Just figured out why that cat video hit 10 million views in 3 days

I was scrolling last Tuesday and saw this dumb cat video from some account with 200 followers. It was just a cat knocking over a plant, but something felt off about why it blew up so fast. I looked closer and realized they used a sound clip from a famous influencer's meltdown video from 2022. That remix strategy is genius honestly, the algorithm pushed it to everyone who already knew that sound. Has anyone else noticed this trend of attaching viral audio to random clips to boost engagement?

3 comments

3 Comments

riveradams11d ago

Isn't that just how everything works now, borrowed attention from something bigger?

hall.nina11d ago

Yeah my buddy actually tried this exact thing last month. He grabbed a popular sound from some drama streamer and slapped it over his dog eating shoes. The video went from 200 views to 40k in one night. Then the copyright bot flagged it and the sound got removed, views tanked completely. So it works but it's like building a house on sand, one strike and it's gone.

emma_clark8d ago

Did your buddy try pitching the same video with a different sound track after the first one got hit, or did he just give up on that clip entirely? I'm curious if the algorithm still pushed it at all once the audio got stripped, or if it just sank like a rock. Seems like the platform might remember the engagement signals even without the copyrighted sound, but I've never tested it myself.