The marriage proposal that went viral
It used to be that marriage proposals were an intensely private affair. In Victorian times, couples -- who generally weren't allowed to be alone together without chaperones -- often sealed the deal through surveillant-snubbing letters. In the 20th century, even as romance became considerably less Victorian, the proposal itself (helped along by, among others, Hollywood, Hallmark, and De Beers) generally retained the idea of intimacy-by-way-of-privacy: Most people thought of "will you marry me?" as a question best kept, at first, between the two people who would decide its answer.
Now, though, that question's a meme.
Today, on the craziest day of the year, Buzzfeed super-user Len Kendall has proposed to his girlfriend Katie using the digital descendants of the ring and the rose: a Buzzfeed post, a Twitter hashtag, another Twitter hashtag, a collection of Facebook comments, and memes.
Oh! Such memes.
Kendall's post gets the full (but modified) Buzzfeed treatment:
And, true to its headline, the post is not just a proposal, but a plea to the denizens of the Internet: "Help me convince Katie to say 'yes'!" Kendall has helpfully included, in his buzzposal, a cutout image of himself, the better to allow his collaborators to Photoshop and thus viral-ize his bended knee.