The Boombox and the Walkman

1. There are two types of media: the Boombox and the Walkman.
2. Walkman media is immersive. You consume it privately — just you and the music. It’s reading a thriller on the rush-hour train. It’s the lights going down in the cinema. It’s porn.
3. Boombox media is public. It’s social. It’s for you and others. The quality of audio might not always be as good but you get to let other people know what you’re listening to.
4. The Boombox is viral media. The Walkman is immersive media.
5. Viral media and immersive media can exist on all different platforms — television networks, Facebook, YouTube. This is a distinction based on the character, the soul of what the media is, not what platform it’s on.
6. Immersive media helps remove yourself from the outside world. Viral media is designed to connect you to it.
7. Immersive media has a finish. Viral media can succeed without one.
8. Viral media is distraction. Immersive media is escape.
9. Viral media fails if it takes effort, patience and study. Immersive media can not only succeed with these qualities, but they can be the reason it becomes valuable to its audience.
10. Subtle stories — whether feature films, podcasts or documentaries — with their twists, complex characters and philosophical questions, are immersive media. They will struggle on platforms designed for viral media.
11. “What happens next?” is golden IM.
12. Companionship is golden IM.
13. Fitting into the pattern of people’s lives is golden IM.
14. Reliability is golden IM.
15. “Sex sells” is a maxim that’s true for IM. It’s death to viral media.
16. The internet has seen a flowering of viral media but it’s also been a boon for immersive media. Think of porn sites, Isis videos, 4chan, anonymous message boards… the intensity of the private experience has been hugely amplified by the internet.
17. As industries, television and film have excelled at immersive media but are just starting to understand the principles of viral media.
18. Simplicity is golden viral media. Simple is the not the same as simplistic and it’s not the same as short.
19. Comedy is golden VM. Laughing makes people feel good and there is nothing better you can give your friends and connections.
20. Useful is golden VM. People want to share something of value to their friends and connections.
21. Social justice is golden VM.
22. People argue that people share VM because it makes them look good, though the inverse is also useful: people won’t share media that makes them look bad, whatever that means in their network — a YouTube funny that’s a few years old, a piece of commentary that contradicts the politics of their peers, a supercut of the sex scenes from Game of Thrones.
23. People like to share viral media. People like to click on immersive media.
24. It’s hard for immersive media to find new audiences. It’s hard for viral media to keep its audiences.
25. Viral media spreads on existing networks and communities, immersive media forms new ones.
26. One of the biggest challenges for creators of immersive media is that we live in a world dominated by platforms designed for viral media.
27. The communities that form around pieces of immersive media can breakout and dominate those normally designed for viral media. Game of Thrones, Serial, Pokemon Go — all of these were consumed privately, away from platforms built for viral media, but the buzz around them came to dominate those platforms.
28. Viral media has to go and find its audience wherever it is. Good immersive media is sought out by its audience. In this way it is more powerful.
29. People will sit through ads for immersive media in a way they won’t for viral media.
30. A successful media company has to publish both viral and immersive media if it is to survive and flourish. VM goes finds audiences, IM keeps them.

Hi, my name is Brendan Miller, thank you for reading. I’m a filmmaker that specialises in explainers, video essays and social video formats. (You can see the kind of thing I do here: brendanmiller.co.uk) I also lead masterclasses and training sessions on social media video if you’re looking to improve the videos you make for platforms like YouTube or Facebook. (Available dates and more details are here: MAKE BETTER)

This article first appeared on my email newsletter where I talk about video, creativity and the world of online media. You can sign up here. I’m on Twitter at @brenkjm and Instagram here.

Thanks to Mark Roberts and Simon Kendrick for their feedback on earlier drafts of this article.