
Top 5 Most Unexpected Viral Videos of ‘08
Viral video doesn’t always simply mean millions of views. Sometimes a video manages to inspire YouTubers to actually turn on their cameras and respond to, or parody, what they’ve just seen instead of being a passive viewer. Some of these videos even manage to do this while remaining underground. Here, I’m going spotlight videos which unexpectedly spread like wild fire through the YouTube community, eliciting dozens of video responses and parodies, despite not being featured on YouTube’s front page.
1. TOOT TOOT!!! - A sort of introductory video by jabazzy tops our list as the #1 most unexpected viral video of 2008. The video simply features YouTuber jabazzy introducing herself and telling us a few of her likes and dislikes over an upbeat polka track. The video was responded to and re-made by dozens of YouTubers, including BenRobot, speedyconkiwi, K80blog, dinzla and many, many others for a total of a couple hundred thousand tootin’ views!
2. The Naked Vlog Campaign. - Maybe not totally unexpected (who doesn’t love a little nudity?), the naked vlog tag game spread as quickly as, if not quicker than, nerimon’s five facts tag game from ‘07. The Naked Vlog Campaign was also the last successful tag game/meme spread on YouTube. Most Tubers got burnt out on getting tagged after this one (anyone remember Truth or Dare? Yeah, kinda?).
3. I’m Voting Republican by SyntheticHuman Pictures, while not technically part of the YouTube community, received a huge response from the community wanting to share their own thoughts about our current state of politics.
4. My Morning Hurr. - A quickie from chris3ff asking viewers to record themselves first thing in the morning, showing him their morning hair. The video got dozens of vloggers to turn on their cameras before getting all prettied up, an accomplishment in itself. Like the others on this list, “My Morning Hurr” inspired many responses and parodies.
5. My Message How could I not include one of my own videos on this list? “My Message” was a super serious video about communicating with others via this new online medium. It inspired a few laughs, and a few responses from Tubers Toddly00, BenRobot, justinmazing, and others.
Honorable Mention: That Shark Can Kiss My Ass from the always lovely achampag. Calling for vloggers to get back to being real, for the “corporate American bullshit” to find it’s home elsewhere, this video received a number of strong video responses from thediamondfactory, thebdonski, andymcgaffigan and others.
Keep in mind, this is just my list. I didn’t look at view counts or response counts to create this list, had I, this list would look much different.
Do you have a video that engaged your subscribers? A video that others made responses to and talked about long after the first 48 hours after it was uploaded? Share it with me in the comments section below. I’d love to check it out.
3 Responses to “Top 5 Most Unexpected Viral Videos of ‘08”
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Viral Video Wannabe...
…is written by Alan “fallofautumndistro” Lastufka, co-author of the book, “YouTube: An Insider’s Guide
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August 30th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Hey Alan,
I have one video of all the ones I’ve made so far that is semi-viral. It has a ton of views (over 8,000) and more than a hundred comments at the moment, and is still discussed presently. The video is from January, and it’s one of my first attempts vlogging, so there is no editing and it is extremely long-winded (it’s alright, I got better). Anyway, I don’t get what all the fuss is over the video, but feel free to check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34uK_6Z6ee4
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:34 pm
you forgot the Five Facts Tag, started by Nerimon.
who knew it will be so addictive?
September 5th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
My most viewed video is this one with nearly 3,000 views:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWX5nBafgMw
I made that video as part of a competition for a website and I won second place which was $50.
This video was quite popular and got many honors the first 48 hours:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqNI9vx9dUw
Of course my most recent popular video is my mock parody of Miley Cyrus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n-aMNxCjBc
-Julian