“Grandma’s gone viral!”

As my 15-year-old daughter’s announcement boomed its way down the hallway, I had a brief vision of some dark, merciful illness. The final relief for us all… no… don’t even…

“Close the front door Kirsty, the mozzies’ll get in.” said Sarah, my wife.

The door slammed shut with the force of a gale and Kirsty appeared in the kitchen dragging a hockey stick, a schoolbag brimming with books, and a science project that looked potentially evil.

“Well for starters, we’re not having that thing in the kitchen! Take it somewhere else.”

“You’re not listening, Mum. It’s awesome!”

“What is, dear?”

“Grandma, she’s…”

Kirsty took one look at us both and began choosing her words carefully, as if explaining something to very small children.

“You know Justin? At school?”

“The one with the hair?” I ventured. It was sufficient to identify him to everyone.

“Yes, him. Well he’s doing media studies… you know, video and stuff. Anyway I asked him not to, but he never listens to me, and now…”

“Wait, what did you ask him not to do?”

“Film her! Grandma was sitting on the porch as usual, and Justin filmed her with his phone. Now he’s put it up on YouTube, and…”

“YouTube?”

“Dad, surely you know what YouTube is.”

“Of course I know what YouTube is, Kirsty!” I huffed, my ‘cool dad’ pride wounded. “It’s just that, well, wouldn’t it be a bit… boring? I mean, Grandma doesn’t exactly do anything.”

Sarah glared at me. I had crossed the invisible line.

“But that’s the whole point!” Kirsty exclaimed. “Justin filmed two minutes of Grandma doing nothing, then created a mashup soundtrack that was, like, ironic or whatever… and now it’s gone viral. It got almost 3 million views this week!”

I tried to get my head around that figure.

“You mean to say 3 million people have now watched a video of Grandma doing…” I defiantly met my wife’s gaze “…absolutely nothing?”

Kirsty’s face lit up. “I told you it was awesome!”

“But why? Why would anyone…”

“Well I think it’s dreadful!” Sarah interjected, finding a sudden need to rearrange the dishes in the sink. “There should be some law that says you can’t just film people without their consent and put it on the internet. What about her right to privacy?”

“Well, I hardly think your mother’s in any state to…” The words died on my lips.

“Kirsty, go and do your homework.” Sarah said, sharply. “I want to have dinner early tonight.”

And, with that, the subject of Grandma’s flirtation with fame, appeared to be over.

Later, when Kirsty had gone to bed and Sarah was watching TV, I went into the spare room and fired up our old computer. It didn’t take long to find Justin’s video; I just typed in ‘Grandma’ and there she was. Like Madonna, Beyonce, and Pink, our 85-year-old Clarissa Amy Wilson had joined the ranks of the fabulously famous, the angels who float above us, identified only by a single name.

I pressed play.

What became immediately obvious was that young Justin – his hairdo notwithstanding – knew his stuff. The original video had been processed to look professionally shot, with simulated camera tracking and other cinematic effects. But it was the soundtrack which really brought the whole thing to life. As the camera slowly moved towards the immobile Grandma, a haunting, 5-note piano phrase faded up. Gradually other sounds began to intrude: children’s laughter, a father’s brutal admonitions, old-time dance hall music, bombing raids, screams, victory celebrations, a woman sobbing, ship’s horns, parties, factory noises, the sounds of the bush… It all became increasingly cacophonous, with the music eventually morphing into a collage of industrial noise rock. Then, as the camera arrived at Grandma’s closely cropped face, the soundtrack returned to the original piano melody. Silence. Fade to black.

Scrolling down, I could see there were literally hundreds of comments.

‘Rock on, Granma (sic)!’, ‘LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS ;-)’, ‘You are my insparation (sic)’ There were also such inexplicable offerings as ‘Wheres the trees?’ and ‘Lady GaGa you whore!’

Some people got into an esoteric discussion about one part of the soundtrack and whether it was the band’s live album or the studio version, and whether the original bass player (who, parenthetically had developed a heroin habit) had by then been replaced. One person posted a diatribe about the problems of aged care in Germany and what needed to be done, but was howled down by others who accused him of being a nazi who wanted to exterminate the elderly. And so it went.

A few of the comments had been deleted. I tried imagining what sick things they might have said about my mother-in-law, but found the possibilities too disturbing. Then I came across the following:

‘1:48. LMFAO.’

It took me a second or two to decipher the brief message. Yes, of course! The time! This person was saying that something happened at 1 minute and 48 seconds which they had found rather risible. Well I’d certainly missed it. I scrubbed the play head back to just before the crucial moment and leaned in. 1:45, 1:46, 1:47, 1:48. The appointed time came and went but I could see nothing. As far as I could tell, Grandma continued to stare straight ahead with her mouth slightly open and her small hands neatly folded in her lap. I tried again. …1:46, 1:47, 1:48. Yes, this time I saw it. Grandma winked. Well I suspect it was an involuntary twitch of the eyelid as she drifted in and out of her perpetual half-sleep. But no matter. Close enough for the internet.

GRANDMA WINKED! LOL.

