The Best Gummy Bears in the World

Creating something takes time and talent. Making it go viral takes good planning, the right storm, and good publicity.

I don’t think I really understood how things can happen so accidentally until recently. I work with some awesome people. During night shift, we often eat to keep ourselves awake, and we like to share what we like with other people. A few months ago, one of our nurses, a part time nurse, shared her favorite gummy bears with another nurse. She loved them so much that she went out and bought some for herself. At that point, they were only being sold at one particular chain of gas stations, and only in one or two of them.

She then shared it with the rest of us. Slowly, but surely, we all started eating them because she kept sharing them with us. Soon, we were starting to buy packs of our own. Then the day shift started to notice that night shift was eating these gummy bears. Not long after that, I noticed some of the day shift nurses bringing them in at the beginning of their shift.

During nurses’ week, our DON had a jar full of these gummies, just because everyone in the building loved them so much. Most of us started buying two or three bags a week. Some were buying up to ten.

But it didn’t stop there.

I started buying them and sharing them with my family. I took them to write-ins with my friends. I wanted them to try it because it was so good. I was talking to my coworker, who told me that she noticed that another store started to sell them.

This week, I saw them at our grocery store, in a neighboring town, and they were flying off the shelves.

That’s how things go viral. I never once heard a commercial for them, and I never saw an ad. It was word of mouth. The product was good enough that everyone wanted to share it.

That’s encouraging for me, as a writer. I just need to make the best product I possibly can, and if I can create that perfect storm, it will be shared.