To be considered notable, the videos must be included on at least four separate articles from different publications (inclusive of all time periods), as chosen by their editorial staff.
Me at the zoo is recognized as the first video uploaded to the platform. The 19-second video features Jawed Karim, one of the co-founders of YouTube, being recorded by his high school friend, Yakov Lapitsky. In the video, Karim is seen standing in front of two elephants at the San Diego Zoo in California, where he briefly comments on the length of their trunks.[A]
Lazy Sunday is a single and short film by American comedy troupe The Lonely Island. Some time in 2005 to 2006 multiple unofficial uploads of the video went viral and were cumulatively watched more than five million times on YouTube. YouTube at that time was a startup website that appeared to be aimed for video creators, but by February 2006, due to "Lazy Sunday", established itself as a home for any type of video sharing. In August 2013, an official upload of the video was upload to the Saturday Night Live YouTube channel uploaded "Lazy Sunday".[B]
Al Gore's Penguin Army is a two-minute-long satirical webvideo posted on YouTube on May 24, 2006, spoofing Al Gore and his movie An Inconvenient Truth. There is evidence that the video is a product of the dishonest marketing technique of astroturfing. The Wall Street Journal consulted a professor of communications who described the spoof as "'Propaganda 101' and said: "It contains no factual information, but presents a highly negative image [of Al Gore]."[C]
The Bus Uncle (X尚義聲線高壓呀叔搭巴士途中問候後生仔) is a Hong KongCantoneseviral video depicting a verbal altercation between two men aboard a KMB bus in Hong Kong on 27 April 2006. The older and more belligerent of the two men was quickly nicknamed the "Bus Uncle", from the common Hong Kong practice of referring to older men as "Uncle" (阿叔).[D]
Charlie the Unicorn is a 2005 animated comedy short film created by Jason Steele of independent film company FilmCow in Orlando, Florida. Charlie the Unicorn has become increasingly popular since its inception. Following its posting on Newgrounds in 2005, Geoff Swanson of YouTube posted a copy of the video on the website in 2006, where it rapidly gained popularity.[E]
La Caída de Edgar (Edgar's Fall) is a 2006 video of Mexican boys Edgar Martinez and Fernando, hiking in a ranch near their home town of Monterrey. It starts with Edgar using a makeshift bridge that crosses a small stream when Fernando makes a joke about pushing Edgar off the bridge into the water. Edgar finally loses his balance, plunging into the stream. Edgar curses more intensively as he emerges from the water, while Fernando asks for forgiveness.[F]
lonelygirl15 is an American science fictionthrillerweb series created by Miles Beckett, Mesh Flinders, Greg Goodfried, and Amanda Goodfried. It was independently released on YouTube from June 16, 2006, to August 1, 2008, and was also briefly released on Revver and Myspace.[G]
Noah takes a photo of himself every day for 6 years. (2006)
Noah takes a photo of himself every day for 6 years (or Everyday) is an ongoing art project by American photographer Noah Kalina that gained widespread attention when the first segment of the project, was released in 2006 and became a viral video. The first everyday video features a fast montage of thousands of pictures of Kalina spanning a period of six years all played sequentially as a time lapse.[H]
Evolution of Dance is a performance by Judson Laipply and uploaded by Ireneusz Krosny, the video consisted of 12 popular dance songs of the late 20th century. In the video which was later uploaded to YouTube on April 6, 2006, he is seen performing various dance moves on stage with a spot light pointing at him in under 8 minutes.[I]
Kiwi! is a 2006 computer-generated animation short film created by Dony Permedi as his Master's Thesis project at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. The music was composed and performed by Tim Cassell. The short gained widespread popularity online after being uploaded to YouTube. the animation has been viewed over 49 million times. It won official recognition on March 26, 2007, when viewers voted it the Most Adorable video of 2006 in the first annual YouTube Video Awards.[J]
Male Restroom Etiquette is a 2006 American short subject created by Phil R. Rice and produced by his company Zarathustra Studios. The film is a mockumentary about unwritten rules of behavior in male restrooms and is intended to be a parody of educational and social guidance films. the film became popular on YouTube, where, after being featured on the front page in early October 2006.[K]
Numa Numa is an Internet meme based on a video by American vloggerGary Brolsma made after the song "Dragostea din Tei", released by Moldovan pop group O-Zone in 2003. Brolsma's video, entitled Numa Numa Dance, was uploaded to the website Newgrounds on December 6, 2004.[L]
Techno Viking is an internet phenomenon and meme based on a video from the 2000 Fuckparade in Berlin, Germany. In 2006 an unknown user re-published it to YouTube, and it went viral in 2007. According to Fritsch, its popularity began on a Central American pornography site. By mid-2010, the video had generated over 20 million hits on YouTube alone; as of January 2013, the original version had more than 16 million views.[M]
iPhone bill is an video where YouTube personality Justine Ezarik better known as iJustine, gets a 300-page iPhone bill from AT&T Mobility mailed in a box, which became an Internet meme in August 2007. Total views were reported to exceed 8 million by the end of 2007. Ezarik said she earned $2,000 from the video from Revver.[N]
Battle at Kruger is an eight-minute amateur wildlife video that depicts a confrontation between a herd of Cape buffalo, a small group of young lions from a pride, and two crocodiles. Since being posted on YouTube on 3 May 2007, Battle at Kruger has received over 90 million views as of 2023 and has become a viral video sensation. It was widely praised for its dramatic depiction of wildlife on the African savannah.[O]
Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out is the name of a viral video uploaded to YouTube in early 2007. The campaign was created by Canadian Advertising Agency, Capital C. Seemingly shot by one of three bridesmaids, it shows a bride (Canadian actress Jodi Behan) so unhappy with her hairstyle on her wedding day that she starts cutting it off.[P]
Charlie Bit My Finger is a 2007 Internet viral video famous for being at the time the most viewed YouTube video. featuring Harry Davies-Carr (aged 3) and Charlie Davies-Carr (aged 1), two brothers from England. Both seated in a chair, Charlie nibbles on Harry's finger, to the amusement of both. Harry says "Charlie bit me" As of October 2022, the video received over 897 million views. It became the second most viewed video in August 2009, and took over the title as the most viewed video ever at the end of October 2009, when it surpassed "Evolution of Dance". By November 2009, "Charlie Bit My Finger – Again!" had received over 130 million views.[Q]
"Chocolate Rain" Original Song by Tay Zonday (2007)
Chocolate Rain is a song by American singer Tay Zonday. It quickly became popular after the music video for the song was uploaded to YouTube on April 22, 2007, and has since been viewed more than 140 million times as of May 2025. From time to time, Zonday moves away from the microphone in between lines; an explanation is provided via a caption that appears early in the video – "**I move away from the mic to breathe in".[R]
Crush on Obama is an Internet viral video, first posted on YouTube in June 2007 featuring a young woman seductively singing of her love for then-U.S. Senator (later President) Barack Obama. On June 13, 2007, the video was posted to the video sharing website YouTube and garnered over one thousand views within the first five hours of its posting. By the second day the American news media had taken notice of the video's growing popularity. Relles, Ettinger and Kauffman appeared on many television news programs.[S]
Daft Hands is a 2007 YouTubeviral video which shows a pair of hands moving to reveal each word of the Daft Punk song Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger lyrics. The video was performed by Austin Hall, who later appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. In 2010. The video inspired numerous remakes including the variant Daft Bodies; both videos, along with other viral videos, were referenced in Weezer's "Pork and Beans" music video.[T]
Dramatic Chipmunk is a viral Internet video. The video is a five-second clip of a prairie dog (erroneously referred to as a chipmunk) turning its head while the camera zooms in and dramatic music is played. Since its release, the video has received over fifty million views. People Magazine named the Dramatic Chipmunk as one of The 10 Wildest YouTube Stars of 2007.[U]
Vote Different (or Hillary 1984) is the title of the viral video that combines the footage of the 2008 presidential campaign web announcement by Hillary Clinton with the 1984 Super Bowl commercial by Apple Inc. for the launch of Macintosh. The video shows the same blond female athlete from the 1984 Super Bowl commercial updated with an iPod. The Big Brother image that she throws the sledgehammer at is replaced with Hillary Clinton announcing that she is running for president.[V]
Italian Spiderman is an Australian short filmparody of Italian action–adventure films of the 1960s and 1970s, first released on YouTube in 2007. The project began as a trailer for a non-existent film, created by director Dario Russo. It was filmed on one 16mm roll of film in one day. Once it was uploaded online, the trailer went viral and got several million views.[W]
Keyboard Cat is a video-based internet meme. Its original form was a video made in 1984 by Charlie Schmidt of his cat Fatso seemingly playing a musical keyboard (though manipulated by Schmidt off-camera) to a cheery tune. While Schmidt had uploaded the video himself to YouTube in 2007, and became a popular meme.[X]
Omoide wa Okkusenman! (ロックマン2 - おっくせんまん or 110 million memories!) is a song that has become an Internet meme in Japan. The original song was composed by Capcom composer Takashi Tateishi as the background music for Doctor Wily's Stage in Mega Man 2 titled "Wily's Castle (Dr. Wily Stage 1)", but was eventually rearranged by an individual solely known as "Blue Fang" (蒼い牙, Aoi Kiba). Lyrics were later written for this version of the song, and then posted to YouTube on February 6, 2007.[Z]
Potter Puppet Pals: The Mysterious Ticking Noise (2007)
The trouble with Islam is a video by Pat Condell, in which he gives a monologue about his criticisms of Islam. Condell said that its popularity proves "there is an enthusiastic audience for comedy ideas and opinions which are routinely censored out of existence in the UK’s mainstream media, thanks to misguided political correctness". The video is under the Creative Commons license.[AB]
Jizz in My Pants is a SNL Digital Short which aired on Saturday Night Live on December 6, 2008, and YouTube on the same day. It serves as the music video for the first single from the Lonely Island's debut album, Incredibad. The video was published first on YouTube along with most of Lonely Island's works. As of May 2022, "Jizz in My Pants" has been watched over 263 million times, making it Lonely Island's second-most popular video ever, after "I Just Had Sex".[AE]
Footage of a Man Who Spent 41 Hours Trapped in an Elevator (2008)
The 1221 Avenue of the Americas skyscraper in 2016
Footage of a Man Who Spent 41 Hours Trapped in an Elevator (or Trapped in an Elevator for 41 Hours) is a video from The New Yorker of the 1999 elevator incident in the 1221 Avenue of the Americas skyscraper. On October 15, 1999, Nicholas White, a Business Week employee whose office was in the building, became trapped in an elevator after a brief power dip caused it to stop between the 13th and 14th floors. White was not rescued until approximately 4:00p.m. on Sunday, October 17, nearly 41 hours later, after security guards spotted him in the elevator surveillance cameras.[AF]
