Phill Casaus: For this kind of viral, you may not need a mask. Or do you?

Oct. 15—I'm wracking my brain, and it's still not coming to me.

So I've gone Google.

I do remember there are four cups in a quart and four quarts in a gallon.

I like football, so I know there are 12 inches in a foot and three feet in a yard, though Lord knows the Chicago Bears, based on their performance Thursday night, think they have to travel four miles in cement shoes to traverse the final yard that precedes a goal line.

After that, I'm stumped. So I let my fingertips do the walking. And here's what I learned:

One kilowatt hour equals 860.421 kilocalories, though I don't think that has anything to do with actual calories, which my doctors says I consume too many of, and therefore has led to 188 pounds on my aging chassis.

Diagnosis: not good.

I declined to investigate Kelvins, because after the endless debate about Santa Fe's new streetlights, I realized Kelvin is a scientist's term for "endless land war in Afghanistan." Besides, the only Kelvin I ever really liked was the late Kelvin Scarborough, a former University of New Mexico point guard and a really good guy who died far too soon.

I bring all this up because one of our reporters asked me about pursuing a story on a video he said sources claimed "had gone viral."

I don't know how many clicks/likes/loves or one of those smiley faces encompassed by a pair of roaming hands equals a viral.

But I do know this. Viral (or at least the claim of it) is our new coin of the realm. But it's a confusing one.

The word can mean many things. In this era, it can be viral, like a nasty cough. Or worse, viral like COVID-19. Under that definition, we reach for our masks, take a deep breath (presumably away from other humans) and pray that this, too, shall pass. News story.

If it's YouTube viral, like checking out latter-day Evel Knievels performing mindless stunts that could get them killed, I often try to stay away. Not because I plan to jump 20 cars on my motorcycle (I don't really have a motorcycle, though it sounds cool), but because if I want to see a death-defying act, I don't need a computer. I just drive to the corner of Zia and Camino Carlos Rey. Somebody is sure to run a red by, oh, 10 seconds. Potential story, though one that makes me ill.

Is viral 1,000 clicks? Ten thousand? Ten million? Is it viral on TikTok? Facebook? Instagram? The water cooler?

Again, I went to Google.

"It's called 'going viral' when a piece of content really takes off on social media and reaches a large audience very quickly by receiving an unusual amount of shares and exposure. Whether it's a tweet or an Instagram Reel, many different types of content can go viral."

That helps on a variety of fronts, though it still doesn't offer a final count. Viral is fuzzy. Viral is fizzy.

I'm sure all of this brands me as what I am, someone born at the late stage of the baby boomer generation. We're adept at liking or loving Aunt Edna's post on Facebook, but often flummoxed by Junior's "video story." I used to feel badly about such paralyzation, though as social media continues to splinter, I think more people will fall into such camps.

It's all around me. The other day, a few of my colleagues — definitely not boomers — began to lament, well, their advancing age.

They're creeping up on — shriek! — 50. Still, all are more technologically adept and culturally hip, and one or two of them have offered their best shot at defining viral.

I'm beginning to think they may have no more insight than I do, especially since I know one of them has never heard of a kilocalorie.

About a year ago, I actually saw something go viral in real time. We are nearly upon the tragic anniversary of the fatal shooting on the Rust movie set. This newspaper's website numbers, and probably a lot of others', detonated. It was a story that grabbed worldwide attention, pushed our online traffic to International Space Station heights — and likely will never be repeated.

Maybe that's it.

Others, of course, look at viral differently.

They see it as 10 seconds from a news conference; a haunting and unscripted moment; odd and sometimes debatable attempts to capture humor while at the same time making a point.

One man or woman's viral is another's yawn.

Either way, I fear there's no way to really quantify it.

But I'm going to keep trying. Even if that means I have to watch the Chicago Bears.

Phill Casaus is editor of The New Mexican.