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Behind the Viral Video: What's Fake, What's Real

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When a video clip on the Internet gains widespread popularity through e-mail and other venues of Internet sharing, it becomes what's known as a "viral video." The often highly pixelated and wobbly images have such an air of authenticity about them that it's hard to watch without thinking, "Maybe I can make a video that goes viral!" The truth is, it's not only harder than it looks; people are paid a great deal of money to make things go viral.

Internet entrepreneur Jonah Peretti, hula-hooping viral video star Lauren Bernat and TV Week contributing writer Daisy Whitney talk about the highly controlled world of "viral video" and what's real, what's fake and how video became a big gun in the online marketing arsenal.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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