Trent from Punchy is a fictional YouTube celebrity. Trent first appeared in a YouTube video entitled Trent from Punchy, in a reference to the Western Sydney suburb of Punchbowl on 1 February 2008. Trent's antics and language in the original video helped it become a viral sensation, and the character of Trent gathered a cult following. The video had over 2 million views by May 2009.[AG]
Wario Land: Shake It – Amazing Footage! is a YouTube advertisement for the 2008 Wii video game Wario Land: Shake It! in which the protagonist Wario does various large-impact actions and collecting items, causing the surrounding YouTube webpage to be destroyed bit by bit while these items accumulate around the page. The YouTube ad campaign was well received by marketing professionals and gaming blogs.[AH]
Ataque de pánico! (or Panic Attack!) is a 2009 Uruguayan science fictionshort film directed by independent filmmaker Fede Álvarez. The film was premiered on October 31, 2009, at the Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre film festival and uploaded to YouTube on November 3, 2009. Following widespread media coverage, Álvarez was offered a 30-million-dollar Hollywood deal to develop and direct a full-length film.[AI]
Bale Out: RevoLucian's Christian Bale Remix! (2009)
Bale Out: RevoLucian's Christian Bale Remix! is a satiricaldance remix by American composerLucian Piane, also known as RevoLucian, released on February 2, 2009, to YouTube and Myspace. hours after the original clip of Bale appeared on the internet. Piane made an MP3 file of "Bale Out" available as a free download from his MySpace page. "Bale Out" had been viewed over 200,000 times one day after it was uploaded to YouTube, and within two days it had received 700,000 hits.[AJ]
Best Drag Queen Entrance EVER! is a video by Tandi Iman Dupree, in the video she performances the song "Wonder Woman" at the Miss Gay Black America pageant in 2001, the video of which went on to become an Internet viral hit after it was uploaded to YouTube in 2009.[AK]
David After Dentist is an Internet phenomenon which started when David DeVore Jr.'s father posted a video on the Internet of his reaction to anesthesia after he had been given oral surgery. As of 8 September 2022, it has been viewed 141 million times on YouTube.[AL]
Democracy Manifest is an October 1991 Australian news segment video by the reporter Chris Reason. It shows a man being arrested by Queensland Police at a Chinese restaurant. As the police forcibly detain him, he remarks in a stentorian tone, "Gentlemen, this is democracy manifest!", "What is the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent Chinese meal?", "Get your hand off my penis!", and, after an aborted attempt by a police officer to headlock him, "I see that you know your judo well."[AM]
Disgusting Domino's People is a series of five viral videos uploaded to YouTube on April 13, 2009, which depict a male employee at a Domino's Pizza restaurant, Michael Setzer, contaminating ingredients with his nostrils and buttocks while a co-worker, Kristy Hammonds, narrates that items with those ingredients will go out to customers.[AN]
JK Wedding Entrance Dance is a viral video originally uploaded to YouTube on July 19, 2009, featuring the wedding of Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz, using "Forever" by Chris Brown as the song for their wedding march. In its first 48 hours, the video accumulated more than 3.5 million views. The original upload of the video was the third most popular video on YouTube in 2009, and as of July 2021 had been viewed over 100 million times.[AP]
THE LONGEST WAY 1.0 - 350 days of hiking through China - TIMELAPSE. (2009)
The Longest Way is a 2009 viral video uploaded by Christoph Rehage. The video features Rehage walking 4646km (2887 miles) from Beijing to Ürümqi during 2007 and 2008. It has received over 50 million views, as of August 2022. TIME listed the video as the #8 top viral video of 2009.[AQ]
Left to right: Tim Sutton, Troy Wagner, Joseph DeLage, the creators of Marble Hornets
Marble Hornets is an alternate realityYouTubeweb series based on the Slender Man online mythos. The first video was posted on YouTube on June 20, 2009, following a post that its creator, Troy Wagner, created on the Something Awful forum the previous day. It was the first web series to be created around the character, and the first Marble Hornets affiliated post being 9 days after the character's creation.[AR]
Me and My Dick is a musical with music and lyrics by A.J. Holmes, Carlos Valdes, and Darren Criss, Me and My Dick is a coming of age tale about a "boy with a very special relationship with his very best friend ... his Dick! Together they face the trials of growing up, love, sex and high school, but these two best pals are in for the adventure of a lifetime."[AS]
R U Professional is a 2009 satirical song by the American indie rock band The Mae Shi, inspired by a July 2008 outburst by actor Christian Bale on the set of Terminator Salvation. R U Professional was made available on YouTube and MediaFire on February 3, 2009. The video description on YouTube by the group stated, "Song By The Mae Shi celebrating the life and work of Xtian Bale.[AT]
AC Transit Bus fight is an American viral video depicting a physical altercation between two men aboard an AC Transit bus in Oakland, California, on February 15, 2010. The altercation was recorded by a nearby passenger, who uploaded it to video hosting websiteYouTube. It ranked among the top five most viewed videos on YouTube in its first week, but was not included in the official list, and has received over six million views.[AW]
Baby is a song by Canadian singer Justin Bieber featuring American rapper Ludacris. It was released as the lead single on Bieber's debut studio album, My World 2.0. The track was written by the artists alongside Christina Milian and producers Tricky Stewart and The-Dream. The official music video is the 39th most-viewed video on YouTube. As of January 2025, it is also the fourth-most-disliked video and the most-disliked music video on the platform.[AY]
