the history of going viral

I found a really cool website in my internet research travels this week called, aptly, the history of viral content. The website is set up like a helpful infographic and dates back the history of “viral” content all the way back to chain mail (which “actually could have began as early as 1795”! how cool is that?). It’s pretty interesting and really got my gears working on the idea of this type of content itself.

it’s easiest, with the subject matter i’m covering on this blog, to start at Youtube. (instead of emails or chain mail, although there’s a couple cool links throughout the chainmail and email sections about how your content could go viral before the internet that are worth checking out.) DataDial (referred to after this for convenience as “The Article”) states that:

“The first video posted to the site was a video of co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego zoo. It’s titled “Me at the zoo” and was posted on 23 April 2005. You can still view the video. It has 11,542,637 views.”

Because it’s the first video, obviously going to go viral, just because in a lot of cases the first piece of content on a site says plenty about it’s past and future. “Me at the zoo” is really an essentially pointless video, but it set the framework for a multitude of millions of videos to follow without even realizing it’s magnitude at the time.

Youtube was purchased by Google in November of 2006 and, since then, The Article reports that

“The most viewed User-Generated Video of all time is ‘Charlie bit my finger – again!'”.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, the video can be seen here, but the gist is just one cute little British baby biting the finger of his older brother. Babies and cannibalism, what’s not to love? This capitalized off a trend that the traditional media had been using for ages: cute kids doing/saying weird things for entertainment. The article goes on to say

“[the video] was posted 22 May 2007 and has been viewed 531,352,130 times.” and that was in 2014 when the site was last updated.

The “Charlie bit my finger” family has now made a largely successful brand off of this video, but examining life after going viral will come at a later time.

Since then, notable viral videos for each year are as follows:

• 2006- The Evolution of Dance– a man’s business conference dance routine goes viral as he transcends a plethora of decades through their signature dance moves. Highlights include: a playlist that transcends you and your mom’s favorite jams.
• 2007- Charlie bit my finger -again!
• 2008- Bill O’Reilly flips out– the famous news anchor has a major meltdown. Highlights include: wondering if a man can actually explode from being too angry.
• 2009- David after Dentist– brings around the kid cuteness factor once again as a young boy reacts to anesthesia for the first time after dental work. Highlights include: the famous quote “Is this real life?” and the time where he pushes himself out of his car seat to scream.
• 2010- Old Spice: Your Man Could Smell Like This– with a Super Bowl lead in, this commercial is cut from an obscure advertising cloth that made it an instant hit. Highlights include: “I’m on a Horse” and a dreamy guy we all wish our boyfriends would turn into if they used Old Spice.
• 2011- Friday– one of the most bad viral videos that everyone loves to hate, Rebecca Black’s sugar-coated, poorly preformed, pop factory music video is a staple in internet culture. Rebecca is one of the people I’ll be studying in my life after going viral post, as well. Highlights include: several quotable moments that all your friends knew like “gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal” and “we we we so excited” plus that poor girl in the pink dress who’s trying too hard to dance. (also the rap interlude by the creepy older guy is enough to send shivers down anyones spine)
• 2012- Gangnam Style– this music video from korean artist Psy was just weird enough to cross international waters onto the screens of everyone around the world. Highlights include: Psy screaming at the behind of a dancing girl, the parking garage dance battle and the weird, horse-riding style dance move that was frequented at many a sweet 16 from then on.
• 2013- What Does The Fox Say?-possibly one of the strangest one hit wonders of all time, this video is one of the weirdest you’ll ever see. Highlights include: the plot twist of the pop beat to the unnatural noises that come out of the singers mouth and the costumes. oh boy, the costumes.
• 2014- A Tiny Hamster Eats Tiny Burritos– this video will help you even in your darkest days. It is exactly what it sounds like, a tiny hamster eats a tiny burrito that is crafted just for him. Highlights include: the whole thing, it’s a tiny hamster eating a burrito.

2015 is somewhat far from being over, so there’s not much coverage on what the major viral video this year is, but what this list proves is that content can still move to go viral. Most of these went viral accidentally, but it cements the idea that content can be spread very quickly, even back in the internet dark ages when youtube was first created. Nowadays theres so many other modes of your content to spread to go viral, but we’ll all know it started with “me at the zoo”.