A viral video is something that gains mad popularity in a short amount of time through different types of file sharing over the World Wide Web, according to Urban Dictionary. The same works for other files. So if something goes viral, you bet your ass it’s going to be popular. The Internet has destroyed what little attention span I, like many, managed to corral after puberty however and internet videos or other file-fads lose popularity quick. Something used to be popular online for weeks. Then the measure dwindled down to days, and now an internet video can be irrelevant within hours. I think the sudden drop in popularity is because some Internet videos you only need to see once, and if you’re like me and show 100 people the video within the hour, chances are someone you want to show the video to will have already seen it.

But there are some things you come across that can stay popular for a while. I hope it’s not too late to make fun of the girl from Duke that made the 42 page Sex List. She called it a “horizontal study.” Basically she made a mock, senior thesis of her escapades with Duke athletes done in a Powerpoint format. To tell you the truth it was actually very well written and she DID do thorough research. It was mostly Lax Bros and baseball players. She called each dude a “subject” and a number for his order. Then it was “how they met,” “memorable moments,” yadda yadda, and last, but not least, a score (out of ten, baby). Lax Bros had the higher average rating, of course.

Is this supposed to be a bad thing? Like what if this was the other way around and there was a sex list about girls from a man? I bet I wouldn’t be able to flip through one channel of my basic cable without seeing updates about the “asshole at Duke” or something. Definitely a double standard going on with sex lists apparently. But that’s not what’s important. What’s important is the terror of viral videos.

I was watching on CNN that she feels sorry that this has happened, and that she only sent it to a few friends. I mean once something hits the web, thats it. It’s there forever. Clicking “upload” is like pulling a trigger. BANG! You might miss and be ok, or you’re in deep shit. This kind of scares me, but not really. I’ve done some stupid stuff and seen it documented with little recollection. But thankfully it’s nothing stupid enough where it’ll be sent from dorm room to dorm room across the U.S.

It sucks for the Duke girl, I guess. She’ll be labeled all over the place forever now for something she probably would have just labeled for in college without the Internet. If I were her, I wouldn’t have trusted my friends, (yeah I still would have made the Powerpoint). It sucks more for the athletes in the list probably, at least the ones who got crappy ratings.