Cereal-with-a-fork??? for the third time. Oy.

I don’t like the use of term viral to describe ideas that spread quickly. I prefer to say that they’re infectious or something like that. It’s just that viral sounds contrived“Hey, it spreads like a virus, so it’s??? um??? viral!”. Viral doesn’t necessarily mean that it spreads like a virus. Saying that something is viral just means that it has something to do with viruses. Viral diseases are diseases caused by viruses. A viral object could be one that looks like a virus in the same way a feline one looks like a cat. But when you say that something is infectious, the metaphor of being infected by a virus maps more closely to being infected by an idea. And the implication of spreading easily follows that understanding.

Unfortunately, I doubt infectious would be as catchy as viral. The word just isn’t viral enough, you could say. Although the term may have originated from the buzzworld of marketing (e.g., “viral marketing”, “permission marketing”, “opt-in”, “opt-out”), the idea of ideas spreading like viruses have been around for a long time. It’s only now that it’s starting to really catch on. Infectious ideas are called memes (rhymes with beams), by the way. Now go tell everyone else.

If the only way I could be happy, or at least constantly be in a good mood, is by always being drowsy at the same time, I wouldn’t mind so much. I guess that’s what alcoholism is, kind of.

I blame those Chunky Soup commercials for confusing me as to which utensil to use when eating my cereal.

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