Bed Intruder Song is a song by the Gregory Brothers and Antoine Dodson, featuring Kelly Dodson. The song, created for Auto-Tune the News, features processed vocals of a WAFF-48 news interview with Antoine Dodson, who was talking to a reporter about a home invasion and attempted rape of his sister Kelly. The original music video for "Bed Intruder Song" went viral, becoming YouTube's most popular video of 2010. As of September 10, 2023, it has been viewed over 154 million views and has received 1.2 million likes since it was uploaded on July 30, 2010.[AZ]
Double Rainbow was a viral video filmed by Paul "Bear" Vasquez (September 5, 1962 – May 9, 2020). The clip, filmed in 2010 in his front yard just outside Yosemite National Park in California, shows his ecstatic reaction to a double rainbow. As of May 2025, Vasquez's video had accumulated more than 51 million views on YouTube.[BA]
Minecraft Multiplayer Fun is a 2010 YouTube video, noted for being the oldest video available for viewing on the PewDiePie channel. The video was uploaded by Felix Kjellberg, the owner of the channel, on 2 October 2010. Also featuring Xebaz, a friend of Kjellberg's, the video shows the two playing Minecraft, a sandbox video game. "Minecraft Multiplayer Fun" has been viewed more than 22 million times as of March 2024.[BC]
Gunman Kills Self After Opening Fire on Florida School Board (2010)
The Panama City shootings occurred on December 14, 2010, in Panama City, Florida. In the attack, a disgruntled individual, Clay Allen Duke, fired four or five shots at six Bay District School board members, but missed them all, including the superintendent. The video was subsequently uploaded to video sharing sites, including YouTube.[BD]
We Are The World 25 For Haiti (YouTube Edition) (2010)
We Are the World 25 for Haiti (YouTube edition) is a collaborative charity song and music video produced by singer-songwriter Lisa Lavie and posted to the YouTube video sharing website to raise money for victims of the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake.[BE]
The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger (original narration by Randall) (2011)
Friday is the debut single by American singer Rebecca Black. It was written and produced by Los Angeles record producers Clarence Jey and Patrice Wilson. The song's music video was released on February 10, 2011. The original music video was removed from YouTube on June 16, 2011, due to legal disputes between ARK Music and Black. By then, it had already amassed more than 167 million views. The video was later re-uploaded to YouTube on September 16, 2011. The music video for the song is one of the most disliked YouTube videos of all time.[BH]
El FUA is an Internet meme involving a viral YouTube video of an intoxicated Mexican man called Julio César Segura, who claims to have divine powers, including fortune-telling and revival of the dead. El Fua became popular after an online news program, Nayarit en Línea, from Nayarit, Mexico, uploaded the video to YouTube.[BI]
Life in a Day is a crowd-sourceddocumentary film comprising an arranged series of video clips selected from 80,000 clips submitted to the YouTube video sharing website, the clips showing respective occurrences from around the world on a single day, 24 July 2010. The premiere was streamed live on YouTube. On 31 October 2011, YouTube announced that Life in a Day would be available for viewing on its website free of charge, and on DVD.[BL]
Nek minnit is an Internet meme made popular by New Zealand skateboarder Levi Hawken. Hawken appeared in a viral video which shows a scooter, apparently destroyed outside a dairy. The "nek minnit" video spawned many parodies and has become a popular slang term among the people of New Zealand.[BM]
Nyan Cat is a YouTube video uploaded in April 2011, which became an Internet meme. The video merged a Japanese pop song with an animated cartoon cat with a Pop-Tart for a torso flying through space and leaving a rainbow trail behind. The video ranked at number five on the list of most viewed YouTube videos in 2011.[BN]
Portal: No Escape is a shortfan film based on the Portal video game series directed by Dan Trachtenberg. The film was released on August 23, 2011. As of July 2022, the video has received over 27 million views. The video was later featured on VentureBeat's "Top 10 Best Gaming Videos of 2011" list.[BO]
Ty kto takoy? Davay, do svidaniya! is a title of the viral video, showing meykhana performance with repeating hook in Russian: "Ty kto takoy? Davay, do svidaniya!" by two brothers Intigam and Ehtiram Rustamov from Azerbaijan. The video was filmed on 5 November 2011 at a wedding in Tangarud, Azerbaijan and as of August 2024 it was viewed over 25 million times on YouTube. It is sung in the form of flyting between Talysh and Baku groups in Azerbaijani, Talysh and Russian languages. The video was also viewed over 10 million times at theinstv, the YouTube channel of Insanity TV.[BQ]
YouTube Copyright School is a video of the American adult animated series Happy Tree Friends created for YouTube. It was uploaded by the official YouTube channel on March 24, 2011. It is created for YouTube users who infringe copyright for the first time, which results in their first "copyright strike." Afterwards, the user is sent to Copyright School, which contains the video along with a quiz where they need to answer a few questions.[BS]
Zenga Zenga is an auto-tuned song and viralYouTube video that parodied the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The song, released on February 22, 2011, quickly became popular among the Libyan opposition active in the 2011 Libyan civil war. The song was created by Noy Alooshe, an Israeli journalist and musician. The original video has more than 6 million views and the edited "clean" version has surpassed 1 million hits.[BT]
Sweet Brown on apartment fire: "Ain't Nobody Got Time for That!" (2012)
Ain't Nobody Got Time for That is a viral YouTube video of Kimberly "Sweet Brown" Wilkins being interviewed after having escaped a fire in an apartment complex. It originally aired on April 8, 2012, on Oklahoma CityNBC affiliate KFOR-TV.The video garnered Sweet Brown many appearances on television, including a visit to ABC's The View.[BU]
Arrest of Vladimir Putin: A Report from the Courtroom (2012)
