What works as viral video? What type
of video are you, as the viewer, going to want to forward to all your friends,
and they, in turn, will want to forward to all their friends, and so on until
the virus effect of the video has spread to millions?
There are no definite, key examples
of what makes a video become viral.
The Videos That Have Become Viral
Why did the Paul Potts video (from Britain s Got
Talent) get 17 million views on YouTube? Why did Will Ferrell s
The Landlord
become the backbone of his entire Funnyordie website? Why did the Cheerleader
Getting Run over by a football team become viral? Why did 2 Girls 1 Cup (we
refuse to link this video), the single most disgusting and abhorrent video of
all time become viral? I ve seen videos
fail that featured huge stars and good writing
and they were funny, states Joey,
a Hollywood writer, They just didn t
have that viral nature.
Or in the case of a video like The
Glitch, featuring American Pie s Jason Biggs
a little too long.
People have 30 seconds to 2 minutes to watch a
clip at work before they re caught, says
Tom, an Actor from Los Angeles, they don
t have 8-10 minutes!
The Most Disgusting Video Ever - Why
Are People Watching It?
2 Girls 1 Cup is perhaps the most
graphically disgusting video of all time. It features two women feasting on,
let s just say fecal matter . It s
unknown.
After that video went viral, a
stream of reaction videos surfaced. There are even phony spoof
reaction videos popping up, the newest of which is Kermit the Frog
watching the video and reacting with profanity.
Another spoof is 2 Guys 1 Cup featuring John Mayer , which
happens to be a non offensive video set to the same music but featuring two
guys sharing a cup of ice-cream.
Hard to Define
Viral video is hard to define, but
it is quickly becoming its own genre.
I had a college professor once, in
an attempt to define poetry, say this:
Poetry is like pornography. Substitute Viral Video
for Poetry and you have a definition of the viral video
genre worthy of Websters.
