Rebecca Black Draws Millions of Views for 'Friday' Follow-Up

August 04, 2011

Another 20 million views for Rebecca Black. Black released her anticipated "My Moment" video in mid-July and here's a quick look back at the views it's picked up, which total roughly 22 million at the time of posting:

At it's peak, Black's video was seen 4.6 million times in one day.

Black's "Friday" was posted in February and became a web phenomenon in March.

And what a phenomenon it was. "Friday" racked up 100 million views in just roughly a month, which was faster than Justin Bieber accomplished it. As we pointed out, the fact that her first video was about a day of the week actually ended up being a contributing factor to that video's staying power.

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Marine Balls: The hottest ticket since the Oscars?

July 21, 2011

It’s been a big summer for the Marines on YouTube, since Sergeant Scott Moore, currently stationed in Afghanistan, asked Mila Kunis to his Marine Corps Ball in Greenville, North Carolina.

Moore’s YouTube invitation has received over 3.3 million views to date and after much “will she or won’t she” speculation, it looks like Kunis will be taking Moore up on his offer.

Now Marines across the country are trying their luck with Hollywood’s top celebs. Kunis’s co-star, Justin Timberlake has accepted an invite to a similar ball, while Golden Girl Betty White turned down Sergeant Ray Lewis for an October Marine gala.

On Tuesday, Terminator star Linda Hamilton turned the tables and said she would go with Lewis to the ball in lieu of White. This video makes YouTube’s trending list this week.

This week, PFC Hart who is stationed at Camp Pendleton in California, also joined the fray by asking Miley Cyrus to be his date for his upcoming Marine ball. Here’s his video:

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Grand Rapids, Michigan: Lip-Dub Capital of America?

July 13, 2011

Grand Rapids is at it again this week with their incredible lip-dub ways.

As you may recall, in late May the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan created a "world record" lip-dub featuring 5,000 residents that quickly spread around the country, drawing over 3.6 million views.

Lip-dubs, choreographed, elaborate lip-sync performances, have existed on YouTube for years and have been popular with students in the United States as well as (if not more so) with students in Europe.

Interestingly, a look at YouTube search data shows that the biggest spike in searches we've seen for "lip dub" (red) coincides closely with searches for "grand rapids" (blue):

Well, now, another group of residents in Grand Rapids -- this time from the Clark Retirement Community -- teamed up with students from Grand Valley State to produce a new Michael Buble lip-dub, a video that's drawing attention since it was featured on Gawker.

Grand Valley Students have actually demonstrated their epic lip-dubbing skills in the past.

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Double Rainbow: One-Year Anniversary

July 11, 2011

It was one year ago this past week that Paul "Yosemite Bear" Vasquez and his now-world-famous encounter with a Double Rainbow first went viral and entered pop culture history. As you may recall, the clip was posted in January, but it wasn't until a July tweet from Jimmy Kimmel -- and later a remix from the Gregory Brothers -- that the video first began making the rounds on pop culture sites and drew over half a million views in a single day.

The clip, which was one of the most-viewed of 2010, has been seen nearly 30 million times since then. Even now, a year later, it's still viewed close to 100,000 times per week.

Here's a graph of its popularity in 2010:

(May take a moment to load in full.)

Today, there are over 10,000 "double rainbow-"related videos on YouTube. Some of them are funny spoofs, and some are just clips of other double rainbows captured by those fortunate enough to have witnessed one. (One of the most famous post-double rainbow double rainbows came in the wake of the disastrous tornado that tore through Joplin, Missouri.)

Vasquez has continued to post videos of his daily exploits, and uploaded this one on Thursday to mark the occasion:

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'Game of Thrones' Theme Covers

July 06, 2011

HBO's Game of Thrones, might have ended its season late last month, but the show has some rabid fans already -- as evidenced by the videos below -- and some GoT-related videos have continued to be popular into July.

Most notably, we've seen a number of creative takes on the show's theme song from musicians of all kinds on YouTube, ranging instruments from the violin to 8-bit Nintendo-esque sounds.

