Article Surfing Archive

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? Because it's inspirational.

Why did Will Ferrell's The Landlord become the backbone of his entire Funnyordie website? Because it was funny, and, more importantly, had Will Ferrell in it.

Why did the Cheerleader Getting Run over by a football team become viral? Because it was extreme?

Why did 2 Girls 1 Cup (we refuse to link this video), the single most disgusting and abhorrent video of all time become viral? More on that later.

Do these videos have anything in common? Do they have one identifiable trait that makes them marketable?

'These videos have something inherent in them that makes people want to watch them over and over,' explains Chris, a prominent Independent film Producer from Los Angeles, 'There's no rhyme or reason and there's no pre-defined set of qualifications.'

'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'. Why did everyone pay attention to it? What was the attraction? It's unknown.

After that video went viral, a stream of 'reaction' videos surfaced. These videos were basically friends filming other friends watching 2 Girls 1 Cup and trying to catch their reaction, which most of the time was a gut wrenching puke.

These reaction videos became more popular than the original video itself, but also served to market the original video unintentionally, with the logic being, 'If the reaction is so bad, I've gotta see it!'

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. It's tough to define, but you know it when you see it.'

Substitute 'Viral Video' for 'Poetry' and you have a definition of the viral video genre worthy of Websters.