Arrest of Vladimir Putin: A Report from the Courtroom (Aрест Владимира Путина: репортаж из зала суда) is a viral video, originally posted on YouTube on February 13, 2012, by the Russian video publishing group "Lancelot". The mock video shows then-Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin facing a courtroom trial. The footage was taken from the real-life trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and then digitally altered to make a faux news report. Putin's reply to the judge is taken from television footage where Putin is participating in the 2010 census.[BV]
Making The Bus Monitor Cry is one of three videos filmed in June 2012 which focused on a bus monitor, who was targeted for bullying by four seventh graders attending Greece Athena Middle School. The video went viral and received numerous video responses and news coverage. A donation campaign was launched for the victim.[BW]
Gangnam Style is made by South Korean singer Psy premiered on July 15, 2012, on the video-sharing website YouTube and was later made available to download digitally on October 19. It was directed by Cho Soo-hyun and was filmed in Seoul in July 2012 over the course of 48 hours. In the video, Psy "pokes fun at the style of Seoul's Gangnam District, a flashy district known for its affluence, high rents, high expectations and a focus on the high-status lifestyle". The video is currently the tenth most-viewed video and the eleventh most-liked video on YouTube, as well as the 19th most-disliked. On December 21, 2012, the music video set a record for the first video to surpass 1 billion views on the platform.[BZ]
Hot Problems is a YouTube released on April 15, 2012, by Garrett and Willey. At the time of the single's release, both girls were attending San Luis Obispo High School. The video was produced by Connor Abrams and posted onto his Old Bailey Productions channel. Abrams stated he produced the video as a favor for one of his friends' younger siblings. The video quickly went viral, accumulating over one million views within its first three days.[CA]
How I Accidentally Wrote *The Office* Theme Song (2012)
Daniel Thrasher from How I Accidentally Wrote *The Office* Theme Song
How I Accidentally Wrote *The Office* Theme Song is a YouTube video by Daniel Thrasher and released on November 13, 2012, in the video he explains how, after he got a new piano, he was testing a chord progression that sounded familiar, before he realized it was the theme song of The Office. A few years later, when Thrasher was in college, the video went viral, and as of April 2024 has over 22 million views and is the fourth most-viewed video on his channel.[CB]
Innocence of Muslims is a 2012 anti-Islamic short film that was written and produced by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. Two versions of the 14-minute video were uploaded to YouTube in July 2012, under the titles "The Real Life of Muhammad" and "Muhammad Movie Trailer". Videos dubbed in Arabic were uploaded during early September 2012. Anti-Islamic content had been added in post-production by dubbing, without the actors' knowledge.[CC]
Kickalicious™ is a video posted by Rugland onto YouTube On September 16, 2012, under the name "bighdeluxe". After the video went viral, Rugland traveled to San Diego to train with retired NFL kicker Michael Husted. In December 2012, the New York Jets hosted a tryout for Rugland. In March 2013, Rugland worked out for the Cleveland Browns and the Lions, who later signed him in April. He competed with David Akers for the starting spot.[CD]
Kony 2012 is a 2012 American shortdocumentary film produced by Invisible Children, Inc. The film's purpose was to make Ugandan cult leader, war criminal, and ICC fugitive Joseph Kony globally known so as to have him arrested by the end of 2012. The film was released on March 5, 2012, and spread virally, and the campaign was initially supported by various celebrities. As of June 2024, the film had received over 103 million views and 1.3 million likes on the video-sharing website YouTube.[CE]
Live Action Toy Story is a Shot-for-shot remake of Toy Story produced by the Arizona-based Jonason Pauley and Jesse Perrotta. It is an unofficial recreation and remake of the 1995 animated film Toy Story, with the toy characters animated through stop-motion or filmed moving with wires and strings.[CF]
Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus || Spoken Word (2012)
Jefferson Bethke from Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus
Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus is a viral video created by Christian speaker Jefferson Bethke, who uploaded his work that rose him to fame onto YouTube and GodTube, under the screenname bball1989. The video has thus far received more than 34 million views.[CG]
The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?) is an electronic dancenovelty song and viral video by Norwegian comedy duo Ylvis. The top trending video of 2013 on YouTube, "The Fox" was posted on the platform on 3 September 2013, and has received over 1.1 billion views as of October 2024.[CH]
I Will Not Let an Exam Result Decide My Fate (2013)
I Will Not Let an Exam Result Decide My Fate is a 2013 video by English spoken word poet Suli Breaks. The video tells the story of a mother and son who have just been to a parents' evening at school. Suli Breaks chastises parents, teachers, and the government for focusing on exams instead of nurturing raw talent.[CI]
It's Your Fault is a 2013 satirical video starring Kalki Koechlin and VJ Juhi Pandey that deals with the issue of rape in India. It went viral on the internet, with over 5,500,000 views on YouTube. It was created by All India Bakchod.[CJ]
Kai the Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker is an internet viral video which featured him recounting a crime he witnessed while hitchhiking. McGillvary subsequently received national attention in the press. In 2019, McGillvary was convicted of murder in New Jersey. He cited the fallout from the video as part of his defense against the homicide charge.[CK]
Pepsi Max Camaro Jeff Gordon Commercial Test Drive (2013)
