Top 5 Viral Videos Of All Time #viralvideo
Top 5 Viral Videos Of All Time
Introduction
This is the third iteration of my YouTube Top Viral Videos of All Time list. The first one included the top 25 YouTube videos that had “gone viral” up to that point in time, and my third list has improbably arrived at 42.
Some YouTube gurus say a video “goes viral” when it gets more than 1 million views. Other video marketing experts say this threshold should be bumped up to 5 million views for any video uploaded after 2011.
As I pointed out in “How to make a video go viral,” there is no industry standard definition of “viral video.”
I generated the list from 2.6 million videos created by 624,000 accounts that all have more than 5 million views and 100,000 engagements using all available data.
From the data I used, I estimate the odds of a video going viral are 3,192 to one.
Hopefully, this list will provide you with some inspiration and practical lessons that you can apply when you create a video worth watching and content worth sharing.
Top 42 Viral Videos Of All Time
Innovators And Early Adopters: April 23, 2005 – April 22, 2008
So, when did innovators and early adopters adopt the innovative idea of creating viral videos?
1. “Me At The Zoo”
The Very First Video Uploaded To YouTube was published on April 23, 2005.
The 19-second-long video features Jawed Karim, one of YouTube’s co-founders, who says that the two elephants that he is standing in front of at the San Diego Zoo have long trunks. Um, okay.
“Greg Jarboe describes the video’s representation of an ‘ordinary moment’ to be ‘extraordinary’ for its time, demonstrating YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim’s vision of what YouTube would become.
According to Jarboe, ‘Me at the zoo’ showed that YouTube was not simply about trying to ‘capture special moments on video’ but rather trying to empower YouTube users ‘to become the broadcasters of tomorrow.’ This paved the way for YouTube to become the world’s most popular online video-sharing community.”
This explains why this short clip of an “ordinary moment” has now amassed a total of 271 million views and 25.1 million engagements over the past 18 years, which is “extraordinary.”
2. “Lazy Sunday”
Another video that helped to put YouTube on the map was uploaded in December 2005, it was a bootleg copy of the Saturday Night Live skit, “The Chronicles of Narnia Rap.”
How popular was this video? David Itzkoff of The New York Times reported back then that “Lazy Sunday” racked up 1.2 million views in its first 10 days.
And LeeAnn Prescott of Hitwise reported in December 2005 that visits to YouTube had shot up 83% since the video had been uploaded – and had passed visits to Google Video. (And the rest is history.)
By the end of January 2006, Prescott reported, “Since my post last month on YouTube and the SNL Chronicles of Narnia rap, YouTube has continued to gain market share against other video search sites, and since surpassing Google Video, it has also surpassed Yahoo! Video Search.”
Then, “Lazy Sunday” was removed from the video sharing site in February 2006. In a post on the YouTube blog, the YouTube staff explained: “NBC recently contacted YouTube and asked us to remove Saturday Night Live’s ‘Lazy Sunday: Chronicles of Narnia’ video. We know how popular that video is, but YouTube respects the rights of copyright holders. You can still watch SNL’s ‘Lazy Sunday’ video for free on NBC’s website.”
Ironically, Saturday Night Live re-uploaded “Lazy Sunday” to its YouTube channel on Aug. 17, 2013 – 7.5 years after it was removed.
Why did SNL do that and what lesson can you learn from this?
Well, copyright owners can monetize their videos on YouTube. But they must split their ad revenue with YouTube. So, someone at NBC finally figured out that SNL could make more money by letting advertisers run ads against “Lazy Sunday” on YouTube, as well as on NBC’s website, than they would get by continuing to hoard their video content on their own site, which gets significantly less traffic.
And it is worth noting that the re-uploaded version of “Lazy Sunday” now has 4.3 million views and 48,400 engagements.
3. “Evolution Of Dance.”
A Third Video That Went Viral In YouTube’s Early Days.
Uploaded by Judson Laipply on April 6, 2006, it now has 312 million views and 1.6 million engagements.
Now, it should have even more views and engagements, but this video was blocked in the U.S. for several years on copyright grounds because it contains content from Warner Music Group (WMG).
Why did they do that and what lesson can you learn from this?
Well, using YouTube’s Content ID system, copyright owners can choose to monetize a video and share revenue with the uploader. Or they can block a whole video from being viewed. So, WMG did not seem to want to share squat with Laipply for several years.
But then the multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate either decided that some revenue was better than no revenue or suddenly started to care about what I had written several years ago when I discovered that “Evolution of Dance” had been blocked.
In either case, do not assume that you can freely sample a song under the “fair use” principle.
And if you want to include some music or sound effects in your videos, without having to negotiate licenses with each copyright owner, then use the YouTube Audio Library to find high-quality audio tracks, which are royalty-free.
Google announced the acquisition of YouTube on October 9, 2006, and the deal was finalized on November 13, 2006. Google paid $1.65 billion in stock for YouTube. By putting their stamp of approval on YouTube, Google decreased the uncertainty around the innovative idea of creating viral videos, too.
4. “Chocolate Rain Original Song By Tay Zonday”
Another Viral Video From The Early Days uploaded on April 23, 2007, it now has 136 million views and 1.9 million engagements.
Here is the backstory. The video was originally posted on 4chan.org, where Zonday’s breathe-away-from-the-mic move was mocked, and many parody videos were made in response.
But “Chocolate Rain” did not go viral until July 2007, when YouTube simultaneously featured all the parody and response videos on its home page.
Okay, what lessons can we learn from this viral video with its unconventional lyrics and delivery?
Well, even if you are mocked (by the self-appointed trendsetters), you can still get the last laugh when you are invited on Jimmy Kimmel Live and then go on to get “paid a hefty, hefty fee” when your video becomes part of a promotional campaign for Cherry Chocolate Diet Dr. Pepper.
5. “Potter Puppet Pals: The Mysterious Ticking Noise.”
Another Example From The Early Days uploaded by Neil Cicierega on Mar. 24, 2007, it now has 202 million views and 2 million engagements.
This was the third video in a series that Cicierega had uploaded to his YouTube channel, which used live-action puppetry to parody the Harry Potter novels by J. K. Rowling.
Upon hearing a ticking noise, Severus Snape sings to it. Other characters join in until they discover the source of the ticking is a pipe bomb, which subsequently explodes. The video was the landslide winner in the Comedy category of the 2008 YouTube Awards.
MTV interviewed Alan Rickman at the New York premiere of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2”, and he said, “(Potter Puppet Pals) is very beautifully done, that little piece of work. Can you get rich from that? I hope they did.”
Short Note: If you want to see this video copy the title and paste on youtube search so then the video will appear there and thanks for coming to see my blog.
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