By Lisa Carbone ’14
EE Staff Writer
In the new Internet age, viral videos ripple from one person to another in rapid fire from word of mouth. Viral videos are normally videos that are humorous or show someone doing something stupid. Some examples of videos are Gangam Style, Harlem Shake, Nyan Cat, Call Me Maybe, My Wedding Speech, and many more. Recently, it has expanded into catchy pop songs, dance crazes, and wedding proposals.
Gabriel Calderon, a sophomore at THS said his favorite viral video was Gangam Style. “It was the best one I have recently seen.” Unlike some people, he liked the fact that a good portion of the lyrics were in Korean. “It is a funny song. Plus there is only like three words that people understand.”
Gangam Style by PSY went viral on July 15, 2012 and was an instant craze based on its easy to follow dance moves and its Korean lyrics. When asked how many views does the video have, he said, “above 1 billion.” As of February 21, there are 1,341,421,713 views of Gangam Style on YouTube.
Lisa Torres, a junior at THS said her favorite viral video was the Key of Awesome parody of Carly Rae Jepson’s song “Call Me Maybe” because it “…relates to my awful relationship skills.” She thinks that other people like the video too. “The people are dressed up weird.” The Key of Awesome is a series created by Barely Political where they create parody videos to some of the hottest songs out like, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “As Long As You Love Me,” “Die Young,” and many others. When asked how many views it has on YouTube, she said, “a lot.” As of February 21, the video has 24,501,008 views.
Gabriel Calderon and Lisa Torres both said that they do not want to try posting videos on YouTube for different reasons. “No I do not really like to be in videos,” Torres said.
As part of the new Internet age, pretty much any video posted on YouTube video can go viral and cause an instant craze of people constantly watching and telling their friends to watch. It makes the people that post them instant celebrities like PSY. That being said, people will continue posting videos and will continue to become popular celebrities.