The tone and scope of BuzzFeed’s content aimed unsubtly to incite its readers’ outrage, elicit their laughter, or engender a sort of sanguine conviction in the essential goodness of the human spirit. It aimed to provoke. Peretti had discovered the potency of provocation when his Nike email chain had gone viral. He knew that in order to be successful, content had to resonate with readers enough that they felt compelled to share the item with their friends. Getting them to share was the central challenge for publishers who catered to social media users.
