Business Insider

Everyone Wants to Know Who’s Behind ViralNova. You Won’t Believe the Answer.

ViralNova

This post originally appeared in Business Insider.

You clicked the headline above to get here. Would you click on these stories?

“What Happens When A Mugger Randomly Sees His Victim On Facebook? Not What You’d Expect.”

“They Call The Girl Behind This Notecard A Monster. But Personally, I Think She’s Beautiful.”

Likely. You might even share them via Facebook or Twitter with friends that will share them as well.

They’re from ViralNova, an obscure website that launched in May with a headline format that suddenly has journalists and bloggers everywhere trying to crack its code. Why? Because the headlines work. They hit an emotional, empathetic, and yes, curious note with readers, and in this click-hungry industry, the new kid on the block is making waves.

But here’s the catch: no one is absolutely sure who the new kid is.

Alex Litel at The Wire did a deep dive into ViralNova’s creation:

There are no good traffic statistics. The site is not tracked by comScore and its “About” page is intentionally vague — but according to Alexa, in May it was the 443,652nd most popular website in the world and now it’s ranked 1,685th.

Litel mentions that ViralNova’s “About Page” scoffs at the media folks who have tried to uncover the identities of the people behind it. There’s an FAQ section with snippy answers (“Where are you located?” “The Internet.” “Who’s your audience?” “People.”) and it also states they aren’t running paid ads on their site. Consider big sites like BuzzFeed, Gawker, and Business Insider that are funded and feature sponsored content in order to employ its developers, editors and writers. (“How many people work at ViralNova?” “Take a guess. It’s less than that.”) Whoever is behind ViralNova doesn’t give interviews.

Litel discovered more:

Despite the attempts to hide their identity, we were able to connect ViralNova through its AdSense account (follow the money) to a number of other sites, including Epic VoicesPaw My GoshThat Cute Site and Must Smile. And following the trails of those sites, there [was one name] that consistently came up: Scott DeLong.

Litel reported that two other names surfaced time and time again in relation to the site. DeLong, who emailed Business Insider after this article went up, said that he was the only person involved in ViralNova out of the three names Litel reported.

The ordeal rings similar to when BuzzFeed soared to new heights with its discovery of how well the “listicle” worked. People moaned and groaned over it (and some still do), but its clicks don’t lie.

BuzzFeed, now responsible for as many hard-hitting pieces as it is 90s GIFs, earned senior editor Matt Stopera a profile in Bloomberg Businessweek in 2012:

But there’s something about Stopera’s lists on BuzzFeed that calls to mind every bewildering pop-culture streak you’ve ever puzzled over. It suggests somebody has cracked a code.

Luckily, the code switches up every once in awhile, but it’s interesting that those responsible for ViralNova don’t want the glory of being the next craze throwing the media world off its game.

See also: One Guy at Gawker Is Obliterating Everyone Else in Traffic (CHART)