Pepsi Max & Jeff Gordon Present: Test Drive is a 2013 short film produced by Gifted Youth, the commercial division of Funny or Die. The film was directed by Peter Atencio and stars NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon. The film served as part of a viral marketingadvertising campaign to promote Pepsi Max. The film was released through Pepsi's YouTube channel on March 12, 2013. It quickly became a viral video, and earned more than 45 million views on YouTube as of March 2016.[CL]
Rappin' for Jesus is a 2013 viral music video. It was purportedly written for a Christian youth outreach program in Dubuque, Iowa, by Pastor Jim Colerick and his wife Mary Sue, but is generally thought to be a hoax or parody.[CM]
Lily's Disneyland Surprise….AGAIN! is a 2013 YouTube video. The video shows two sisters, Lily and Chloe Clem, reacting to the news of a surprise trip to Disneyland on Lily's way to school. As the older sister, Lily, breaks into tears of joy, Chloe is briefly seen on camera with a disturbed look on her face. The video is a follow-up to a similar video released two years earlier, which went viral, having over 19 million views as of February 2021.[CN]
10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman is an October 2014 video created for Hollaback! by Rob Bliss Creative featuring 24-year-old actress Shoshana Roberts. The video shows Roberts walking through various neighborhoods of New York City, wearing jeans, a black crewneck T-shirt, with a hidden camera recording her from the front. The two-minute video includes selected footage from ten hours, showcasing what has been described as "catcalls" and street harassment of Roberts by men following her for several minutes. As of September 2021, the video has received over 50 million views on YouTube.[CO]
Flames of War (لهيب الحرب,) is a film by the Islamic State, produced by Al-Hayat Media Center and narrated (the English version of it) by Mohammed Khalifa published in 2014. The trailer and all advertisements were spread heavily through Twitter (now X), JustPaste.it , and YouTube with one video getting 18,034 views within seven hours on 18 September 2014.[CQ]
Peter Capaldi from the video From the Doctor to My Son Thomas
From the Doctor to My Son Thomas is a viral video recorded by actor Peter Capaldi and sent to Thomas Goodall, an autistic nine-year-old boy in England, to console the child over grief from the death of Goodall's grandmother. Capaldi filmed the 42-second video in character as the Twelfth Doctor from the BBC science-fiction series Doctor Who. Capaldi's message had a positive effect on Thomas: he smiled for the first time since learning of his grandmother's death, and gained the courage to go to her funeral.[CR]
Gay Mountain is a 90-second video created for UK broadcaster Channel 4 by its in-house advertising agency 4Creative. It first aired across all of Channel 4's television channels on the day of the official opening of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, 7 February 2014, having been released on YouTube the previous night, on 6 February 2014. Within 48 hours of its online release it had accumulated over half a million views.[CS]
How Not to React When Your Child Tells You That He's Gay (2014)
How Not to React When Your Child Tells You That He's Gay was a YouTube video filmed on 26 August 2014 which focused on a gay man from Georgia named Daniel Ashley Pierce being disowned by his Christian family due to his sexual orientation. The video was removed from YouTube due to violating YouTube's hate speech policy.[CT]
Humans Need Not Apply is a 2014 internet video directed, produced, written, and edited by CGP Grey. It focuses on the future of the integration of automation into economics, as well as the impact of this integration to the worldwide workforce. It was released online on YouTube on 13 August 2014. It was later made available via iTunes and RSS.[CU]
The Hunger Games Musical is a series of three music videos parodying The Hunger Games. Created by sketch comedy series Studio C, the videos feature original songs and focus on the love triangle between Hunger Games main characters Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, and Gale Hawthorne. The music videos were released on October 30, 2014, ahead of the November 21, 2014 release of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1. The videos collectively surpassed a million views by late November.[CV]
I Am a Ukrainian is an Internet viral video, first posted on YouTube in 2014 featuring a young Ukrainian woman supporting the protestors in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. At the woman's request, British photographer Graham Mitchell filmed her speaking on the Maidan, and her friend, Ben Moses, edited the material into video he posted on her behalf on YouTube. By late March that year the video had been viewed over 8 million times.[CW]
Mutant Giant Spider Dog is a YouTube video that went viral with more than 184 million views in 2014. The video was created by Polish YouTuber Sylwester Wardęga. The video features Wardęga's pet dog "Chica" wearing a large spider costume.[CX]
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Net Neutrality (HBO) (2014)
Nuggets is a 2014 animated short film and YouTube video created by German animation director Andreas Hykade. It was uploaded on 13 October 2014 onto the Filmbilder & Friends YouTube channel.[CZ]
Shrek Is Love, Shrek Is Life is an adaptation of a story posted on 4chan describing a sexual encounter between a nine-year-old boy and Shrek after the boy's father reprimands him for his Shrek obsession. The Daily Dot described as a "whole new demented level", with a fanmade video called A metameme based on this was posted on 4chan's paranormal board on January 31, 2013, which led to many "deranged illustrations" posted online influenced by the post. Many duplications of the video were also uploaded, with the video and its replicas garnering over 90 million views as of May 2016.[DA]
Sitting and Smiling is an endurance art performance by Benjamin Bennett. In a typical performance, Bennett looks into a video camera recording him while sitting and smiling motionless for four hours. During the fifth stream, a burglar entered Bennett's home. After opening the door to Bennett's room, the burglar said, "Hello?" and then proceeded to shut the door and leave. This incident stacked attention online, and the video has over 8.4 million views.[DB]
