It’s time for another round of Sharethrough Video Awards, and this week we have some real gems to highlight. There are dozens of viral video successes every week, and typically only a handful of them get lots of press. So the goal of this recurring column is to feature a few of the best viral videos from the week that maybe didn’t get the most attention. As always, these awards are completely subjective and are chosen in a manner that is neither democratic nor scientific. We just love viral videos, and these awards give us a chance to share some of our recent favorites.
And now for the award presentations:
Our first award of the evening goes to TheOLE.org—an organization of broadcasting engineers. These are the guys who climb radio and cell towers for maintenance and repair. And their viral video concept was dead simple: film the normal work we do, and put it on YouTube. Check it out—but those of you with a fear of heights should be warned that the video will likely give you the cold sweats:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txdv_oNq81I
I could never do what these guys do. I get woozy just being at the top of a roller coaster’s first hill. The tower featured in this video is taller than the Sears Tower, which makes it about a thousand times higher than I ever want to climb. Yet the men featured in this clip do it without breaking a sweat. There’s no nervousness or hesitancy whatsoever.
This is reminiscent of a similar video hit from last fall, filmed from the top of a skyscraper being built in Dubai. All at once it makes me respect these men and also assume they are certifiably insane. It’s always a good strategy to film something that the average person hasn’t ever seen—such as the view from the top of a 1700-foot tower. It gives the audience a unique look at something new. And it’s one of the most unintentionally frightening videos I’ve seen in a long time—which is why it is the clear winner of the Best Fear-Inducing Video of the Week award.
A lot of videos go viral by preying on our expectations. These videos trick the viewer into thinking they’re watching one kind of video, only to pull the rug out from under them partway through and reveal something completely unexpected. Like our second winner this week. This video purports to show off some skateboarding tricks, but that’s just the set up for what follows:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u24NkJsqdE
Setting the audience up for one thing, but then delivering something else, is an entertainment tactic as old as time. We are culturally trained to pick up on certain context cues and make assumptions. And when the filmmaker can take advantage of those assumptions to deliver a sucker punch of humor, the impact is much greater than it would be with just the joke itself.
And the punch-line of this video has several things going for it. In addition to just being funny, it’s way out of the normal context—I’ve never seen anyone doing the moon walk while being pushed by a truck down a city street. Adding in the Michael Jackson soundtrack is the final masterstroke by the creator, adding that extra touch to take things way over the top.
I’ve seen this video eight or nine times already, and it makes me laugh every time, which is all the proof I need to know that it deserves the Best Unexpected Hilarious Twist Ending award.
Dancing babies are one of the oldest kinds of viral stars on the web. YouTube is full of dancing baby videos. And there’s a good reason for that: babies are cute. And dancing babies are even cuter. You might remember this guy or this guy, both of whom prove that fact. (Don’t forget the godfather of all Internet dancing babies, this guy).
And this week we saw the arrival of another future dancing star, who is so young she has to dance in her high chair. Check it out:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YefTT7o_UEc
This gal is just adorable. The dancing might be cute enough to make this video great on its own. But it’s the facial expressions that make it epic. When a cute kid experiences pure joy like that, I don’t know how you can help but smile and start bopping right along with her. Which is what helped make this child the winner of this week’s Best Future Dance Star award.
We’re out of time for this week’s award show—I can hear the orchestra giving me my cue to get off stage. I hope you enjoyed this week’s winning videos as much as I did. Tune in next time for another round of Sharethrough’s Video Awards, as I continue digging to find the viral gems that may have escaped your notice.
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I’m back with another installment of the Sharethrough Viral Video Awards, where I try to find a few of the week’s best videos that may not have caught your attention yet. There is no science to the picks, just one man’s opinion of some diamonds in the rough from the current crop of popular videos. Let’s get to the awards:
Our first award of the evening goes to a little video starring a giant rodent… riding a tortoise. It was filmed at the Caldwell Zoo in Tyler, Texas, and the uploader initially didn’t even know what the creature was. It’s called a hyrax, apparently. It might be best if you just took a look:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5vs0jwKa-E
If animals are a staple ingredient in the world of viral video, then stacking one animal on top of another ought to double its chances. In fact, there have been one or two similar animal-riding-animal hits this year already.
Seeing one animal riding another will probably always have a certain appeal, simply because we don’t see it that often in everyday life. Actually, until YouTube came along, I had pretty much never seen one animal ride another. Toss in the mild initial mystery over the giant rodent’s identity, and you have a nice mix of intrigue and oddity. This was hands-down the best animal-stacking video of the week, which is why it’s a clear winner of our first category.
I’ve seen some pretty good rap-based viral hits in my day—the rapping SEO comes to mind—but I haven’t seen a rapping web developer. Well, I hadn’t until this week. That’s when M.C. Dave Berzack dropped his new single, “Killa Appz,” a bit of a parody of “Paper Planes,” by MIA. He’s got his mind on his markup and his markup on his mind:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV0OgsRK0Bc
This video is pretty great on its own, but if you happen to work in a field anywhere near web development, then it’s even better. He squeezes in a lot of references and inside jokes for people in that line of work, but the video’s sharp humor still plays well with the general crowd too.
I would imagine his target audience—prospective customers—understand and enjoy it. And if they’re smart enough to click through and spend some time on his portfolio, they’ll be very impressed. It’s pretty amazing. A great hook (the rap video) leading to a great product demonstration (the portfolio) is almost always an award-worthy combination.
Sometimes I’ll see a viral hit that feels like a perfect marketing opportunity for a particular brand or company. For instance, when a video of this little boy’s tirade at the zoo went viral, I instantly thought that either The Gap or the zoo itself should swoop in, buy the rights, and use the content in a marketing campaign.
Our third and final award this evening goes to a clip of a gorilla playing with a Nintendo DS. I can only assume that a child accidently dropped the gaming device into the gorilla pen, and then the animal found it. Check it out:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7JOcjt6ZLo
I have no idea what the gorilla’s true intentions are. And it doesn’t matter. Because it looks like he’s playing the DS. Which should get alarm bells ringing over at Nintendo’s marketing department. It’s the game so great, even Donkey Kong himself can’t resist it!
That’s all the time we have for the awards this week. I hope you’ll join us again next week for an entirely new set of random Viral Video Awards.
This is the first installment of a planned weekly series of Viral Video Awards, designed to give us a fun way to share and praise some of our favorite viral hits of the week that may have flown beneath your radar. The awards are totally subjective, and completely at our discretion; there is literally no scientific or mathematical process behind our decisions. Without further ado, let’s get to this week’s winners:
