What? I was keeping up with the Contagious Media contest for a while, and every time I checked, Crying While Eating was further and further ahead. I thought they were a shoo-in, so I stopped checking. Now I see that something called Forget Me Not Panties came up from the rear (ahem) and won the Grand Prize, with over 600,000 unique visitors. Wow.

I still say Crying While Eating is still the better site. Go there now.

Maybe Forget Me Not Panties won because it’s “contageous” on different levels? It has a bit of a humor factor, but if you don’t know it’s fake, it also has a “Can you believe they are selling these?” factor. You also have the people who are trying to figure out if it’s real or bunk, and them send it on to their friends to help them figure it out. Not to mention the people who are actually looking to buy. Then again, the URL says contagiousmedia right there, so maybe it was just a great idea that people wanted to share with friends. That, or the pictures of hott girls in skimpy underthings.

(If you’re ever unsure if something is legit, check Snopes. I use it for debunking chain letters friends sometimes send out. I wish more people would do the same.)

NewScientist has a story this week on viral media, and how forwarding emails defines our social ties:

Email forwarding is a familiar part of modern email communications, and has spawned many an internet phenomenon, the Star Wars kid, the Numa Numa dance, and Oolong the rabbit to name just a few.

[…] forwarding emails plays a vital role in constructing and maintaining modern social ties, despite the phenomenon receiving scant attention from social scientists.

Forwarding a genuinely amusing or interesting link to a friend, for example, shows that you are thinking of them and are aware of the sort of content they like, Gross says. But passing an irrelevant or out-of-date link on to contacts can be annoying, thus lowering the sender’s social status in the recipient’s eyes.