Another Top 10 WTF Things That Went Viral

In 2018 the internet was taken by storm by a viral sensation many people were calling “the new dress.” When teenager Katie Hetzel looked up a pronunciation video for the word “laurel”, she was surprised to hear “yanny”, and put it online for the internet to decide. The science behind this phenomenon is that those who hear “laurel” are more sensitive to low-frequency sounds, while people who hear “yanny” are sensitive to high-frequency sounds. But the debate was put to rest when the man speaking, opera singer Jay Aubrey Jones, announced that the word he said was definitely “laurel.” As if that wasn’t enough, the “green needle/brainstorm” puzzle appeared shortly after, making people even more confused.

When Kimberly Wilkins – also known as Sweet Brown – ran out of her apartment late one night during a dangerous fire, she probably didn’t expect her interview with the local news station would go viral. People found this strange interview hilarious, and though the original clip was great in its own right, the autotuned remix version that followedwent viral as well, with just under 64 million views. Even more bizarre: when another remixed version made its way to iTunes in 2013, Sweet Brown brought a lawsuit against Apple, claiming that her voice and words had been used without her permission.

In early 2010, a video popped up on YouTube of a guy out in Yosemite National Park filming a “double rainbow.” It went viral when discovered by Jimmy Kimmel, mostly because of the man’s unprecedented euphoria at witnessing what is an entirely natural and ordinary phenomenon. The double rainbow guy is actually an ex-cage-fighter called Paul Vasquez, who defended his enthusiasm in an interview with CBS News by saying the rainbow was “a lot brighter than you see.” And of course, just like with Sweet Brown, a popular autotuned remix eventually appeared.

British YouTuber and animator Mr Weebl has released a whole host of strange and sometimes surreal videos during his long internet career, including the “badger mushroom” music video. But his most popular is by far the “Narwhals” video, an animated song about everyone’s favorite aquatic mammal. The song is a bouncy description of narwhals featuring several ridiculous “facts” – including tidbits like narwhals would beat a polar bear in a fight, and they invented the shish kebab. On Weebl’s website, you can even buy vinyl collectible figures of the narwhals from the video.

13-year-old Danielle Bregoli was a rebel without a cause, whose mom brought her onto Dr. Phil after she got tired of trying to stop her daughter from stealing cars, credit cards, and pretty much anything that wasn’t nailed down. It all went south for Danielle when the audience thought her accent and attitude were hilarious and kept laughing at her. Sick of being mocked, Danielle uttered these immortal words: “cash me ousside howbow dah.” While obviously trying to be threatening, she quickly became an internet meme and – to some people’s displeasure – got rich from all the hate, even landing a record deal.

Her real name is Candace Payne, but you almost definitely know her better as Chewbacca Mom, who went viral after posting a video of herself enjoying a plastic Chewbacca mask she originally bought for her son. The video was four minutes of her losing it and laughing at the mask’s growling sounds, and people loved it, with the clip achieving millions of views overnight. Candace used her newfound fame to become the feel-good story of a generation, going on talk shows, becoming a charity ambassador, and releasing a book called Laugh It Up! about looking for joy, even when times are hard.

All Zack “Danger” Brown wanted was to raise a measly $10 to fund a potato salad he was going to make, but he got a lot more than he bargained for. Instead of $10, he got over $55,000, raised by nearly 7000 backers on Kickstarter. Somehow, his simple goal of making potato salad for 4th of July weekend became one of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns in history, but it doesn’t stop there: in 2016 Zach actually released a cookbook, called The Peace, Love & Potato Salad Cookbook. In addition to funding his literary endeavours, he also threw a party called “Potatostock” and donated a lot of the money raised to local charities.

Back in 2009, a YouTube user decided to get revenge on his sister Nonnie for posting an embarrassing picture of him on Myspace two years earlier. Nonnie frequently borrowed her brother’s camera and filmed the most random videos, and one of them just so happened to be a video of her sitting on the toilet singing about, you guessed it, sitting on the toilet. Apparently forgetting to delete it, her brother uploaded it to YouTube, where it eventually amassed several million views, along with dozens of remixes and parodies.

The best viral videos are the ones that barely took their creators any effort to make, and Peanut Butter Jelly Time is exactly that. This Flash-animation banana dancing along to “Peanut Butter Jelly Time” by the Buckwheat Boyz is one of the most annoying trends to come out of the 2000s. It dates back as far as 2002, and gained even more fame after being featured in “Family Guy” in a scene where Brian, dressed in a banana costume, dances and sings the song. It’s definitely one of the oldest and most irritating memes out there.


Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions:

Doge


BatDad


Leave Britney Alone!

This incredibly weird music video was created by Japanese comedian Daimaou Kosaka, and it’s as funny as it is surreal. Working under the stage persona Pikotaro, Daimaou released this song where he wears flamboyant clothes and sings about having an apple pen, and then a pineapple pen, culminating in the bizarre chorus “Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen.” Despite its nonsensicalness, PPAP’s popularity has been likened to the spread of the other viral hit “Gangnam Style”, with people around the world copying the song and cosplaying in Pikotaro’s outfit. He even made an appearance on the Japanese version of Sesame Street.