About Viral

Andy Samberg and The Lonely Island break 90 million with Like a Boss

Andy Samberg has lifted to new heights with his antics. His new viral Like a Boss is one of a collection that involve the most viral factor of online video: music.

Combining music and comedy is a lethal combination launching Andy Samberg even higher as he releases a CD (Incredibad) with his growing compilation of tracks. The situation smells like Adam Sandler in 1993 when There All Gonna Laugh at You came out. The comedy and sketch mixture is a perfect recipe for advancing ones stardom. Only this time the hype is based online. The Lonely Island channel has broken 90 million views with the release of Like a Boss in early April.

Source: Tubemogul

Looking at The Lonely Island’s stats over the last couple days the impact becomes visually clear what Andy is doing online. On December 6th the I Jizzed in my Pants song was released and the taboo subject only caused it to circulate more.

Andy Samberg is putting all the elements together to make successful virals. He is following the patterns and succeeding (the patterns are based on the stickiness factors in the book Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath). For instance:

Simple (Music) – Samberg’s videos include extremely simple concepts blown up to great proportions. Mark Wahlburg talks to animals (SNL), Like a Boss (The lyrics arn’t complicated here), Jizz in my pants and I’m on a Boat.

Controversy (unexpected) – Jizz is a controversial word, Dick in a Box (SNL) pushes the limits the same way Adam Sandler’s Goat use to talk about getting beat by his old man on a 40 of Jim Beam.

Source: Tubemogul

Comedy – Impressions, satire, ridiculous claims, funny faces all thrown together to reference pop culture (I’m on a Boat) for widespread appeal.

Credibility (Stars) – when you’re a star you can get other stars to work with you (Seth Rogan – Like a Boss, Chris Parnell – Chronicles of Narnia and Justin Timberlake – Dick in a Box, T-Pain – I’m on a Boat). Connections to SNL don’t hurt in gaining access to these names and neither does Samberg’s heritage.  Either way their tactics have definitely made an impact as The Lonely Island will continue hover around 670k (views) a day for the next couple weeks. 

Cheers!