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"Tunak Tunak Tun" by Dahler Mehndi
This famous music video is often regarded as the first viral video ever. Released in 1998, it recieved tremendous recognition from the world as people shared it with each other due to its catchy tune and hilarious dance. The music video inspired numerous parodies, memes and spin-offs and even a whole new song by popular elctronic artist Deadmau5 -
"Peanut Butter Jelly Time"
The flash animated music video "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" was created by Ryan Gancenia and made it debut on Newgrounds.com. This wildly popular internet phenomenon is simple yet effective as the animation does a jiggy-little dance to a catchy beat. The line "peanut butter jelly with a baseball bat" is copied from The Ramones "Beat on the Brat" (with a baseball bat); although, in the Peanut butter jelly instance, it doesn't rhyme (or make sense)." -
"Star Wars Kid"
This incredibly heroic video was made by fourteen year old Ghyslain Raza. In his video he wields a golf ball retriever as a light saber and quite accurately resembles Darth Maul's swift and deadly martial arts. Though this video was posted by school mates of Ghyslain without his concent and resulted in a lawsuit, the video was extraordinarily popular and paved the way for many memes and parodies. -
"Badger, badger, badger" by Jonti Picking
This excessively repetitive video consists of badgers, squating with poor form to a simple beat and intricate lyrics the loop indefinietly consists of either; "badger", "mushroom" or "snake". This video was also listed as one of the top five internet fads of all time by PC World. -
"Numa Numa" by Gary Brolsma's
Gary lipsync's to the song "Numa Numa" with mind-blowing precision, with no intention of becoming one of the worlds most watched videos with hits of 800 000 000 worldwide and counting. "Numa Numa" is truly one of the greatest videos ever made. -
YouTube is Born!
This day marks the foundation for 98% of modern viral videos and is profound in the evolution of video sharing. To give you a sense of how extravagant YouTube has become, here are some stats
-300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
-The number of hours people are watching on YouTube each month is up 50% year over year
-YouTube has more than 1 billion users
-Every day people watch hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube and generate billions of views -
"Boom Goes the Dynamite"
Brian Collins, a nervous sports anchor, fumbles highlights, concluding with his infamous catch phrase "Boom Goes the Dynamite". Although hard to watch, millions took interest in this poor guys embarrasment, and it quickly became an internet phenomenon -
"Chocolate Rain" by Tay Zonday
After being posted on YouTube on April 22, 2007, the song quickly became popular. By early 2009 the video had over 37 million views. The music video portrays a bespectacled Zonday in a recording studio wearing a white T-shirt and singing into a condenser microphone. The song, and its writer/performer, attracted major media attention. "Chocolate Rain" is ranked as the hottest viral video of Summer 2007 by CTV.ca and as the number 2 viral video in the world by utalkmarketing.com. -
"Charlie Bit my Finger"
This video accurately represents a young sibling relationship in which it starts out with fun and games but quickly becomes a deadly battle of finger bitting. In this case, Charlie clearly has no concern for the safety of his older brother and is also diabolical enough to laugh after. All the while the father is inadvertently in the making of producing one of the most cherished videos on the internet. -
"David after Dentist"
This is a video of a doped up kid after getting a tooth pulled. His reaction to being high as a kite is hilarious and fascinating. My favourite part is when he asks "is this real life?"; looking as confused and lifted as ever. -
"Double Rainbow"
Ever so often you come across a video of someone in such an extreme moment of extraordinary awe that it catches the attention of millions. This Yosemite hiker cannot believe his sees when he sees the "double rainbow" phenomenon. He seems uncapable of grasping the size and beauty of the rainbow, as it is "all the way across the sky". -
"Kony 2012"
The world seemed to turn to Southern Sudan and Uganda with the realease of this video. The human rights group "Invisible Children" published this video in hopes of bringing attention to the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) and their leader Joseph Kony. The video achieved its intention reaching over 100 million views in under a week, making it the fastest spreading viral video in history. -
"Gangnam Style" by Psy
Korean pop start Psy releases "Gangnam Style"; the most watched video ever. The catchy tune, the easy-to-learn dance, the sexy ladies and the foreign language that most people are blindly singing along to is apparently the perfect recipe for a viral video. Gangnam Style has reached over 2.3 billion views on youtube alone. -
ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
This trend became viral and it seemed that everyone suddenly wanted to end ALS! The format is simple - somebody has water, often full of ice cubes, dumped over their head to simulate the symptoms of ALS. They then nominate people they know to undertake the same challenge. over 50 million people uploaded videos of them doing the challenge, with approximately 110 million dollars donated to the cause. The most viral ice bucket challenges were done by: Leonardo DiCaprio, Oprah, and Lebron James.
