How Viral Poems are Annotated

Abstract

In How Viral Poems are Annotated: On ‘OCD’ by Neil Hilborn Kila van der Starre explores how, where and by whom viral poems are annotated. The article focuses on the performance of the poem ‘OCD’ by Neil Hilborn that went viral in the summer of 2013 and has been viewed more than 10 million times on YouTube. Researching online poetry performances and annotations can be seen as a new type of literary reception study in the digital age. It shows that poetry in the twenty-first century is a widespread, actively experienced and annotated, transmedia genre in what Henry Jenkins calls ‘convergence culture’ (Jenkins 2006: 2).

The performance of ‘OCD’ triggered a broad array of reactions, including oral, written, creative, analytical, applauding and critical annotations. The video received more than 9,000 comments on YouTube from 130 countries and the poem was translated into at least thirteen languages. People used self-made films with actors, drawings, stop-motion techniques, footage montage and voice-overs to produce adaptations of the poem. Probably the most common annotation to the performance is a video in which a ‘cover’ performance of the poem is recorded; on stage for a live audience, in the original language or in translation, in the US, France, Germany, Servia and more.

The way that Hilborn's poem is transcribed, translated, adapted, remade, remixed and analysed gives us insight into how people experience and understand poetry. Also, the ways in which online and offline annotations coincide give an alternative view on the idea that print and digital media are separate tracks that do not interact. By focusing on different types of annotations Van der Starre explores the ways in which active participants are ‘making meaning’ of the performance. The article shows how emotion, identification, translation, genre, authenticity, analysis and interpretation play a role in the way that people experience and understand the poem.

Notes

1 For example: ‘Embarrassed’ by Hollie McNish; ‘Shrinking women’ by Lily Meyers; ‘cuz he's black’ by Javon Johnson; ‘Piñata’ by Pages Matam; ‘Why I Hate School but Love Education’ by Suli Breaks; and ‘To this Day’ by Shane Koyczan. Poems occasionally go viral in written form, such as Patricia Lockwood's ‘The Rape Joke’, but the popularity of a written poem is difficult to trace because it is often not documented or made public how often a poem has been read.

2 Due to personal settings on social media and the legal and ethical aspects of crawling online social network data, mapping the detailed spreading of ‘OCD’ on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and more is methodologically constrained and problematic.

3 Although Jenkins treats convergence culture as something new, one can easily think of historical cases of transmediality. The many extensions of the Bible (songs, books, paintings, statues, films, websites and so forth) stretching over many centuries are just one example.

4 Based on all YouTube comments that appeared under the video on 6 March 2015 (8,489 in total).