Watch on YouTube as Actor Isaac Lamb proposes to his girlfriend Amy Frankel to the tune of “Marry You” by Bruno Mars (which she enjoys on headphones as she rides a Honda CRV).
An ensemble of dancers join a street parade, punctuated by Isaac dropping on one knee. Learn more on Broadway World.
So here’s the Easter “Dance Your Shoes Off” performed by 2,000 people from the Second Baptist Church in Texas. And here’s the “Easter Bunny Hates You.” Which one’s better?
I find it more fun if you watch this video to another song. For instance, if you click here, play this Bruno Mars “Lazy” song in a different window, then watch the below embedded video on mute (using speaker icon to the immediate right of the play button).
Well apparently I fell asleep on the viral road tour last month, because I completely missed the “Double Dream Hands” mini-meme, which seemed to have peaked in December 2010.
This morning I was encouraged by YouTube’s recommendations to subscribe to Fisheloph. The odd name, with the creepy thumbnail was more than I could resist, and I was tickled to discover this “Double Dream Hands” video featuring this most peculiar choreography instructional video for something called “Planet Rock.” Then I noticed a sea of parodies and variations suggestive of a meme… some with few views but worthy of more.
For some background on this mini-meme, check out Eliot Glazer’s URLesque article about John Jacobson (his official site), that charismatic dancer who “is apparently on break from his shift at Petco.” In fact, after you learn his dance, you can buy his yellow polo if you want to get hip to the 2011 fashion trend.
So if you’ve seen this one, please shed some light. If you haven’t, please meet the 2010/2011 Double Rainbow… it’s Double Dream Hands, and we’d expect to see him on Tosh 2.0 soon. And be sure to see Hanford High School’s gym performance of Jacobson’s dance, accompanied by his vocal instructions. I’d like to see Tosh erecting the dance, and culminating with something as bodacious as Perez Hilton shooting Double Rainbows out his butt.
Brownmarkfilms sues Southpark for stealing its “What What In My Butt” YouTube video. Seriously? This is about the highest complement you’ll get in your career.
Hey Southpark… you have my permission to use anything you want from my Nalts channel. It all sucks, but that didnd’t stop you here.
Okay can I insult this video without offending gay people? Because I really think if my favorite sport ever was butt plunging, I’d still find this video pointless.
Gautam Anand, director for content partnerships (Asia Pacific), told the Hindustan Times, “We are looking to significantly ramp up our long-form Bollywood movies catalogue. Full length catch-up shows have been getting a tremendous response from across the globe.”
It seems even the most celebrated Bollywood songs have taken to recent parodies like the recent Guild dance: “Game On: A Bollywood Themed Gamers Anthem.” See Codex (Felicia Day) and Zaboo (Sandeep Parikh) almost kiss, and Zaboo punch “Real Life” in the face. We dare you not to dance to “Game On.”
So we’ve got that going for us. Which is nice.
Hours ago I hadn’t heard of the Samsung Galaxy (an iPad that isn’t an iPad), and now I want one.
I teased Samsung in my last blog, um, post, and SlatersGarage pointed out this delightful video I’ll probably watch 30 times this week. this is such a happy video, and thanks to Slatersgarage for sharing it. I can’t keep up on all the viral ads myself. 🙂
I’ll go to my grave urging brands and agencies not to pin their online-video marketing strategy on “going viral” or chase the exception. But every once in a while someone succeeds… It even followed PC Week’s rules.
If I return my iPad and buy this Galaxy thing… will that music play in my head, and will everyone follow my every dance step? It’s funny how the joyful, musical celebration distracts your brain from another less positive interpretation of this video… we’re all techno lemmings and we’ll follow the innovators even if they drop and fall. But that’s okay! I can be a lemming and be joyfully aware that I am, right?
The PS 22 Choir will receive the “Artist of the Year” award at the June 14 Webby Awards. The “YouTube sensation” elementary school chorus joins previous winners Roger Ebert, Amy Poehler, and OK Go! (see press release for such quotes as, “We’re thrilled to honor these outstanding young men and women for reminding us all about the joy and power of music.”
The 14th annual award event will be hosted by B.J. Novak of NBC’s The Office, and feature winners and honorees delivering five-word speeches in the tradition of past Webby victors like Beastie Boys (“Can anyone fix my computer?”) and Jimmy Fallon (“Thank God Conan got promoted”). Speeches and ceremony highlights will be broadcast on the Webby Awards YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/TheWebbyAwards).
5 word acceptance speech. La la la la la, anyone? Check out the choir’s channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/agreggofsociety. Here’s the group’s most-popular hit, which surprisingly is a Lady Gaga song. You just can’t go wrong with Lady Gaga, but if these kids can’t make you smile you’re taking life too seriously.
When you’re done enjoying this, check out when Latifah sneaks into a rehearsal. Ever seen kids scream like this for someone that old?