Here's the original for comparison:

And here's a selection of fan-made covers that've popped up this week as well as over the show's run:

(Use the arrows to navigate between videos or watch them all here.)

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How the Non-Cat Cat Video Went Big

June 29, 2011

Believe it or not, the most viewed cat video of the past month on YouTube doesn't contain any actual cats.

"Debbie" posted the video June 3rd, since then it's consistently been among our Most Shared videos and entered the top 15 most-viewed of the month. It inspired numerous parodies, a number of which you can view here. You can see in the chart below that at its peak earlier in June, "eHarmony Video Bio" drew 2 million views in one day.

While you may have been initially unsure of how serious she's is, "Debbie" is actually a young woman named Cara Hartmann, who describes herself as an entertainer.

As we know, these types of videos have done well before. Chris Crocker's "Leave Britney Alone" has been seen close to 40 million times. Hartmann's video was first picked up by pop culture sites like The Daily Wh.at and Someecards on June 9 and quickly spread to broader sites on the 10th when it also became very popular on Facebook.

The video is still averaging close to 100,000 views per day.

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What They're Watching: Kids React

June 07, 2011

This post was authored by Bailey Johnson as a part of a YouTube Trends series exploring the videos being watched this week by the team at What's Trending.

In these troubled times, with war, recession and natural disasters in the news seemingly every day, it's hard to know where to turn. Everyone wants to know: who has the answers? Where can I turn to for advice and good news? As with so many things, the answers lie in the hearts and minds of children. Their innocent eyes and pure emotions can provide new depth to any situation.

They can be pretty damn sassy, though.

Benny and Rafi Fine - also known as The Fine Bros - have perfected their own unique genre of entertainment in their web series "Kids React." What will the gang of kids think about Rebecca Black? Charlie Sheen? Nyan Cat?

Let's take a quick tour through some "Kids React" vids and find out.

Kids talk about babies talking. It's like falling down a generational rabbit hole.

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Popular Movie Trailer Marriage Proposals

May 25, 2011

One of the Most Shared and Top Trending videos of the past week has been this movie theater proposal clip, which features Matt and Ginny's now famous engagement before a screening of Fast Five. It's picked up over 13 million views since it was posted just over a week ago:

Regular Trends readers will know that this may be the most viewed of its kind on YouTube, but it's definitely not the first proposal we've seen done in a movie theater via trailer The trend really kicked into gear last fall, when these two popular proposals, which are both of a similar style, were first posted:

Most of the trailer proposals we've seen sadly don't include the reaction of the lucky proposee. Instead, the couples chose to post the trailer itself and save the story of their romantic moment for the video's description, as with these two popular clips:

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Real or Fake: Viral Ad of the Day?

May 16, 2011

One of our Most Shared and top Trending videos today is this clip of Tampa Bay Ray Evan Longoria seemingly saving a field reporter from injury by catching a line drive with his bare hands just above her head. The video started drawing an audience late last week, but saw a sharp increase over the weekend when it drew over half a million views.

Some point to the (subtle?) branding within the footage as an indication that the video is actually a spot from Gillette -- Longoria is already a part of the company's Young Guns 2011 campaign -- and Gillette has been known to get creative with their videos, as evidenced by 2010's Roger Federer trickshot clip that's been seen 8.4 million times.

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'Royal Wedding Entrance' Averaging Millions of Views

April 20, 2011

Though it was only posted late last Friday, T-Mobile's "Royal Wedding Entrance" video has become one of the top 10 most-viewed videos of the past month on YouTube. The clip, which is a spoof of the now-famous JK Wedding" video, has picked up nearly 7 million views since last Friday, and as indicated in the chart below, is still averaging over 1 million views per day.

On Friday, the video generated a lot of buzz on Twitter and recieved an early boost from celebrity choreographer Louie Spence. Today, it's still among our Most Shared videos overall and it remains the Most Viewed video in the United Kingdom.

