Internet memes are an underrated form of entertainment that demonstrate the creativity of our culture and, through the democratic nature of sites like YouTube, return control of our entertainment back to us.
Internet memes in my opinion are extremely over looked when it comes to modern day entertainment. They are usually pretty creative or they are sweet simple and cute. They can also be funny which is what most teens and adults watch. Streaming sites like YouTube also let you pick what you want to watch whenever you want to watch it. They also allow you to see what is going on around the world almost as soon as it happens. Also viral video stars can become just as famous as any actor now a days because of their videos that have become popular due to the amount of viewings they get. The three videos that I am going to talk about are What Does the Fox Say, Charlie Bit My Finger, and Star Wars Kid. The reason I picked these videos is because in my opinion they are all very viral videos that almost everyone will know about. They were also redone in many different creative ways.
The first viral video that I will be talking about is the What Does the Fox Say video. This video was made by Norwegian comedy duo Ylvis. This video was the number one video of 2013 earning 454 million views in just over a month. This video has been extensively covered and adapted by others. It has also been used on TV several times. Like it was used on the seventh season of dancing with the stars and it was also done by the Glee cast for one of their episodes. Also with the release date of this video being around Halloween time, costume stores noticed the sales of fox costumes had risen by almost 40% all because this video was seen by almost everybody. And it was just announced that this song will appear on the video game Just Dance 2015. Altogether this video shows how todays pop culture can be easily entertained and how a simple and creative video can become number one very quickly.
The second viral video that I will be talking about is the Charlie Bit My Finger video. This video is of these two brothers (Harry and Charlie) who are sitting on a chair and Harry sticks his finger in Charlie's mouth and gets bitten. This video was uploaded in 2007 and as of April 2014 it is the fourth most watched video on YouTube with approximately 730 million views. As of 2012 the video has made the family £300,000 (US $500,000), which they plan to use for the boys future education. Also just recently their was a "Charlie Bit Me" app made for Apple and Android devices. This video has been so successful that people were selling unlicensed merchandise without the families permission. This video has also been redone a whole bunch of times just like the What Does The Fox Say video, including a remake done by Chris and Liam Hemsworth. In conclusion this video shows that Internet memes can be a very good source of entertainment because it can be simple, cute and funny all at the same time.
The final viral video that I will be talking about is Star Wars Kid. This video is of a 15 year old boy who is pretending that a golf ball retriever is a lightsaber. This video was created November 3, 2002. By November 27, 2006, the video had been viewed over 900 million times. Several fans loved the video and felt that they could related to it. One group of Star Wars enthusiasts even said "That's why his video become so popular: It was funny and awkward but ultimately we connected to him. That made us feel more comfortable with our own awkwardness and dreams of being a Jedi." This video too has had several remakes and spoofs made of it. Some of them adding sound effects and light effects to the video to make it more interesting. This video has also been redone in different ways for TV shows like The Venture Bros, American Dad, South Park, and Family Guy. Altogether this video shows how other individuals can be very creative in remaking the original video.
Altogether internet memes are completely over looked as forms of entertainment. They allow us to be creative and with websites like YouTube we can watch whatever types of videos we want whenever we want to watch them. They also allow us to see what other people do for fun and what people have sometimes messed up on in life. Also the pop culture off today shows that everybody loves to laugh at people whether it be a happy video, a sad one or a funny one. And I think that these three videos have brought a lot of joy to people so far.