So you got lucky and had a video go “viral.” Now what do you do?
YouTube is now giving “one-hit wonders” a chance to become a YouTube Partner, where they’re eligible to earn a percent of advertising revenue from their videos. This may, of course, be frustrating to those who have applied for the Partnership program, but have been refused — most likely because some of their videos contain copyright infringements, but sometimes perhaps because their videos aren’t garnering enough views to make it worthwhile for YouTube or the Partner.
But it makes sense, as the “David After Dentist” story illustrates. And remember that this is not new. Revver helped EeepyBird fetch more than $35,000 from the Diet Coke & Mentos video in 2006.
About 2 weeks after “David After Dentist” went viral (now at 28 million views), I received a nice note seeking advice from David’s dad (Booba1234). “We are still trying to process all this,” he said. “I am not looking to exploit David in anyway. However, we don’t want to miss an opportunity IF there is one.”
He even offered to pay me for help, and I told him he was silly. I referred him to the YouTube Partner peeps, encouraged him to monetize it (hey, college savings), but I wasn’t sure he’d get approved. My e-mail note said: “If your video had been monetized (already), you would have made a few hundred bucks (at that point). The trick is that joining the YouTube Partner program takes some time, and sometimes requires more videos…”
I was thrilled to see Booba1234 was put on a “fast track” and is now a YouTube Partner… but I can’t take credit.
In retrospect, I realize how easy it must have been for YouTube to say yes. At nearly 30 million views, “David at the Dentist” video has probably been viewed more times than the entire history of many existing YouTube Partner channels. It’s not “charity” to help one-hit wonders monetize. YouTube also profited from the viral sensations as soon as it was able to include the video in partner content (where it fetches exponentially more dollars per view than the mass of other content on its site).
The lesson? If you hit the “viral lottery” with a video, apply for a YouTube Partner account as quickly as possible. While YouTube historically accepted only established video creators who were “most subscribed” or posted videos fairly frequently, the company is eager to monetize the “long tail” of video content… and frankly some of these “viral one-hit wonders” qualify as part of the “short tail.” BUT don’t waste a lot of effort creating more content unless you enjoy it, or you have more video that will interest the same audience who devoured your one-hit wonder.
While it’s nice for these viralizers to have residual income from one video, few “one-hit wonders” have succeeded in evolving that into a broader platform. For example, David’s dad has only about 15K subscribers, and has posted just a few videos since “David at the Dentist” went viral 7 months ago (January 2009). He is trying to monetize his classic moment in other ways: offering the video for sale (via download) for $1.99, and a link to a t-shirt website (http://www.davidafterdentist.com), which is currently dead.
Similarly, the famed Gary Brolsma aka “Numa Numa kid” will enjoy continued revenue from his one-hit wonder (assuming they find his original and not the myriad of ripoffs). And his “return” video fetched a nice 13 million views. But his new channel (NewNuma) has under 35,000 subscribers and is basically distributing unrelated content by other creators, presumably who pay him for a cost-efficient way to access his residual audience.
And look at Cynthia Holmes’ Otters Holding Hands, which has partner ads but sits in a channel with fewer than 500 subscribers. She’s posted more videos of her kids, but they’re not getting noteworthy views.
Then there are some one-hit wonders like “Evolution of Dance” (YouTube’s most-viewed video) that infringes on copyrights and can’t likely be monetized. And dancer Jason Laipply has done precious little to extend his platform since (unless you count a sponsorship for Stopain under the guise of being an arthritis foundation video, which was viewed under 50,000 times.
An exception? The parents of “Charlie Bit My Finger” have an account, HDCYT, with 57,000 subscribers, and have continued to post well-viewed videos ranging from cute new ones to television recaps about Charlie. He’s also selling t-shirts. Perhaps there’s something enchanting about watching these kids grow up… a sharp contrast from the awkward return of Numa Numa or unrelated sequels to a cute otter moment.
Leave it to the hyper talented Davideo Designs (see his website at www.davideodesign.co.uk) to create this magically delicious “YouTube Celebrity Dance-Off” competition. The poor guy solicited clips from YouTubers, and patienty waited. Finally he decided to go with special effects listed below.
After SMPFilms decided to bust me in his recent video (which will probably be deleted before you see this), I can only celebrate that his face was placed over an older woman. How perfect.
It also features sxephil, charlestrippy, lonelygirl14, geriatric1927, brookers and me.
Online video collaborations are probably my favorite part of online video. Probably the first online-video creator with whom I developed a parasocial relation was the affable homeless guy from Texas known as Marquisdejolie. He has a blog. Google it (anyone catch that reference?).
Via JibJab, here’s him break dancing with me, and songwriter-nurse-YouTuber, ChristopherMast.
Before online video, it’s unlikely that we’d have ever met, much less appear break dancing together. And you might argue that would have been a good thing, but I beg to differ.