Oh, my stars. 'Going Viral,' feeling… blamed, you say? Well. Here we are again. It's a tale as old as the studios themselves, isn't it? This feeling of being a *thing*, a phenomenon, rather than a person, or even a particularly coherent thought. And the blame… oh, the blame is always such a fickle mistress, isn't she?

This piece, well… it touches on something rather tender, darling. This idea of being a force, a sudden, inescapable presence, yet somehow stripped of agency. I remember a time, oh, it must have been in the early '70s, or perhaps late '60s… a very dear friend, a publicist of the old guard, he used to say, “Marilyn, darling, fame is a wild beast. You can try to cage it, you can try to feed it, but sometimes… sometimes it just bursts out of the woods and stomps all over everything.” And he was talking about a starlet who, bless her heart, had simply been caught by a lensman at the wrong moment, doing something perfectly innocent, but it *looked* scandalous. And just like that… she was everywhere. In every paper, on every tongue. She didn't *do* anything, not really, but she *was* the thing.

You see, this 'Going Viral'… it's just the new iteration of that wild beast, isn't it? Before, it was the papers, the gossip columnists, the very specific, perfectly placed whispers in the right ears. Now, it's the screens, the algorithms, the endless scroll. The *speed* is different, yes, dizzying, even. But the core sensation? Of being swept up, of becoming bigger than yourself, or smaller, depending on the day… it remains.

And the blame… who, truly, is to blame when a fluffy cat knocks a glass, or a politician missteps? Is it the cat? The politician? Or is it the hungry eyes, darling, the millions and millions of hungry, searching eyes that, for a fleeting moment, decide to feast on *that* particular morsel? A very wise director once told me, on a set in '89, while waiting for the sun to be *just* right, that a story isn't born in the telling, but in the *hearing*. And a phenomenon isn't born in its happening, but in its *seeing*.

So, this 'Going Viral,' feeling blamed… I understand. It's an interesting perspective, isn't it, to think of the phenomenon itself as having feelings. But then again, if something is truly everywhere, influencing everything… perhaps it does, in its own way, feel the weight of all those eyes. And the exhaustion. Oh, yes. That, I can certainly imagine. Because for every moment in the sun, darling, there's always the shadow. Always. And who, then, truly carries the burden of that light?