11B-X-1371 is a 2015 viral video sent to GadgetZZ.com, the Swedish tech blog that publicized it. The black-and-white segment is two minutes in length; its title came from the plaintext of a base64 string written on the DVD. It depicts a person wearing what appears to be a plague doctor costume walking and standing around in a dilapidated abandoned building, with a forest visible through former window openings in the wall behind it. Accompanied by a soundtrack of loud, discordant buzzing noise, the masked figure holds up a hand with an irregularly blinking light. The film did not have any credits or claims to authorship.[DC]
AIB Knockout Ft. Arjun Kapoor And Ranveer Singh (2015)
All India Bakchod Knockout (AIB Knockout) was a celebrity roast adaptation created by Mumbai based creative agency All India Bakchod (AIB). It was performed and filmed in December, 2014, and was uploaded on their YouTube channel on January 28, 2015. It was recorded at the NSCI Dome in Worli. It was hosted by Karan Johar, Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor were roasted. The show was subsequently removed from their channel on February 3, 2015.[DD]
And I Oop is an internet meme in 2019. It originated from a 2015 YouTube video named "Jasmine Masters handle your liquor". According to Giphy, Masters' "And I Oop" was the most used gif of 2019, with over 419 million views. Masters also trademarked the term.[DE]
New York City rat taking pizza home on the subway (Pizza Rat™) (2015)
Tobacco is a segment of the HBO news satire television series Last Week Tonight with John Oliver about the tobacco industry. It first aired on February 15, 2015, as part of the second episode of the series' second season. During the eighteen-minute segment, comedian John Oliver discusses tobacco industry trends and practices.[DG]
What If Batman Was From Chennai? | Put Chutney (2015)
What If Batman Was From Chennai? is a 2015 satirical viral video that offers a take on what if Batman didn't live in Gotham City and instead in the fictional neighborhood of Batmanabhapuram in Chennai. The video shows Batman adapted to Indian standards including being part of a middle-class family, wearing a lungi, being compared to his family friend Srinivasan's son who has an IT job, and getting a speeding ticket. The video also shows Catwoman wearing a sari and a bindi.[DH]
Wrestling Isn't Wrestling is a 2015 short film written and directed by Max Landis. Released for free on YouTube, the film retells the story of WWEprofessional wrestlerTriple H. Like Landis's 2012 short The Death and Return of Superman, it consists of a monologue by Landis on the subject matter, accompanied by sequences with actors performing the parts in the story.[DI]
PPAP (Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen) (Japanese: ペンパイナッポーアッポーペン, Hepburn: Penpainappōappōpen) is a single by Pikotaro, a fictional singer-songwriter created and portrayed by Japanese comedian Daimaou Kosaka. It was released as a music video on YouTube on 25 August 2016, and has since become a viral video. As of February 2025, the official video has been viewed more than 173 million times. PPAP spawned parodies, and was hailed as the new "Gangnam Style" by various newspapers and online media.[DM]
SM64 - Watch for Rolling Rocks - 0.5x A Presses (Commentated) [OUTDATED] (2016)
Watch for Rolling Rocks - 0.5x A Presses is a commentated video in which he explains in depth how to complete the level, from the video gameSuper Mario 64. His strategy originally took 14.8 hours from start to finish, most of which were spent using a glitch to accelerate Mario to the high speeds necessary for "parallel universe" movement. This was reduced to 5.4 hours in 2017. The video became popular and was widely spoofed online for its incredibly obtuse and technical content, especially Buchanan's "half A-press" notation (meaning that he began the level with the A button already held down) and his use of parallel universes.[DN]
history of the entire world, i guess is a 2017 video by Bill Wurtz, the 20-minute gives an overview of world history, uploaded on May 10, 2017. The video took over 11 months to produce, including almost three months of research. It briefly covers the topics of natural history and human civilization from the Big Bang to the near future. The video marked the continued development of Wurtz's style, with fast-paced, absurdist humor and jazz-like musical interludes.[DP]
In a Heartbeat is a 2017 American animated short film produced by Ringling College of Art and Design. Written and directed by Esteban Bravo and Beth David, the project was funded through Kickstarter, raising $14,191 from 416 backers on a goal of $3,000. The short film concerns a closeted gay boy, Sherwin, who has a crush on another boy named Jonathan and his heart desires to be with him. The short received wide praise on various platforms and was shortlisted for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.[DQ]
Jake Paul - It's Everyday Bro (Song) feat. Team 10 (Official Music Video) (2017)
It's Everyday Bro is a song by American YouTube personality Jake Paul and his group Team 10, with team members Nick Crompton, Chance Sutton, Ivan and Emilio Martinez (Martinez Twins), and Tessa Brooks additionally rapping on the track. The song was released on May 30, 2017, along with the music video. The song is a diss track that took aim primarily at fellow American Vine personality and Paul's former girlfriend, Alissa Violet, who responded to the track by releasing "It's Every Night Sis" with YouTuber RiceGum.[DR]
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Net Neutrality II (HBO) (2017)
Aokigahara Forest from the We found a dead body in the Japanese Suicide Forest... video
We found a dead body in the Japanese Suicide Forest... is a vlog uploaded by Logan Paul on December 31, 2017. The video shows a recently deceased corpse of a man who had died by hanging himself in Aokigahara at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan, known as the "suicide forest" due to its infamy as a suicide site. Initially intended to be part three of his "Tokyo Adventures" series, Paul and his group had planned to camp in the woods, but in response to finding the corpse, decided to notify the authorities and cancel their plans. The video gained 6.3 million views within 24 hours of being uploaded. Paul's video depicting the corpse, whose face was censored, and his group's reactions to it, were criticized by celebrities and politicians.[DT]
