“Viral video” is one of those buzz words that gets bandied around a lot, while only a minority could offer a confident definition. For instance, what exactly constitutes a viral video? How many views does it need to be considered “viral”? How quickly does it have to rise in viewership?
The first step to a videos being crowned viral concerns viewership, yet a clear cut definition is hard to land upon. Is a video that attracts one million views then levels off a viral hit? Initial interest aside, the chances are it will crash and burn, swiftly resigned to the YouTube cemetery of long-forgotten one-hit wonders. Should we restrict the definition of viral to those that accrue, say 5 million views and no less?
The big hitters are those that draw in millions (think the original Double Rainbow video) then just keep on growing and growing – in the case of Double Rainbow, thanks in no small part to a tweet about the video from US comedian Jimmy Kimmel.
1. Double Rainbow
A hefty dose of buzz (top billing on Reddit, retweets and Facebook posts, coverage on influential blogs) and the potential for longevity (those clips that still deserve viewing after a year of going live) are also important ingredients to a viral hit.
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2. ‘An Interpretive Dance For My Boss Set To Kanye West’s Gone’
When Marina Shifrin resigned from her job by shooting a dance routine alone in the office at 4.30am, she struck a chord with overworked, underpaid and generally disgruntled employees everywhere. Go girl! (Wonder where she’s working now?).
3. My Wedding Speech
There’s something wonderfully endearing about a global pop star who is too nervous to deliver his wedding speech. Fortunately, McFly’s Tom Fletcher was brave enough to post the tear-jerking musical result to YouTube, where it has garnered more than 13 million views to date.
4. ‘Amazing Last Second Shot’
The beauty of the internet, and video in particular, is that we can share those one-in-a-million feel-good moments that make life beautiful. One such moment was this kid’s incredible last-second, no-peeping shot in a church league basketball game, now available for the world to smile at.
5. ‘Carrie Coffee Shop Prank’
We all love a good fright. Or to rephrase, we love watching other, unsuspecting innocent coffee shop customers getting the buhjeezas sacred out of them. This stunt to promote the launch of the remade Carrie worked because people genuinely believed they were in the midst of something supernatural and terrifying. Rather them then us.
6. ‘Lie Witness News – Coachella’
Sometimes, it takes celebrity involvement to make a video go viral – our favourite example of the year being Seth Rogen and James Franco’s hilarious homage to Kanye ‘n’ Kim in Bound 2. Elsewhere, lesser known mortals can be the funniest unwitting heroes of online video hits; particularly when they happen to be hapless hipsters pretending to know everything about new music.
Have we included your favourite viral hit in the list, or did we miss out a cracker? Please share your reactions below.
