Has anyone noticed that when something, such as a joke, becomes popular, videos about it appear repeatedly on social media? Although they are filmed by different people, these videos sometimes look the same. People are following trends, but why?
Culture industry theory can help us understand this. It explains how commercial interests shape entertainment through repeated formulas (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2006, pp. 42–44). For example, in the chip challenge, two players each have nine chips. Each secretly selects three “poisoned” chips for the other person. They then try to avoid eating them. The first player to eat all three loses and must fulfil the other player’s request. The rules are easy to understand, so most videos do not explain them to the audience and instead begin with selecting the poisoned chips.
These videos entertain people, but, in my opinion, most creators film them not just for fun, but also to attract attention. Many videos feature this game and receive numerous likes. As shown in Figure 1, even the video with the fewest likes has about 15.3K. There are too many examples to show here. Their popularity is why I think people film these videos to attract attention.
This repeated format illustrates standardisation, which means using similar formulas or structures to create different cultural products (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2006).
However, some would argue that each video features different people, offers different prizes and unfolds differently. In one video, for example, two men hit each other when one of them picks a poisoned chip. These details make each video seem different and give it a sense of individuality. This reflects pseudoindividuality: standardised videos appear unique through small differences (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2006).
Culture industry theory helps us understand why people film similar videos and how they create differences between them. These small differences can give audiences new experiences and make the videos enjoyable. Although different people film the same game, this does not mean that they have no ideas of their own.
The next time we see a widely recreated challenge, we can consider what makes it popular, what stays the same and what makes each version different.
References
Horkheimer, M. and Adorno, T.W. (2006) ‘The culture industry: Enlightenment as mass deception’, in Durham, M.G. and Kellner, D.M. (eds.) Media and cultural studies: KeyWorks. Revised edn. Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 41–72.