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Rebecca Black Hits 100 Million Views

April 14, 2011

Rebecca Black's "Friday" video officially crossed the 100 million view mark this week. The video, which was posted in February, really took off in March, roughly a mere one month ago.

Here's an point of comparison: it took Justin Bieber's "Baby" -- the most-viewed music video on YouTube -- 2 months and 8 days to hit 100 million views. The chart below compares the daily views for "Baby" and "Friday" starting on their posting to the day they hit 100 million:

There are numerous other iconic viral videos that have never even hit the 100 million mark, like "Bed Intruder" or "David After Dentist." As we mentioned previously, Black's video exists as both a standard viral clip and a music video with some staying power, which could account for its longer tail, though it's hard to imagine it could catch Bieber's 561 million total.

Something else we've noted in the past is that Black's video has inspired a serious parody and cover phenomenon as well, resulting in numerous alternate-day-of-the-week variations. A number of them have drawn over a million views and there is a video with at least 100,000 views for every other day of the week now:

(May take a moment to load. Watch the full playlist here.)

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How David Beckham's Pepsi Video Was Shared

One of this week's Most Shared videos is the Pepsi David Beckham trick-shot video (below), a clip that's inspired a viral "real or fake" debate and drawn roughly 2 million views since last Friday.

Interestingly, one of the most influential Twitter users to the early spread of the video was Giada De Laurentiis who posted it Friday. Of course, the other early influencer was a little bit closer to home for the star: Victoria Beckham tweeted later that day, "Check out my husband's ball skills!!!"

The video got a second major push on Twitter Tuesday after being shared by a Japanese pop culture account.

A look at the numbers shows that the video started growing in popularity in North America first, accounting for the first spike in the chart below. The video then began to increase views from Europe and the world at large in the days following:

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Why Rebecca Black Might Be Around Longer Than Other Viral Stars

April 08, 2011

Not all viral videos were created (or perform) equal. Most seemingly-instant-classics cause a huge, abrupt spike in interest from people searching around the world, only to just as quickly disappear until it's time to create those year-end top 10 lists.

Take, for example, Ted Williams, the homeless man who became an international star after his incredible voice was discovered on a Columbus roadside. Various versions of that video were viewed tens of millions of times in early January. Below is a graph of relative searches for "golden voice" during that month:

So now let's compare that to March's biggest viral star, Rebecca Black. Interest in the singer has persisted well beyond the first few days of that trend. She's still a trending topic on YouTube today, nearly a month later. Why?

Initial theories:

It's a song. In general, music videos often behave differently than other types of popular videos because they naturally stand up better to repeated viewings. In a case like this, the song gets stuck in your head, so you might decide to listen to it again.
It's more ripe for parody. Even now, we are still seeing large numbers of Rebecca Black parody and cover videos appearing all over the site. (A search will turn up over 1,000 Rebecca Black parodies from just this week.) Today, a religious version is trending and, earlier this week, we even discovered one from Brazil in Portuguese.

But there's one clear, additional factor that separates Rebecca Black's "hit" music video from all others and it's depicted in the chart below, which tracks relative search interest gobally in "Rebecca Black" over the past 30 days or so:

"Rebecca Black" searches see a jump every Friday.

(The weekly spikes are even more pronounced for the word "Friday," which is a term that's seeing more searches now than it ever has on YouTube.)

The video, which has been seen approximately 90 million times, will likely have another bump today as our data shows that -- just like searches for the song -- views of the video also increase every Friday. Interesting aside: even though "Friday" blew up the week of the 13th, the single day that the video was watched the most times was Friday the 25th, well after the song had become completely ubiquitous, which underscores the fact that the way we watch this video differs from others.

This whole day-appropriate-video-watching phenomenon is nothing new. As we documented back in February, video views for the 1995 Bone Thugs-n-Harmony jam "First of the Month" still increase sharply every first day of each month.

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Boom Boom Boom: 'Weehoo' Videos

March 30, 2011

Over the past week or two, you might have seen a version of this video floating around from Norwegian user CathyMay15:

Catherine's Outhere Boys cover quickly spread across pop culture blogs and social media in March becoming a hit in places nearby and far away from Trondheim, Norway. Today, three of her videos are among the Most Shared in Sweden.

