
What Emotion Goes Viral the Fastest? (2014) - mercer
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-emotion-goes-viral-fastest-180950182/?no-ist
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jclos
I dislike when news try to talk about research but do not cite the source. The
actual paper can be read here: [https://faculty.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2011/11...](https://faculty.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2011/11/Virality.pdf)

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VHRanger
Case in point: United Airlines

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dbuxton
Reminds me of this from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

> Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception
> of bad news, which obeys its own special laws. The Hingefreel people of
> Arkintoofle Minor did try to build spaceships that were powered by bad news
> but they didn't work particularly well and were so extremely unwelcome
> whenever they arrived anywhere that there wasn't really any point in being
> there.

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ideonexus
> _The one emotion that outpaced anger in Berger’s study was awe, the feelings
> of wonder and excitement that come from encountering great beauty or
> knowledge, such as a news report of an important discovery in the fight
> against cancer._

I find this incredibly encouraging. I try to be mindful of what feelings I
spread on social media. I've seen too many friends fall into the "perpetual
rage" trap, where they grow addicted to news that makes them angry and keep
seeking out angrier and angrier pundits and ultimately fall into obstinate-
pouting and irrationality.

The sense of awe and wonder are what I try to spread the most of online, but
it's difficult. Spreading outrage is easy. It doesn't take much thought and
the memes fit into headlines. Awe and wonder require research and
understanding. What's amazing about a scientific discovery doesn't fit into a
headline. You have to read the whole story to get what's epic in the article.

If the cure for outrage is awe, then we have to figure out how to squeeze awe
into 140 characters.

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TeMPOraL
Outrage, obviously.

[http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-
rage/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/)

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danharaj
The paper claims that awe surpasses outrage.

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superasn
The same emotion you need to be most wary too. It's easy to get sucked into
these Rage inducing news and waste precious time and energy over things that
possibly have no relation to you and only make you feel worse. In words of pg,
Life is too short to spend on such bullshit.

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joshfarrant
I'd highly recommend Jon Ronson's book "So You've Been Publicly Shamed" for
more on this sort of thing. He discusses online lynch mobs and speaks to some
of those at the receiving end of the internet's outrage.

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qvorak
Related:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc)

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MadManE
Unless I missed it, they didn't answer their own question, and instead just
listed a few emotions that get people riled up the most.

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patorjk
They mentioned it in the second paragraph:

> Their conclusion: Joy moves faster than sadness or disgust, but nothing is
> speedier than rage.

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kneel
Surprised it wasn't fear. Maybe because mass hysteria events based on fear are
rare?

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dajohnson89
I think indignation is a more precise term for the phenomenon.

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bitwize
I thought it was gonna be either the "aww!" of cute kitten videos or the moral
outrage of look-what-Donald-Trump-is-doing-to-oppress-women-this-week.

Turns out I wasn't far off.

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edoceo
Five minutes​ of hate - Orwell

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ohazi
TLDR: Anger. In a surprise twist, also Awe.

#stopclickbait

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disconnected
Anger is not surprising.

Reminds me of this:

[http://www.basicinstructions.net/basic-
instructions/2011/4/5...](http://www.basicinstructions.net/basic-
instructions/2011/4/5/how-to-explore-your-emotions.html)

~~~
belenos46
Anger wasn't supposed to be surprising, hence parent's use of punctuation. Awe
was supposed to be the surprising one.

