How to Edit for Virality

Audio Source, and Shaan's viral thread. Transcript below.

"Write Drunk, Edit Sober" - Hemingway

What Reaction is this meant to get?

1. LOL
2. WTF/Outraging
3. AWW/Heartwarming
4. AWE/"Wow"
5. Confirmation bias, aka "Finally, someone said it"
6. "Did you know", aka Take a familiar thing and share a new fact about it:

- the Duolingo business model
- Tom Cruise's real name
- Made to Stick
- Contagious

How to Edit for Virality

swyx: [00:00:00] Shaan Puri had a viral tweet about clubhouse recently, and I was interested in that, but also more interested in the way that he drafted it for virality. So here he is explaining it to Sam Parr on their podcast, My First Million. 

Shaan Puri: [00:00:12] I just went on this rant on the phone about this. It just  came out of my mouth, but just the way I  explained it here and,  without the whole like,  dramatized TV show script, but just the reasons why I think it's going to struggle. That was great. That was amazing. And I was like, shit, I should have wrote that down. I feel like that would have been  a good piece of content. And I was like, I got to go and I hung up the phone and I went to my computer and I just typed the whole thing out 

I did your tip, which was, I took a break for an hour, went and did something else, came back and I edited it for about 30 mins 

Sam Parr: [00:00:40] Editing is the magic to everything. It doesn't matter if you're talking about a viral tweet, a good email, editing is the magic. They say, write drunk, edit sober. 

Shaan Puri: [00:00:47] Oh, that's a great one.

I've never heard that. I love that. I used to just edit in the moment like I'd write it, that was a mistake. The tip you gave me a while back was go do other shit. Let it simmer in your head while you do other things. Don't even actively think about it. By the time you come back, you can make it twice as good in 20 

Sam Parr: [00:01:02] minutes, the science behind it.

I can't tell you the exact science off the top of my head, but basically, you know how there's like a shower thought. So there's like science behind, like doing something really hard and then not doing it. And then things hit you. There's. Science behind why that works. So that's  what you're doing, 

Shaan Puri: [00:01:16] basically like the brain relaxes in some way.

And then when it relaxes, it's able to be creative in a new way. At the top of every page, I have a template. At the top, there's  seven lines. It says, what reaction is this meant to get? And I have seven emotions. LOL like this is meant to be really funny. Is it WTF where it's like, dude, what the fuck? And that's when you're talking about something that's really unjust or people are pissed off. Then there's other ones like, Aww, something really cute. AWE awe. Like that's something that's awesome. Like, wow. That is kind of amazing.

Sam Parr: [00:01:46] So the way to go viral is  you start with the emotion that you're trying to get out of someone we already know that certain emotions get more shares. For example, creating depression or sadness that doesn't get shares. Creating outrage gets far more. And what small tweaks, you can make something sad, outrageous, and that's far better.

Right. 

Shaan Puri: [00:02:04] So it's either amazing. It's super funny. It's really outraging. It's really touching and heartwarming. That's another one hard to do. And then the one I had for this, which is  like a new emotion, which was, I wrote FINALLY, SOMEONE SAID IT and I actually think that's its own genre that I didn't even have it in my template.

Cause I was like, I think this is going to go viral, but it doesn't match any of these. I was like, I think for some people is going to be WTF. Like, dude, this guy's a jerk. Why is he predicting failure? What an asshole. But I thought, no, it's going to go viral. Because if you say something that a lot of people have been thinking, but they've been afraid to say, or they couldn't put words around it.

Exactly. But they had this hunch. They will share it because they agree with your 

Sam Parr: [00:02:39] idea. Do you have recognizing something that you feel that you weren't sure if other people feel, but you see it on paper?  The emotion that you just evoked was like, finally, I didn't think I was the only one who thought, like it's a recognizing something type of vibe 

Shaan Puri: [00:02:51] and they're really sharing because I, like, I knew it I'm right.

So they're not saying, wow, he's so right. They're actually saying, I'm right. Read this, this proves I'm right. Which is like a real subtle thing. But I'm so interested in studying the psychology around why people do what they do. Why do they share what they share? Because I want to grow an audience and this is the best way to grow it.

Sam Parr: [00:03:10] When I start with the emotion, then I start with. The package, like, how am I packaging this? And then I start with the headline, then the preview image.

And then I work backwards from there. the exact emotion that you just had of this guy is crazy. That is the emotion. Wow. I am trying to evoke by sharing that so I can tell that story and probably five tweets and I bet it will, like by reality, it's pretty impossible to predict. But I can bet that there's like a three out of 10 chance that it's going to hit, that it has legs.

I can say this has all the checks, all the box to get popular. Anyone who says that they're gonna be able to predict it the wrong, like Shaan's thing just reached 5 million people. He was like, this is not going to work. 

Shaan Puri: [00:03:47] The other part you had there that was good is that you took a thing that we've all seen. It's a relatable. Oh yeah. I've I filled one of those in and you, so you took it. Oh, very familiar thing, but I told you the uncommon truth around it, which I think is like really cool. Like yesterday I saw, Tom cruise, his name is not Tom cruise. His real name. No. What is it?   It's really Thomas Cruise Mapother IV. I don't even know how you pronounce that. Yeah. Tom Mapother versus Tom cruise. And so you take something really familiar.

We all know Tom cruise, right? Boom. Here's the uncommon did you know? And then it's like, Oh, sweet. Like, wow. You know, and that one doesn't have as much shock factor. So it won't go super viral, but it will get a lot of likes. The closer you can get to that, the surprise gap between what I thought I knew. And what's real, the more shares people will give.

Sam Parr: [00:04:29] Yeah, I think if anyone cares about this stuff, I liked the book made to stick and I liked the book contagious by Jonah Berger. Contagious made to stick as how to say something. So people remember, and contagious is a great book by this Wharton professor on how to make things get popular, how to make them spread like a virus...