Meanwhile, a trend of parodies appeared on YouTube of other users doing their best Catherine impression -- some are more disturbingly convincing than others -- but perhaps the best reactions are from CathyMay15 fans that are just following instructions. Here are seven different examples:

(Use the arrows to navigate between videos or watch them all here.)

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What Will the Biggest March Trend Be?

March 24, 2011

Rebecca Black's "Friday" video has been dominating the pop-culture conversation over the past week, having drawn over 40 million views in roughly 10 days and inspiring hundreds of parodies and covers. But March has been a month of some major global and national trends, so we looked into the data to discover which were the largest.

Three big events drew lots of search interest in the United States this month. The top three rising U.S. searches on YouTube of the last 30 days were for Charlie Sheen, the Japanese tsunami, and Ms. Black. Below we've graphed relative searches for "friday," "sheen," and "japan" for the past month or so in the United States. And we've added "oscars" as a point of comparison.

The spike that we saw around the earthquake and tsunami in Japan was the highest overall of the group, though "Friday" also saw a huge spike last week. "Sheen" did not spike as high, but ballooned over a longer stretch. "Oscars," which is a pretty major event, is somewhat dwarfed by the others.

When you open up the searches to include international (but English-language) terms, the disparity between "japan" and "friday" spikes is greater.

Even if it was a mostly American phenomenon, just how big is/was the Rebecca Black craze?

As far as pop-stars go, "Friday" has drawn more views since March 11 -- the day the video first took off -- than all of Lady Gaga's videos combined over the same time period. While she didn't top Justin Bieber during that time-frame, she was close. And she did draw more views than Rihanna and Eminem, both of whom recently joined the one billion view club.

More:

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Why'd That Trend: Family Videos That Go Viral

March 21, 2011

This post was authored by Annemarie Dooling for Urlesque.com as a part of a new YouTube Trends series exploring viral video phenomena.

Last week a video of adorable little Emerson displaying shock and awe at his mom’s nose blowing antics vent viral; the 59 second video is little more than a close-up of his round face and has over 7 million views as of this post. Emerson is something special, but he’s hardly the first tyke to gain notoriety on YouTube.

Another tiny viral video star by the name of Micah, shot to stardom because his adorable laugh became the centerpiece of a video in which his pops rips a sheet of paper. An everyday normal activity that would put the family in stitches for hours becomes a national event when mom and dad are savvy enough to record it and upload it to the Internet. Their private family moment has suddenly gone viral, even prompting an appearance on the "Today" show.

Amateur video was recorded as early as the 1930’s and really shot to fame around 1965 when Kodak introduced Super 8 film, a product almost anyone could use. By the 1970’s, everyday family moments were shot, edited and debuted for the delight of relatives and friends around a casserole or microwave meal. Families were documenting science fairs and first steps. Having guests over to share your vacation, or your child’s first recorded word was a big deal. Today, we’re very lucky to be able to send that private moment to friends and family without the casseroles, the house cleaning and the crowded living rooms. We have personal moments halfway across the globe, but are the digital kids of 2011 really any different?

Emerson, Micah and all of the babies of YouTube are adorable. Plain and simple, these kids have a cute factor that pulls us away from the intense news and hard work of the day and allows us to laugh for a minute. They’re the widespread digital equivalent of the homecoming party, the chance to show off your adorable kin to the neighbors, on a much larger scale. For 59 seconds you’re connected to Emerson and his family. You’re a guest in their home and a witness to their private family moment. Home movies have gone viral and we’re the privileged houseguests.

Today's "Why'd That Trend" analysis provided by

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Why Everybody's Lookin' Forward to the Weekend: More Rebecca Black Covers

March 19, 2011

Aspiring popstar Rebecca Black was, without a doubt, the pop culture phenomenon of the week. On Monday, we explored how her single "Friday" was drawing big-time attention and lots of remakes. As the week progressed, her video drew 20 million views.

