10-year-old Maria Aragon began posting her talents in April of 2008 when her sister shared this version of a Taylor Swift song. Since that day, she's done about 70 covers, which had drawn under 200,000 views combined up until late January.
On February 16th, she posted her latest video, a cover of Lady Gaga's "Born This Way," and it's become the #2 most-viewed video of the past week and has drawn over 12 million views.
Gaga herself tweeted the video on the morning of the 17th saying, "Can't stop crying watching this. This is why I make music. She is the future." The video was heavily shared that day -- and became one of our top spiking searches --and has been among each day's Most Shared videos almost every day since.
You can see on the chart below how the video's popularity shot up that day. You'll also notice that it's still averaging over a million views per day.
Trick shots are practically tradition on YouTube, particularly the basketball variety -- see DudePerfect, whose videos have been viewed over 33 million times, or Legendary Shots. But in the past two weeks, the proportional amount searches for "trick shot" have been at their highest, and we've seen two non-basketball "trick shot" videos find a national (and global) audience.
As we noted last week, the football "trick shot" video featuring UConn QB Johnny McEntee started as one of the Most Viewed clips in Hartford and New Haven, but it's now picked up over 4.5 million views. And approaching the one million view mark is this UNC-Asheville goalie video -- from Tuesday's 4@4 -- which is not just popular in the United States, but has all been heavily viewed in Finland.
It turns out that the viral "trick shot" history of YouTube includes some pretty diverse sports. The chart below shows YouTube searches for "trick shot" over the past two years:
(Mouse-over the peaks to find the videos released around those time periods.)
Beyond the viral hits, there are an estimated 120,000+ results for this search from a variety of sports, though, to be clear, that number also includes some video game clips.
While other ads might have seen bigger search spikes on YouTube right after the game, there's one ad that has clearly drawn the most views and seen big popularity not just in the United States, but around the world.
Volkswagen's "The Force" Super Bowl ad has been seen over 16 million times since it was posted on February 2nd. In the first day, the video was picked up by pop culture blogs and highlighted early by Jalopnik in the U.S., which posted it that morning with the headline, "The Star Wars Super Bowl commercial everyone will talk about." By the next day, the video was already atop our Most Shared list. It was viewed over one million times in the first 24 hours and over 5 million times in the first 48.
Currently, "The Force," which notably contains no dialogue, is the most-viewed overall video this week globally as well as Germany, Canada, UK, Argentina, and Poland and is in the top 5 in Australia, Ireland, India, New Zealand, Israel, South Africa, Spain, France, and Italy.
As indicated in the chart below, the video saw its highest peak on Friday, though it will be interesting to see how many views it draws today.
A little bit later, we'll be looking at some of the other ads that have drawn the most views.
Early last week, LA-based performer and writer George Watsky posted a video of his high-speed hip-hop delivery. The clip, which is still among our Most Shared today, rose in popularity nearly as fast as his rhymes came out and drew a big response from the YouTube community. By Tuesday morning, he was already among our fastest rising searches and was featured in our 4 at 4.
Some users are even comparing him to some fast-rapping legends. Twista or not, "Pale Kid," as he identifies himself in the title, saw his video quickly rise to popularity, picking up nearly a million views just last Wednesday (more detail in the chart below).
Like any legit rapper, Watsky's already getting disses from other users and some YouTube performers are trying to prove their skillz against his (warning: videos contain profanity). You can be the judge.
But the most common reactions we've found are from fans of his clip who've turned it into a challenge and decided to read his lyrics on camera as fast as they can. Here are 10 attempts, with varying levels of success:
(Use the arrows to navigate between videos or watch them all here.)
If you've been following our Most Shared videos, you've probably noticed one video that's hung around near the top of that list for nearly a week straight: the father and daughter duet cover of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros' "Home."
Recorded at 11 o'clock at night by little Alexa Narvaez and her father Jorge, who writes he's currently working through college, the video was posted on December 30th and drew under 150 views until January 3rd, when it picked up 30,000 and began making its way around social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. While initially popular in the United States, the video spread quickly and even saw a surge of popularity in Sweden on the 7th.
As you can see from the chart below, the clip ballooned to draw 1.7 million views in 6 days, and is still among our Most Shared today:
The Lonely Island's "I Just Had Sex" video -- which originally aired on Andy Samberg's other gig, "Saturday Night Live" -- has held a steady place in our Most Shared list nearly every day since it was first released and has picked up over 26 million views in just a little over two weeks.
Of videos posted in the past month, the Lonely Island video is the most-viewed by a margin of nearly 10 million views. (The #2 video also features Akon, oddly enough.) It's also seen popularity internationally, with a large portion of its views coming from other English- and even non-English-speaking countries.
This video, which also features Akon, Jessica Alba, Blake Lively and John McEnroe, is already the fourth most-viewed of the comedy team's clips. Interestingly, while it doesn't yet have as many views as, say, "I'm on a Boat" (50 million) or "Like a Boss" (40 million), it's the only Lonely Island video to have drawn this many views in such a short amount of time on YouTube. By far.
As you can see from the chart below, the strongest surge in views was immediately following the clip's airing on SNL, but the video has continued to remain popular:
Cahill, a high school sophomore with a rare disorder, had been posting videos of himself singing and lip-syncing pop songs since last October with some notice. But it wasn't until his version of "Teenage Dream" -- which has been viewed over 24 million times, was acknowledged by Katy Perry herself, and became one of our most heavily shared videos -- that Cahill began to take off and started averaging millions of views per week.
Between last October and this August, Cahill's videos were viewed 2.6 million times, which may seem like a lot. But compare that to the 125.7 million views he's drawn since. In addition to creating several popular new lip-syncs, Cahill has also done cameo videos with 50 Cent and WGN's morning show team.
As you can see in this chart showing views from this Fall, that 50 Cent cameo created a big spike for Cahill in November (mouse over the dots for more info):
We recently wondered if the "Hallelujah" video that was shot in a Macy's department store and performed by the Opera Company of Philadelphia would be the first viral hit of the holidays. What we could never have known was that it was just the start. In the week's following, another flash-mob-style performance hit YouTube, but this time from Canada.
The video, which was shot November 13th and uploaded just under a week later, has continued to grow in popularity with nearly every passing day. Of videos uploaded in the last month, it's #4 in most views -- #1 in Canada. Yesterday, it was near the top of both our Trending and Most Shared video lists, and today, it was the morning's most popular spiking search. Here's a chart of the video's daily views:
As the holiday season gets closer to full swing, we'll be closely monitoring this and other big holiday-related videos.
So cats-doing-people-things have long been a staple of YouTube, but it does take something unique to draw over 2.8 million views in a week's time, as these Patty-Cake Cats did last week.
While the footage was originally uploaded by Hong Kong YouTuber, the version below, which features funny voiced-over banter between the cats, was posted by Justin C. Elliot, who according to his profile is the Sr. High School Youth Pastor at First Baptist Church in Stockton, CA.
Here's a little perspective on how fast this one took off:
The video of the Opera Company of Philadelphia performing in a Macy's first hit the web in early November, yet with Thanksgiving and the holiday season approaching, "philadelphia macys" is still among the top spiking search terms this morning.
So far, it's been viewed over 4.2 million times and has consistently appeared among our Most Shared videos. The performance of "Hallelujah" was created for the Knight Foundation's "Random Acts of Culture" and.
Here's how this video has grown in popularity this month:
