The one in which Rachel attempts to go viral

I’ve never been particularly web savvy. I didn’t get a Facebook account until college. I never did MySpace. And my Twitter account leaves few web crumbs in its path.

Nevertheless, like the millions of other fresh-faced unknowns spawned in the times of Paris and “Keeping up with the Kardashians,” I too have wondered what it would be like to become a viral sensation. To make YouTube’s “Most Popular.” To generate hundreds of response copy-cat videos. To be AutoTuned in slow motion. Blogged about. To become a trending topic on Twitter. Or better yet, a meme. To eventually amass enough of an online following to open an e-store selling branded merchandise. I’m partial to the idea of a “Rachel” bobble-head myself.

To saturate the web to such colossal proportions that highbrow publications, like “The New York Times,” have no choice but to reference you. Albeit two weeks too late.

And in the process, squeeze every possible dollar out of the “personal shame/embarrassment for public laughs” transaction until you fade into internet obscurity 48 hours later. Or are ushered into the Internet’s “Hall of Fame” among such greats as the “Dance Evolution” guy or the sobbing “Leave Britney alone” guy. Only with better makeup (and no sex tape :O).

I can’t lie. Internet stardom does carry a certain allure. It would be nice to Google my name and be the first result to come up. Or to stumble across a Wikipedia article of my life.

Instead, search for the name “Rachel Brown” and a woman running for Congress comes up. Or that woman on the “Hell’s Kitchen” TV show who committed suicide. So much for giving “Rachel Brown” a good spin.

So much for my Internet debut. But don’t think I’m shedding tears (or strategizing) over my online anonymity. At the ripe old age of 22, I’ve made peace with my obscurity. I can live without birthing an offspring of fake Rachel Brown Facebook pages all pretending to be me. I can survive without, gasp, a “Rachel Brown” bobble-head. To be entirely fair, it would have to feature a more cone-shaped head anyway.

And, if the The Register, is right, I don’t have skills for YouTube stardom anyway. I can’t “drink lots” or “corrupt innocent children’s' characters.” I’ve never won a video-game in my life and my clumsy lip synching is best left to the privacy of my home.

But I may still have the last laugh.

For the past several days, I’ve been plagued by a stuffy nose and hacking cough. Just a day ago, my work colleague started to develop symptoms of a cold. Symptoms that eerily resembled mine.

In the end, this Rachel Brown has indeed become a viral hit – of the germ kind.

And that’s got to count for something, right?