[quote]• Thousands of people spent their Sunday watching a live feed of the town center in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for no apparent reason • It is thought the video was originally posted on Bungie then to 4chan, with one user promising to go to the town and do something for the camera • The sudden uptick in viewers then caused YouTube to start promoting the video on its homepage, which drove viewership up further • Now the pointlessness of the video seems to have become its own joke From putting slices of bread over cats' heads to planking, it is fair to say that the internet has had its fair share of random crazes. And the latest seems to be this live stream of Jackson Hole town center, in Wyoming, which is currently being watched by more than 1,500 people. Despite starting almost six weeks ago, the video feed only became popular on Sunday as thousands of people from around the world tuned in. Thousands of people have spent their Sunday watching the center of Jackson Hole, a city in Wyoming, while commenting on what they see - and nobody seems to know why While it is not clear why interest in the video has peaked now, some have theorized that it started over a since-removed 4chan thread. Users on Reddit said that one 4chan user posted a link to the live feed, promising to travel to Jackson Hole and do something in front of the camera. That post got hundreds of people watching the video, which is turn caused it to be recommended to other on their YouTube homepage. Like other social sites including Facebook, YouTube uses algorithms to automatically promote content to users, based on things like a sudden uptick in traffic. The sudden popularity of the live video, despite the fact that virtually nothing is happening, seems to have then become the joke in itself. Other slightly more outlandish theories on why the video has been promoted include that the stream is being covertly run by the NSA to familiarize people with the idea of a 'police state'. People commenting on the thread have also speculated on whether the NSA is trying to get random internet users to replace their own agents by spying on people. The vast majority of people watching seem to be just as confused by the video as everyone else, however, questioning why it is trending and what they have gotten themselves into by watching it. Jackson hole is a ski resort village near Teton National Park at the base of the Teton Mountains, and is a popular tourist retreat. This summer was unusually busy, with more than 800,000 people visiting the national park, an increase of 10 per cent on last year. [/quote] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3773700/Why-hundreds-people-watching-live-stream-random-town-Wyoming-Internet-obsessed-Jackson-Hole.html