to meet. She posted it one evening, and the internet went wild 鈥� 鈥淚 woke up the next morning to a million views, and it just kept going up and up and up and I was like cool, this is fun. And then I had my friend who works in music and she was like, 鈥榬ecord labels want to speak to you!鈥�

Internet fame has changed Megan鈥檚 life, and it鈥檚 been a similar story for Scottish actor Kirsty Paterson. Kirsty was photographed looking dejected in a sad green Oompa Loompa wig at possibly the world鈥檚 worst Willie Wonka-inspired event ever. The picture, which she hates, was shared around the world, and the initial publicity led to a slew of vicious replies. 鈥淚 looked like a six year old drug addict and I should 鈥榡ust get a facelift or kill myself鈥�. That was one of the hundreds of comments 鈥︹�� she says. But some months later, she鈥檚 grateful for the very positive effect it鈥檚 had on her career, with jobs in LA and London that would never have otherwise come her way.

Megan and Kirsty are joined by Kelley Heyer, the inventor of the Charli XCX 鈥楢pple Dance鈥�, and Auri Kananen, Finnish queen of housecleaning videos, to discuss what it鈥檚 like to 鈥榞o viral鈥�, and what happens next.

Hosted by Luke Jones.

A Boffin Media production with producer Anne McNaught in partnership with the 大象传媒 OS team and producer Iqra Farooq.

(Photo: Auri Kananen in one her cleaning videos. Credit: Auri Kananen)