It also picked up a slew of additional parodies and covers, many of which are hitting our Most Shared list, two Fridays later. As of posting, a search for "friday cover" delivered nearly 2,000 results. From the past seven days.

We've put together some of the newer videos drawing the most attention in the playlist below, but feel free to leave us your favorite covers in the comments:

(Use the arrows to navigate between videos or watch them all here.)

Check back this week for more on this trend.

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The Rebecca Black Phenomenon

March 14, 2011

Last Friday, an unknown singer named Rebecca Black began a sudden upward trajectory that would catapult her into what's become one of the biggest viral phenomena of the moment. Her video for the song "Friday," was picked up by pop culture blogs on Friday and spread quickly across the weekend. "Rebecca Black" has been a trending topic on Twitter since last evening.

Up until last Thursday, the clip had drawn just over one thousand views. The video, which was posted Feb 10, now has over 2 million views and was seen over 1.3 million times yesterday alone:

Partly attributable to the sudden rise were postings by some influential tweeters on Friday who helped spread the music video. MST3K comedian Michael J. Nelson was among them and wrote, "Let this be on your lips as you head into the weekend (it also answer the ? 'what's the worst video ever made?')"

There was a similar tone taken by the pop culture sites that picked it up that day. Collectively, the video and song have become the target of jokes, criticism, and confusion on a massive viral level.

In fact, the single has inspired a number of tongue-in-cheek, parody covers ranging from pianos and banjos to a Bob Dylan imitation. We've put together a playlist below.

(Use the arrows to navigate between videos or watch them all here.)

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What Is This 'Apaci Dansi' Video?

March 01, 2011

If you've been tracking our Most Shared feed over the last two days, then you may have come across this gem, which was posted by a user in Germany:

The video was posted on the 20th, but only had a few thousand views through the 25th, mostly coming from Germany and Turkey, the two countries where it's been the most regionally popular. But in the past three days it's picked up over a million views from across Europe, Argentina, and the United States and it's still among our Most Shared videos.

So what is it exactly?

"Apaci" style, according to one explanation, is a Turkish subculture "which takes its name from the American Indian people: Apaches." Though at least one YouTube user says it doesn't have much to do with Native American, but is just a fun dance from Turkey.

There are many examples of the "Apaci Dansi" posted on YouTube, with the most popular bunch posted last spring. Below you'll find a playlist of examples all uploaded by users with channels from Turkey:

So, while to some it just looks like a dad doing a silly dance, to some users the "Hasan Baba" Apache dance has actually got the added funny layer of being sort of like a Turkish version of watching your dad do, say, "the dougie."

Of course, here in the United States, we also have a different concept of what the "Apache dance" exactly means.

(Know more about this trend? Share it in the comments!)

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'Zenga Zenga' Auto-Tune Spreads Across Middle East

February 28, 2011

Regional Popularity

In the United States, autotune has met politics plenty of times -- see: State of the Union and Rent Is Too Damn High -- but now the phenomenon has spread to the Middle East where a video from Israel of Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi has been drawing lots of attention.

Both the original and an edit without the dancing women are among Most Viewed videos in Israel -- where it originated -- and as of Sunday evening, it was also one of YouTube's overall top spiking searches, as the video continued to draw global attention.

According to viewing data, the video was definitely popular in some countries before others, indicating viral spread throughout the region. For example, prior to Sunday, when the video picked up over 500,000 views, the video spiked in Jordan and Egypt before it rose sharpest in Israel. The video has also drawn tens of thousands of views in Morocco, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and now the United States.

The autotune phenomenon began with a musical trend started by Cher's "Believe" and, famously, T-Pain, but quickly became a new parodists' tool of choice with online videomakers as it allows the user to turn any spoken piece of audio into a funny slice of pop culture.

Here in the United States, the Gregory Brothers saw big success spoofing current events, strange news, and politicians in 2010, but it seems "Auto-tuning the news" has now officially become an even more global phenomenon.

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