“Facebook Flowers” draws the viral activity that follows George Takei sharing a picture on Facebook. 

Each share generates a thread, and follow-on shares continue as extensions of that strand, blooming as the picture is passed from friend to friend. Popular people are revealed as branching-off points of their own, and the process begins again. The patterns that emerge closely resemble living organisms like plants or algae, a theme we see again and again in large and complex data sets.