HUGE “When Going Viral Sucks” Weekend For Trump

Over this weekend some videos of Donald Trump were released by the Washington Post from 10 years ago that truly defined a “When Going Viral Sucks moment,” in relation to politicians. 

Donald Trump was video taped on an Access Hollywood bus saying some extremely vulgar, rude, and demeaning comments about women to then former Access Hollywood co-host Billy Bush. Since the videos release the mass media has been eating the story up. Over the last few months Trump has been receiving the title of a “Women hater,” and this video only fueled those allegations.

I don’t want to go into the specifics on the political impact this will have on Trump’s presidential candidacy other than saying it looks damaging. However instead I’m going to examine why this is truly a “When Going Viral Sucks,” moment for Donald. 

When I saw this story break I knew the video was going to go viral in a “bigly” manner as Mr. Trump often likes to say. It was evident that this was going to be the only thing the general public, and the media talked about for the following week, and presumably the remaining 4 weeks until the election. There was no doubt the video was going to be shared millions of times on social media and be replayed on a loop hundreds of times by each of the major Television networks. It was going to have Trump being portrayed in the media for ALL the wrong reasons and that’s exactly what happened.

Below are some of the reasons I’ve recognized as to why this video went as viral as it did. I would love to hear from readers if they agree! :) 

1. Women vote struggles — Over the last 3 months or so Hillary Clinton and the media have been hammering Trump on his treatment and respect for women. Although plenty of the rhetoric I’m sure is stretching the truth, there certainly have been comments made by Trump (prior to this video’s release) that definitely were not politically correct and also displayed forms of sexism by the presidential candidate. With the election less than 4 weeks away and the numbers mattering more and more each day this video just provided more evidence that the proof is in the pudding, with what will be Trump’s struggle to win the women’s vote. The video doesn’t help Trump AT ALL in re-claiming any portion of the women population vote in this year’s election and from a polling, forecasting, and prediction standpoint it fueled the Nostradamus’ of the world to continue to feel this way.

2. “We’ve been right all along” — News pundits who have been accusing Trump of being sexist against women had their time to shine this weekend. These talking heads were brought in to speak on all the major Television stations to continue their ripping of Donald Trump and to make the general public aware that, “They were right all along.” Whenever talking heads get the chance to prove that they were right in their claims they are going to seize that moment. With a story this important, at such a critical time in the election cycle, you knew that egos were going to soar in a viral manner as each of these news pundits had their chance to claim victory.

3. Star power — The people featured having a conversation in the video are not only Donald Trump but also Television star Billy Bush who is the nephew of the former 41st president of the United States George H.W. Bush. Billy has had a successful Television career over the last 15 years being a guest correspondent and then main co-host of various shows like Access Hollywood, and The Today Show. He also has been seen doing some of the main interviews at the largest red carpet events in the world such as the Golden Globes, Grammys, and Academy Awards. When you have two stars in this case partaking in the lewd commentary seen in the video as opposed to simply just Trump, it allows for the story to receive double the amount of coverage it would normally receive.