This apparent display of knowing mischief happened to coincide with someone on the soundtrack screaming “What does it all mean?” Aha, I thought, so the video could be seen to contain a deeper layer of meaning in which the passage of time for all of us is really only a…

“What on earth are you doing?”

Sarah was standing in the doorway, eyeing me suspiciously. There was little point in lying.

“Oh, just checking out this stupid video of your mother. There’s not much to it really. I wouldn’t worry if I were you. She’s…”

Sarah rolled her eyes, shook her head slightly, and left without saying a word. My transgression had been duly noted.

Next day I discovered the parody videos. Someone had managed to extract Grandma from her original background and graft her onto a speeding snowboard. She also turned up doing everything from the Harlem Shake to pressing a big red button to start nuclear armageddon. And a cartoon version of Grandma joined the Simpsons on that famous couch. I particularly liked one video which featured the famous ‘I’m Spartacus’ scene, except that everyone got up and said “No, I’m Grandma!”. Crassus was still just as unimpressed.

By now I was hooked. Whenever possible, I secretly searched the internet to keep myself updated on the status of what was increasingly becoming the ‘Grandma brand’. In a few days, Le Monde had published a piece by a noted French academic, entitled ‘Revisiting Derrida’s Science of Ghosts: Deconstructing Grandma’. Not to be outdone, Libération claimed that Grandma embodied the true spirit of the 1968 Paris uprising. Across the channel, The Daily Mail was simply content to suggest that Grandma was having an affair.

Of course Grandma soon had several Facebook fan pages, (‘I Fucking Love Grandma’ was particularly popular) but the hater pages weren’t far behind. ‘Get a Life Grandma’ amassed 2000 followers in one day. More followed, with much uglier titles. Then someone tweeted that Grandma was transphobic or something, and there was a minor storm of outrage until Angelina Jolie posted her support, saying Grandma was a ‘strong, courageous, independent woman who was a role model to young people of any sexual identity’.

One week later, Channel 7 called. How they’d got our number was beyond me, but the woman on the line said they’d like to do a closing piece for the 6 o’clock news on the Grandma ‘phenomenon’. Would we consider allowing a small camera crew into our home?… the ‘woman behind the myth’… nothing too intrusive… etc. etc. … At first, Sarah refused point blank but I eventually convinced her that they’d just make something up anyway, and this way she’d have a chance to tell her mother’s real story. Privately I wondered what the real story was.

They arrived at one o’clock, and set up in the lounge room. When everyone was ready, Sarah went and got her mother and helped her to sit on the couch. The television crew smiled awkwardly when they realised that Grandma didn’t actually do anything: she didn’t talk, gesture, move her eyes. Grandma did nothing at all.

“Do you mind if we turn on the telly?” Sarah asked. “Her favourite show’s on.”

“No, of course not. Go right ahead.” Jordan, the interviewer, said.

Sarah set the television at a deafening volume.

“Sorry, she’s a little hard of hearing.” Sarah apologized.

Everyone seemed lost for something to do, and I could see that Jordan was already mentally tearing up the script. Eventually the crew shot a bit of footage of Grandma, injecting interest into it with panning shots, zooms and odd camera angles.

“Let’s go outside for your interview.” Jordan said, wincing at the volume. “Umm…the light’s better out there.”

That evening, we all sat down to watch. At the end of the news, presenters Jim Franklin and Sue Riley looked up and applied their practiced ‘it’s a funny old world’ smiles.

“It’s the latest internet sensation!” Sue Riley began, “Grandma, the pin-up girl for swinging octagenarians everywhere! From YouTube to Facebook, the world can’t get enough of her. There’s even talk of a movie deal! To see what all the fuss is about, Channel 7 caught up with the lady herself.”

“Movie deal?” Kirsty cried, suppressing her laughter.

“Shh!” Sarah hissed, leaning forward intently.

Almost none of the footage of Grandma had made the final cut. Clearly, someone had decided that no‑one wanted to see a drooling old woman whose meaningful life had long since ended. What was important was the internet meme. So we were treated to a collage of internet pages, twitter feeds and so on, interspersed with the usual stock footage of fingers typing on a keyboard.

But the real star of the show was Sarah, bathed in the warm glow of the afternoon sun, as she talked enthusiastically about her mother’s long and fruitful life.

“Way to go, Mum!” Kirsty enthused.

“You look beautiful.” I whispered.

“Shh!” Sarah hissed again, but I could tell she appreciated the compliment.

“I just want to tell everyone,” Sarah was saying on the TV, “that ‘Grandma’ is a real person. My mother is a strong, kind, funny woman who is still so full of life.”

That night, Grandma was rushed to hospital with breathing difficulties. At 2 am the doctor met us in the corridor.

“I’m very sorry,” he said, “there was little we could…”

Sarah crumpled in my arms.

A week after the funeral, I was on the bus coming home from work. Sarah was still quite depressed about her mother’s death and, whenever possible, I took an early mark to be with her. A noisy crowd of school children got on. Two girls sat down in front of me and became instantly glued to their smartphones.

“Hey Jasmine,” the older of the two turned and said, “did you see that Grandma died?”

Reluctantly, the small girl looked up.

“Who?”