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HughPickens.com [hughpickens.com] writes:

Emma Roller writes at the NYT that 2015 was the Year of Trump because he is the perfect candidate for our viral age and Trump's success tells us a lot about the nature of what goes viral and how it reflects our beliefs and our fears [nytimes.com]. According to Roller, Trump has more Facebook likes and Twitter followers than any other candidate in the field because if we think about a given news story as a disease waiting to be passed along, human emotion is its most common vector. Richard L. Rapson, a professor of psychological history at the University of Hawaii, has studied virality through the lens of emotional contagion and has found that the most shareable moments come when a story lights up the deepest recesses of our minds. “Hate, fear of the other, anger — they come directly from the nonconscious, and that’s why they’re so easy to evoke,” says Rapson. So when Trump says that Mexicans are rapists and killers, or that the government should register Muslims in the United States in a mandatory database system, people hit the share button. "And as long as stories about Mr. Trump are receiving as many eyeballs as possible," says Roler, "it doesn’t really matter if people are reacting negatively to him. In fact, it probably helps his popularity."

That Trump is both volatile in nature and allergic to nuance is part of his viral success. Humans use mental shortcuts to process information quickly while conserving brain power. This means that we often don’t think critically about the information we’re receiving before sharing it with others. Trump is the living embodiment of the saying “All publicity is good publicity.” [phrases.org.uk] “The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous, or if you do things that are bold or controversial, the press is going to write about you,” wrote Trump in 1987. “Even a critical story, which may be hurtful personally, can be very valuable to your business [washingtonpost.com].” According to Roller Trump has no qualms about looking or sounding “unpresidential” — hence the tacky hats, Twitter rants and debate performances worthy of W.W.E. “SmackDown.' "It’s almost as if he understood the concept of Internet virality before a single cat ever LOLed."

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