Despite progress in understanding online outbreaks, most analysis
still relies on having good historical data. In general, it’s difficult to
predict the duration of a new trend ahead of time, because we don’t
know the underlying rules that govern transmission. However,
occasionally an online cascade does follow known rules. And it was
one such cascade that first sparked my interest in contagion on social
media.
D ’ ’ baseball cap, the woman plucked the
goldfish out of its bag and dropped it into a cup full of alcohol. Then
she downed the drink, fish and all. A trainee lawyer, she was
travelling around Australia and had performed the stunt after being
nominated by a friend. The whole thing had been filmed. Before long,
the video was posted on her Facebook page, along with an
accompanying nomination for someone else.[59]
It was early 2014, and the woman was the latest participant in the
online game of ‘neknomination’. The rules were simple: players filmed
themselves downing a drink, posted it on social media, then
nominated others to do the same within 24 hours. The game had
swept through Australia, with drinks becoming more ambitious – and
alcoholic – as the nominations spread. People downed booze while
skateboarding, quad biking and skydiving. Drinks varied from neat
spirits to cocktails that included blended insects and even battery
acid.[60]
Coverage of neknomination spread alongside the game itself. The
goldfish video was widely shared, with newspapers picking up ever-
more-extreme stories. When the game reached the UK, it triggered a
media panic. Why was everyone doing this? How bad would it get?
Should the game be banned?[61]
When neknomination hit the UK, I agreed to examine the game for
a BBC radio feature.[62] I’d noticed that during games like
neknomination, participants transmitted the idea to a handful of
specific people, who then passed it along to others. This created a
clear chain of propagated transmission, much like a disease
outbreak.