Since its inception in 2005, YouTube has become a home to many things — a place for people to post historic clips, to flaunt their inner selves, to share their latest creation, to share dangerous misinformation. But at its core, YouTube is a place to get lost for hours in viral content. Here, a quick rundown of the most memorable viral videos of the site’s early days, from animated clips to news reports gone wrong to an adorable child calling Will Ferrell a bitch.To get more about video breaking news, you can visit shine news official website.
Simplicity was the most important part of early YouTube. Back when the platform kicked off, users and viewers were still figuring out what it was even for. Judson Laipply was touring as inspirational comedian at the time, and uploaded a video from one of his shows. Grainy and shot from the audience, Laipply’s six-minute video captured decades of popular dances from Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog” hip swivel to ’N Sync’s “Bye Bye Bye.” His “Evolution of Dance” video was briefly the most popular video of all time on YouTube and now has multiple sequels, especially now that social media itself has become the biggest breeding ground for new dance fads.
Sure, “Shoes” never became a massive hit song, but the video itself was a masterpiece of the comedic parody song trend that gained momentum after the Lonely Island’s “Lazy Sunday” took off a year earlier. Written by and starring comedian Liam Kyle Sullivan, “Shoes” is told from the perspective of a Valley Girl-esque young woman named Kelly (played by Sullivan) who just wants shoes for her birthday. Sullivan’s song became a viral sensation, racking up millions of views. It’s a perfect dance-pop time capsule, and predicated the type of quick-cut musical moments that would take over viral video culture through TikTok this past year. Plus, Sullivan’s Kelly took on a life of her own, even making a cameo in a Weezer video two years later.
Hokay, so: If you went to college in the mid-aughts, there is a 100 million percent chance that someone got you high in their dorm room and showed you this iconic Flash animation video outlining a potential global apocalyptic scenario. Of course, now that the end of the world actually seems semi-plausible, it’s slightly less funny, but the fact that people still regularly say “but I am le tired” on group texts as an excuse to avoid going out is a testament to the video’s cultural significance.
Ah, the mid-aughts, a time when earnest local news reports were the bread and butter of the viral internet. In this clip, the citizens of Crichton, a neighborhood of Mobile, Alabama, enthusiastically describe a recent rash of leprechaun sightings in their neighborhood. The Crichton leprechaun video hasn’t exactly aged well, with many in recent years correctly criticizing it for trafficking in offensive stereotypes (if Bill O’Reilly says a thing is racist, then honestly it probably is). Nonetheless, the crude “amateur sketch” of the folkloric figure in question is likely to still elicit a chuckle.
Georgia’s Château Élan winery just wanted to have a fun little contest on their local Fox affiliate, with reporter Melissa Sander and a winery employee rapidly stomping grapes to see who could make the most juice. But when Sanders got a little fancy with some last-minute steps, she took a plunge off the platform, falling several feet onto the ground. What took it from your standard America’s Funniest Home Video-blooper reel fare to something worthy of a Family Guy send-up were her yelps of pain — and the fact that the camera crew took an uncomfortably long time to cut away. In retrospect, when she yells that she can’t breathe, it’s more than a little cringe-worthy — especially now that we know she ended up with several broken ribs and a lengthy hospital stay.