Bitch Lasagna, originally named T-Series Diss Track, is a song by Swedish YouTuber PewDiePie in collaboration with Dutch music producer Party in Backyard. The song satirizes Indian company and music label T-Series, as a response to predictions that T-Series would surpass PewDiePie in terms of subscriber count. The song was one of the first events in the PewDiePie vs T-Series competition, in which the two channels competed for the title of the most-subscribed YouTube channel.[DU]
Jordan Peterson debate on the gender pay gap, campus protests and postmodernism (2018)
Jordan Peterson from the Jordan Peterson debate on the gender pay gap, campus protests and postmodernism video
Jordan Peterson debate on the gender pay gap, campus protests and postmodernism is a video by Channel 4 News. The video is an interview with Cathy Newman and Jordan Peterson. The interview covered topics such as gender equality, including the gender pay gap, freedom of speech, and transgender rights. Short clips, GIFs and memes of the fiery back-and-forth subsequently went viral, especially Newman's repeated use of the line "So you're saying..." an utterance made 35 times during the 29-minute interview. Many YouTube commenters were critical of Newman, a large number of them saying she had "a preconceived and misplaced grasp of Peterson's views", wrote Jamie Doward of The Guardian. New York Times columnist David Brooks criticized Newman for not listening to Peterson and for "distort[ing], simplif[ying] and restat[ing] his views to make them appear offensive and cartoonish".[DV]
YouTube Rewind 2018: Everyone Controls Rewind is a video that was uploaded to the official channel of the video-sharing website YouTube on December 6, 2018, as the ninth installment of the YouTube Rewind series. The video features references to video games and internet culture, starring YouTubers such as Ninja and Marques Brownlee, as well as celebrities like Will Smith and Trevor Noah. The video was panned by critics, YouTubers, and viewers alike, who dubbed it the worst YouTube Rewind video to date.[DX]
Congratulations is a song by YouTubersPewDiePie, Roomie and Boyinaband. The single was self-released on 31 March 2019 with an accompanying music video on YouTube as a response to T-Series surpassing PewDiePie as the most-subscribed YouTube channel. The music video is banned on YouTube in India. As of January 2025, the video on YouTube has over 237 million views, making it PewDiePie's second most-viewed video, his most viewed being his previous T-Series diss track, "Bitch Lasagna".[DY]
Die Zerstörung der CDU. is the title of a video released on May 18, 2019, in the run-up to the 2019 European elections by the German YouTuberRezo on YouTube. The video is 55 minutes long and is accompanied by a 13-page source list. It was viewed over ten million times in a week after airing.[EB]
TIMELAPSE OF THE FUTURE: A Journey to the End of Time (4K) (2019)
Timelapse of the Future:A Journey to the End of Time is a 2019 shortepicdocumentary film created by American astronomy-themed musician and filmmaker John D. Boswell, made as a follow-up to his other short film Timelapse of the Entire Universe. Running at 29 minutes, it is a flowmotion—a combination of a hyper-lapse, time-lapse, and regular shots—of the universe from 2019 to the end of time, with the lapse rate doubling every five seconds. The film consists of self-made and fair use footage from films, the Internet, and speeches by scientists, using current knowledge and combining different hypotheses.[EC]
YouTube Rewind 2019: For the Record is a video that was uploaded to YouTube's official channel on the video-sharing website YouTube on December 5, 2019, as the tenth and final installment of the YouTube Rewind series. The video contains montages of the top videos and YouTubers of the year.[ED]
2020s
This section needs expansionwith: More videos from the 2020s can be found at Category:YouTube videos by year. You can help by adding to it. (June 2025)
2 JAM Nggak Ngapa-ngapain was a two-hour video created by MadureseYouTuber Muhammad Didit, published on his YouTube channel Sobat Miskin Official (Official Broke Gang) on 10 July 2020 at 11:21:44 UTC. The video features Didit staring at the camera in his bedroom for two hours. It was originally intended to be a 10-minute video. It surpassed four million views and a mobile game of the same name was later published.[EE]
An Evening With Tim Heidecker | Stand-Up Special (2020)
An Evening with Tim Heidecker is the first stand-up comedy special from American comedian Tim Heidecker, released on October 23, 2020. The material was filmed in Los Angeles in 2017 and had been part of bits that Heidecker workshopped for a decade. The onstage persona is based on Heidecker seeing comedians fail onstage.[EF]
Farewell, Sarah Jane is a YouTube special connected to The Sarah Jane Adventures which was created as part of a series of Doctor Who-related webcasts during the in order to honor Elisabeth Sladen following her passing in 2011, which halted production of the show's final series.[EG]
Holding a Black Lives Matter Sign in America's Most Racist Town (2020)
Thumbnail of Holding a Black Lives Matter Sign in America's Most Racist Town
Holding a Black Lives Matter Sign in America's Most Racist Town is a video by American filmmaker Rob Bliss, uploaded on YouTube on July 27, 2020. The video shows Bliss holding up a Black Lives Matter sign at Harrison, Arkansas, a place regarded as "America's Most Racist Town". Before the video, Bliss also made 10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman, another video about social issues.[EH]
↑ Julio Hernández López (18 May 2006). "ASTILLERO". La Jornada. DEMOS, Desarrollo de Medios, S.A. de C.V.Todos los Derechos Reservados. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
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