The Virality Recipe: Relatability, Niche-or-All, Authenticity
Make it feel like they said it perfectly, pick your width, and never fake it.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 87%
Casale's explicit answer on what makes content go viral has three components. First, relatability — the highest form being the viewer thinking 'they said it perfectly, that's exactly what I've been thinking.' Second, a width decision: either go super-niche so it speaks to a loud, powerful small group, or apply to absolutely everybody. You can't do both. Third, authenticity — audiences now sniff out a phony, artificial, overproduced video, which is exactly why raw iPhone-quality videos go viral on TikTok. He adds a fourth, timeliness: he made Snakes Have Legs in the most political summer of his life, when the negativity had reached an apex.
Origin
Snakes Have Legs validated the recipe accidentally. Casale made it as a message about internet negativity during the political summer of 2017. What he discovered afterward was that every side of the political spectrum believed it was about the other guy — the fake-news critique was left open to interpretation, so nobody felt attacked and everybody shared it. He says he did this 'totally accidentally' and only realised the mechanism after the fact.
Core principles
- 01The share trigger is 'they said it perfectly' — the sensation of being articulated.
- 02You must go super-niche or fully universal. The middle doesn't travel.
- 03Leaving meaning open to interpretation lets opposed groups both claim it.
- 04Audiences can sniff out a phony, overproduced video instantly.
- 05Raw iPhone-quality often outperforms polish because it reads as real.
How to run it
- 1
Engineer the 'they said it perfectly' moment
Aim for the reaction where a viewer feels articulated rather than informed. That is the strongest share trigger.
Pro tip Ask literally: why would people want to share this and show their friends?
- 2
Choose your width deliberately
Either go super-niche to reach a loud, powerful niche group, or make it apply to everybody. Pick one.
Watch out You can't really do both. Aiming for the middle gets you neither the niche's intensity nor the mass audience's reach.
- 3
Leave meaning open where it's contested
On divisive topics, frame it so each faction can read it as being about the other side. This unlocks sharing across otherwise hostile groups.
Pro tip Snakes Have Legs never sided with a party — so both parties shared it.
Watch out This works for shared frustrations, not for positions you need people to actually take. Openness costs you persuasive precision.
- 4
Ride the current moment
Time the piece against what's actually happening in the world right now — the apex of a feeling, not the aftermath.
- 5
Strip the polish that signals fake
Remove production value that makes it read as artificial or overproduced. Raw and real outperforms slick.
Pro tip 'People can sniff out a phony video... it's the iPhone quality videos that go viral because it's so raw and real.'
- 6
Find the part of yourself worth sharing
Identify what part of you other people would genuinely rock with, and share that. Authenticity is the substrate, not a garnish.
In the wild
Snakes Have Legs criticised internet misinformation during the polarised summer of 2017 — a man reads a Facebook article claiming snakes have legs and a snake slithers in to correct him. Casale never named a side.
→ Every side of the political spectrum believed it was about the other guy. It became his most-viral piece ever, reposted across every corner of the internet.
The video was made in about ninety minutes at 3am so he wouldn't forget the idea by morning. No budget, no team, no animation training, no polish — just doodles, improvised voice audio, and a relatable message.
→ About a week later it became his most viral video to date, estimated in the hundreds of millions of views, and pulled him out of freelance videography permanently.
Common mistakes
Trying to be both niche and universal
Casale is explicit that you can't do both. Content that hedges between a specific tribe and a mass audience lacks the intensity to travel through either.
Over-producing to signal effort
Polish now reads as artificial. Viewers have been trained by TikTok to associate raw quality with truth, so production spend can actively reduce shareability.
Is it for you?
Best for
Creators trying to build organic reach without a media budget or algorithm gaming.
Not ideal for
Paid acquisition, enterprise B2B, or categories where trust requires visible production investment.
From the transcript
“Definitely relatability... that could be like a oh my god like they said it perfectly you know that's exactly what I've been thinking about.”
“You either have to go super niche so that it speaks to this loud but powerful niche group or you want to apply to everybody...…”
“People can sniff out a phony video they could sniff out like an artificial overproduced video... it's like the iPhone quality videos that go viral…”
“Every side of the political spectrum believed it was about the other guy like it kind of was left open for interpretation.”
From the episode
Danny Casale: Authenticity is the Key to Success
Danny Casale