Member-only story
You Don’t Want to Go Viral
Your viral article could kill your writing career, seriously — here’s why.
In 1988, Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond wrote “The Manual”, a book about how to have a number one single the easy way. They had had a novelty pop song hit the charts earlier that year and The Manual was a tongue-in-cheek guide on success in the music industry.
There’s a section at the start that is more relevant today than ever. It tries to talk the reader out of what they want. It says;
“The majority of number ones are achieved early in the artist’s public career, before they have been able to establish reputations and build a solid fan base. Most artists are never able to recover from having a number one and it becomes the millstone around their necks to which all subsequent releases are compared. Either the artist will be destroyed in their attempt to prove to the world that there are other facets to their creativity or they succumb willingly and spend the rest of their lives as a travelling freak show.”
A number one song does not make a career, in fact, it can break it. If all you’re known for is one thing, one song, one article, then all the world will want to see is that one thing.
Having one viral YouTube video, for example, does not make you a YouTube celebrity, it…
