Whenever he was on deadline, animation student Bang-yao Liu would imagine he was locked in mortal combat with the Post-it notes on which he dashed off his to-do’s. He never guessed this particular nightmare would be the inspiration behind his big career break.

Liu’s highly popular “Deadline: Post-it Stop Motion,” a short video about a student who fights to meet a deadline while animated Post-it notes morph into rain clouds and monsters, has racked up about 2.2 million views on Google’s ( GOOG - news - people ) YouTube video site. It has brought him creative notoriety, kudos from actor Ashton Kutcher and a possible ad deal with Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people ). But you don’t need search-engine-optimization or marketing expertise to go viral; the 23-year-old credits the Internet with providing the basic tools, outlets and promotional channels, all of which are available to anyone willing to put in the time and effort into a product.