Maggie Pugliese

Professor Braverman

WGS 220: Gender and Pop Culture

November 20, 2016

Trendsetting: Ready, Set, Go Viral

Medical advances have grown exponentially over the past few years, particularly through the treatment of cancers.  Unfortunately, many families have been affected by various types of cancer, some more aggressive than others.  What provides the most hope in the fight against cancer are the extraordinary advances that medicine and technology have made in the process of detecting and treating this terrible disease.

            One of the ways doctors detect cancer is through the use of a positron emission tomography scan, otherwise called a PET scan.  Cancer cells uptake glucose for metabolic processes and grow differently from normal bodily tissue.  Simply put, the idea behind PET scans is to supply cancerous cells with radioactively labelled glucose, then perform a scan of the person’s body.  As the radioactive glucose is broken down by the cancerous cells, positrons are produced as a form of energy.  The PET scanner reads this energy output and forms an image, providing doctors with information such as the cancer’s location or metastasis of the cells (Nordqvist).  In addition to detecting cancer and its spreading, some new testing processes involve the use of PET scans to test “the effectiveness of cancer therapies within just a few hours of treatment” (Offord).  In these situations, once a cancer treatment drug is given to a patient, the PET scan can show doctors “the moment the drug starts working.”  The dying cells affected by the treatment light up, giving doctors insight as to whether or not the treatment is working to combat the cancer (Offord).

To create awareness not only for the prevalence of cancer, but also the technological advances in cancer treatment, I asked that people post a photo of their pet to Instagram using the hashtag #petsforPETS.  I researched a bit about what makes something “go viral” and learned that in order for something to “go viral,” it must “incorporate emotional hooks…that catch the attention and sensibility of a particular audience” (Balance 699).  People post photos of their pets on social media all the time and frequently use hashtags, leading me to believe that the short nature of the hashtag and the universally lovable subject in the photograph would provide ease to make this idea go viral. My target audience was anyone who had any kind of pet (dogs, cats, fish, birds, snakes, etc.) and the idea was not gender-specific, creating even more incentive for any person to participate.  I chose to use Instagram as the social media platform to track this project simply because it is where people share pictures most often.  Additionally, Instagram allowed for an easier data collection method in tracking the popularity of the hashtag over the four week period.  Hashtag usage is also more prevalent on Instagram compared to other social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.  The hashtag “#petsforpets” already existed on Instagram, so I decided on #petsforPETS to easily distinguish posts specifically dedicated to my project from other posts that were unrelated to my project.

            To start this trend, I began to spread my idea on October 20^th by talking to people about it to see if it would catch on just by word of mouth.  Not surprisingly, this was a failed attempt. So at the start of the official tracking period, I posted a picture of my dog with an explanation of my project, using the hashtag #petsforPETS.  I received a lot of positive feedback in reference to the post, such as people telling me how they would love to participate.  I tracked the hashtag weekly over the course of four weeks, noting how many posts were made each week.

            After I made my first post, there were two other posts within the first week.  There were ten posts within the second week, and in the third week, there were five more posts.  Finally, in the fourth week there were an additional three posts.  My goal was actually very simple: to spread the idea in the form of a hashtag to people that were not directly following me on Instagram (i.e. people that are once-removed from me).  In this way, I was successful in my goal, since many of the posts had to be sent to me individually because I could not view them on Instagram, meaning I did not follow them.  However, I was unable to spread my idea outside of the TCNJ community. 

A downfall of using Instagram to track the viral project comes to the surface due to privacy settings.  When people make their profiles private, others are not able to see their posts unless they follow them.  I was able to see the “Most Recent Posts” that used the hashtag, however, I could not see the actual pictures.  In these cases, I had to reach out to anyone who might have participated in the project and ask them to send me a screenshot of their post directly.  What was most frustrating in this assignment was how unmotivated people were in terms of whether or not they actually shared the hashtag.  People often told me that it was a good idea and that they would post something soon but unfortunately, they did not.   My logic at the beginning of the project made me believe the easier a post was to make, the more likely people were to participate.  With the most recent viral phenomenon, the mannequin challenge, I have learned that it is actually the opposite.  The mannequin challenge required a concerted effort from a group of people, but surprisingly, the trend has become increasingly popular, regardless of the amount of effort that had to be put in.

Here is an example of an Instagram post from the beginning of the tracking period:

Works Cited:

Bacareza Balance, Christine. “How It Feels to Be Viral Me.” Gender, Race, and Class in Media. 4^th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2015. 668-677. Print.

Nordqvist, Christian. “MRI / PET / Ultrasound Radiology / Nuclear Medicine PET Scans: How Does a PET Scan Work.” Medical News Today. MediLexicon International, 3 July 2015. Web. 15 Nov. 2016. <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/154877.php>.

Offord, Catherine. “Dying Light Marks the Spot.” The Scientist. N.p., 29 Mar. 2016. Web. 16 Nov 2016. <http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/45674/title/Dying-Light-Marks-the-Spot/>.