“Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.”
While my beer belly won’t let me compare myself to Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mt. Everest, the spirit of his words fairly puts forth the reasoning behind my descent into the madness that is YouTube’s most popular videos of all time. The things we do for discovery…
Expectedly, a large portion of these are music videos. But hidden in there are several inexplicable, hilarious, and downright bizarre videos.
Psy’s “Gangnam Style” (MP3 on Amazon) tops the list at 2.3 billion views, and there isn’t a non-music entry in the list until “Charlie Bit My Finger – Again” at #15—which, surprisingly, is also one of the most disliked videos of all time. Still, it’s a fairly popular viral video. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
IN YO FACE, PINK FLOYD!
Without Googling, I can tell you that Pink Floyd’s monumental instrumental track, “Echoes”, has a runtime of a little over 23 minutes. But without Googling, I can’t name even 23 nursery rhymes. YouTube is apparently here to fix that, with the 24th most popular video of all time: a 54-minute compilation of nursery rhymes, complete with an animated video.
Eat your heart out, Roger Waters.
The makers, Little Baby Bum, apparently weren’t content with beating Pink Floyd in the audio track alone, so they also made a video which is more psychedelic than anything any classic rock band ever produced. “Ba Ba Black Sheep in Space with Mushroom Houses” definitely seems more trippy than “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”.
The actual reason, of course, is that kids will love the nursery rhymes and animations, and the 54-minute-long video is better than customizing a playlist or putting videos in a loop.
The Gummy Bear Song Earworm
Oh I’m a Gummy Bear
Yes I’m a Gummy Bear
Oh I’m a yummy tummy funny lucky Gummy Bear
You know what’s annoying? Not the ridiculous lyrics. Not the green gummy bear (who is actually kind of cute). Not the fact that this video has just about 600 million views, almost a thousand times that of a brilliant cartoon like Ormie.
It’s that tune. It gets stuck in your head, and it keeps playing long after you have angrily closed the tab. It won’t stop. Your only hope is to get rid of that catchy tune with UnhearIt.
The song is actually by the official Gummy Bear candy company and it went viralback in 2008. It has been released in 24 other languages. All put together, it has received more than a billion plays. Which all points to one thing: the Internet will never cease to surprise you.
Before we move on, I have a confession to make: I’m a movin’, groovin’, jammin’, singin’ Gummy Bear.
“First Person Toy Porn”
You think Unbox Therapy is one of the best YouTube technology channels, with its drool-worthy unpacking of new gadgets? It turns out that kids love to watch unboxing videos too. A lot.
No, really: a lot!
Play-Doh makes an ice cream and cupcake playset. An unknown user on screen unwraps each item from the playset and demonstrates it. You only see her hands, never her face. You never hear her voice. And yet, this video has 492 million views! There are lots more like it too.
In fact, one of YouTube’s biggest stars is DisneyCollectorBR. Her identity is a secret, and that mystery might be part of the allure for kids, according to a marketer for YouTube videos.
From being termed “toddler crack” to “first person toy porn”, BuzzFeed discoveredthat parents aren’t sure what to make of this phenomenon, but are happy to go along with it since it seems like harmless fun.
The kids simply “liked watching the hands take the toys out of the box”, according to NPR. So… yeah. Let’s go with that.
Coke Blocked
A bottle of coke. A mentos mint. A Japanese girl. Look, we know that Japanese pop videos can be weird, but almost 275 million views for this is ridiculous. Importantly, it has over 41,000 likes and over 114,000 dislikes.
Even the commenters on the video are flabbergasted. Here’s a sample of the reactions:
- “What is she even doing? And I wonder why so many views!”
- “Why do so many people enjoy this?”
- “When did I like this?”
This phenomenon starts to make sense once you search for the video on YouTube. The thumbnail looks like the girl might be naked, and well, the Internet likes the mere possibility of nudity just as much as Elmer Fudd likes the idea of hunting wabbits.
The thumbnail actually explains the dislikes too: they’re borne out of disappointment. People clicked expecting a raunchy time but got this crazy video of a girl yelling “Nuki Nuki Nuki”, and the only thing exploding on screen was non-autocorrected coke.
The Top 100 list has other examples of seemingly NSFW thumbnails that were actually mild, safe videos, like “El Barco – el mardisco” and thigh massage video.
Oh, and if you actually want to see the Coke-Mentos reaction, we have a great pick in our roundup of super cool slow-motion videos.
Obama and Hillary Sing “Umbrella”
Remember MadTV? The sketch comedy show that got cancelled in 2009? If you want to know why it got cancelled, watch this 2008 sketch which someone uploaded to Youtube. It’s a parody of Rihanna’s song “Umbrella”, with a fake Obama and Hillary Clinton.
That original uploader was made to take out the song due to copyright issues, but the video remains up and is nearing 150,000 views—which will probably only go up as the 2016 U.S. presidential election draws near. Of course, we got you a different video with the song intact which you can watch above.
The best part isn’t the video itself, which is a poor sketch and you don’t even have audio now. It’s that people are still commenting on it. Why? Probably not a question we should ask, lest someone actually attempts a logical answer.
Bonus: Ultimate Dog Tease
Much like the rest of the Internet, it was impossible for me to resist an animal video. With almost 171 million views, there is nothing weird about “Ultimate Dog Tease”, about a conversation between a dog and his master. It’s actually made really well and worth a watch.
Show the Weirdest Thing You Saw on YouTube
No, really, post a link with a short description in the comments. First person to Rickroll will be cursed with getting the Gummy Bear song stuck in their head. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Image Credits: Your Design / Shutterstock.com Source: www.makeuseof.com
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