YouTube Exec Kevin Allocca Has Written A Book About The Cultural Impact Of Virality

Yet another top YouTube executive has put pen to paper. Kevin Allocca, the video giant’s head of culture and trends, is set to release a book on Jan. 23 titled Videocracy: How YouTube Is Changing The World…With Double Rainbows, Singing Foxes, And Other Trends We Can’t Stop Watching.

Allocca’s tome follows a book released by YouTube’s chief business officer, Robert Kyncl, last September. But while Kyncl’s Streampunks detailed the rise of the creator community, Videocracy will explore how strange YouTube trends — including elevator tours, makeup tutorials, and daily vlogs — have risen to prominence culturally. “The myriad ways we participate in this new environment impact our society and culture on a global level,” according to a description by publisher Bloomsbury USA, “with huge implications and challenges for the future of how businesses are run, how important events are shaped and understood, and how we live our lives.”

Allocca, who has held his position at YouTube for seven years, also delivered a popular TED Talk in 2012 about virality that has been viewed 2 million times.

Allocca says he chose the book’s name because “the suffix -cracy refers to a form of rule or influence, and video has a huge amount of influence on our modern world.” And, as for what makes a video go viral, Allocca says that the phenomenon can be distilled to three overarching qualities: participation, or the opportunity for viewers to get involved in a piece of content; unexpectedness; and accelerators — or mechanisms that rapidly increase the reach of a video in a short span of time.

Videocracy is available for preorder here, and you can check out a trailer for the book below: