Sundance Channel

This week’s top 5 trending viral videos

Matthew Rodriguez — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:03:03 +0000

If you're completely sick of all the coverage leading up to the Super Bowl, I'm here to provide you with some relief (9 out of 10 bloggers recommend it) with this week's YouTube videos that seem to be gaining steam on the viral Internet train. 5. From the hilarious minds of one of my favorite channels on YouTube is this catchy and easy-to-sing song "Hapi Berth Dey." It's "about an Egyptian river god who finds a place to sleep atop two sheep" that also possibly doubles as an expression of his outrage of the misappropriation of copyright laws which legally also applies to a popular song traditionally sung to celebrate birthdays. Feel free to sing this new song coincidentally at your next birthday party!

This week’s top 5 trending viral videos

Matthew Rodriguez — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:07:45 +0000

The talk and focus this week is (rightfully so) on all films that made their rounds at the Sundance Film Festival. But the Internet meme machine never sleeps (its theme song: Can't Stop, Won't Stop), festival or no festival, so without further ado here are the top five videos starting to trend, and as the kids say "get its swoll on" this week. 5. If you're a violinist and you are interrupted by an audience member's cell phone loudly ringing during your solo performance, this is how you respond in a classy manner and in other words pwn this rude cell phone owner.

Snitches of Downtown Abbey

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:31:19 +0000

I feel like King Solomon on Sunday nights lately where I have to make the difficult decision as to whether I want to watch some NFL football or the latest pop culture rage (at least in some pastoral corners of the blogosphere). It just so happens to air on PBS, something you don't hear too often. You know it's a sensation when the New York Times does a trend piece on it, which they did with a recent article about viewing parties being held for this show. This phenomenon is a British import called Downtown Abbey.

Top 5 that have nothing to do with s#!* people say

Matthew Rodriguez — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:30:44 +0000

Oh-em-gee, the Shit Girls Say copycat videos aren't going away. If you're sick of them, here are five brand-spankin' new videos burning up the Internet and set to go "viral" this week thanks to our collective boredom and tendency to procrastinate (not me though). 5. Quadron's cover of Lauryn Hill's "Ex-Factor," you know, only one of the greatest songs of our generation, is super and the reactions of my friends who I forwarded this to have been "wowwww" on one end and "why am I tearing up" on the other of the spectrum. I love the stripped down sound of their version. Also, a killer voice of Coco O. on vocals doesn't hurt it either.

Planking in the 1950s

Matthew Rodriguez — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 19:41:27 +0000

This old LIFE Magazine photo of students partaking in "phone booth stuffing," which was all the rage in the 1950s, also foretold the lying down game and later the planking phenomenon that went wildly viral this year. I think it demonstrates how memes, like fashion, are derivative of one another. As a big fan of the documentary format, someone needs to produce a TV series or film on the history of off-line and online fads and memes. In fact, I'd like to see a Ken Burns treatment on this topic (I'm not joking at all). BRB: Creating a Kickstarter campaign to hire Ken Burns.

Great amateur photo of space shuttle launch

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 18 May 2011 17:18:25 +0000

In a case of being at the right place at the right time, and with WiFi access, Hoboken resident @Stefmara snapped, twitpic’d, and tweeted this awe-some photo with her iPhone of the space shuttle Endeavour’s final launch as seen from her seat on a flight. This of course has gone rapidly viral. This is a [...]

Artsy animated GIF images

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 04 May 2011 17:02:13 +0000

GIF images have historically resided in the seedier corners of the Internet, in profiles of message board users and the like, but these looping animated images have started to emerge as a medium of some artistic merit in their own right. New York City photographer Jamie Beck and designer Kevin Burg have gained some viral [...]

World’s greatest film extra

Matthew Rodriguez — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 22:12:05 +0000

Recently a video circulated around the blogosphere of a highlight reel featuring actor Jesse Heiman. His name may not be familiar to you but you’ve definitely seen his face in a lot of your favorite TV shows (currently a regular extra on Glee and Chuck). His IMDB resume is quite impressive. Impressive enough to currently [...]

Qaddafi gets autotuned and goes viral

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 23:40:46 +0000

A 31-year-old Israeli “journalist, musician and Internet buff” Noy Alooshe autotuned embattled Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi’s recent crazed televised speech and set it to an electro-dance beat. The rather catchy song and video “Zenga Zenga Song” has since gone quickly viral (over 1.5MM YouTube views) and provided a 21st century revolutionary version of the Numa [...]

Jeff Tweedy’s (of Wilco) son writes awesome math-related song

Matthew Rodriguez — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 16:10:20 +0000

Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy’s 14-year-old son Spencer wrote and recorded “Single Digits (Put a line on it),” a brilliant math-related spoof of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” for his Algebra class project. There’s so much geekiness in this. I love it. Five on your left and Five on your right and Ten on your little bitty toes [...]

Real life happy feet

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 17:59:48 +0000

The Internet’s hearts are warmed during this cold winter (at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere) at this video of a penguin acting out its best HAPPY FEET impersonation. That or this penguin’s enjoying a different (illicit) kind of snow.

Memes of 2010 in one minute

Matthew Rodriguez — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 23:45:39 +0000

Know Your Meme 2010 Year in Review (Minnit To Winnit Acoustic House Remix) from Rocketboom on Vimeo. Rocketboom put together this video acting out all memes and virals of 2010 in one minute. A can of Four Loko on me to anyone who can name them all.

“Cigar Man” unmasked

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 20:37:42 +0000

The Daily Mail tracked down the cigar man at the Ryder Cup whose funny appearance went viral thanks to this amazing photo of Tiger Woods’ errant chip shot hitting a photographer’s camera lens. The cigar smoking spectator in question caught the fancy of amateur Photoshoppers on the Internet who had a lot of fun with [...]

A pictoral guide to avoiding camera loss

Matthew Rodriguez — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 16:02:02 +0000

Predating the (fake) “cute girl who quits job on a dry eraseboard” which hit a collective nerve and went rapidly viral earlier this summer is this funny “pictoral guide to avoiding camera loss” by Andrew McDonald, which he claims he keeps on his digital camera to ensure its proper return to the owner if it’s [...]

Latest meme: a doe, a deer, a prancing Cera

Matthew Rodriguez — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:33:42 +0000

This kinda hilarious photo of a-leaping and a-prancing Michael Cera has emerged above the heap to become the latest Internet meme among bored Photoshoppers around the world. View their collective efforts at this single serve Tumblr site, fuckyeahprancingcera. And a best of here.

Montage of “I could tell you but I’d have to kill you”

Matthew Rodriguez — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:40:41 +0000

Posted on YouTube is this video montage of various movies using the cliche phrase “I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you.” Maybe it’s time for writers to retire this?

Justinnnnnn Bieberrrrrrr

Matthew Rodriguez — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:43:44 +0000

Is it a voice of an angel singing in a cathedral? No, it’s only Bieber singing “U Smile,” but slowed down to 1/8th speed of the original resulting in a 35 minute long song of pure ambient zen. And the Internet is loving it. The grammar and math corners of the Internet are also enjoying [...]

What happens when a washing machine eats a brick? Internet finds out.

Matthew Rodriguez — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 16:59:06 +0000

The Internet was enthralled recently with a YouTube video of a self-destructing washing machine, whose spasmic shaking increasingly gave it anthropomorphic attributes. The payoff starts at the 0:55 second mark when it encounters a brick and then ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE. Predictably the video has been remixed that results in some LOLs.

Best rejection letter ever

Matthew Rodriguez — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:46:34 +0000

Al Feldstein’s MAD Magazine sent the best rejection letters to people. Evidence? See above gem unearthed by Letters of Note.

You Gotta Have Another: Every smoking scene in Mad Men

Matthew Rodriguez — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 21:53:38 +0000

Whirled, a nifty looking creative ad agency in San Fran compiled every smoking scene in Mad Men, seasons 1 through 3 (total of 39 episodes), into a single YouTube video that will leave us non-smokers feeling nauseous. This video will have one of two results. This repetitious, perfunctory and seemingly pointless act of inhaling smoke [...]

Go deeper with memes of INCEPTION

Matthew Rodriguez — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 21:12:57 +0000

A follow-up to Perrin's review of the summer hit film INCEPTION, which blew a lot of people's minds and had them questioning and wanting to do a deeper dive. As a result, the film has inspired the Internets and produced many memes (one of which is seen above). I've compiled some of them here. Warning - there be spoilers ahead!

TED: Lessons from a viral video on how to start a movement

Matthew Rodriguez — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 20:24:34 +0000

Using a popular viral video (over 3 million YouTube views) of an enthusiastic dancing guy who gets a mass dance party started at the 2009 Sasquatch Music Festival as a guide, Derek Sivers gave this humorous and brief TED talk titled “How to start a movement.” Watch and you’ll get some tips for that cult [...]

Lenny Kravitz crashes church choir’s performance

Matthew Rodriguez — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 18:55:41 +0000

Your feel-good video of today that is going rapidly viral was uploaded a few days ago by Lenny Kravitz himself. As he explains, he was having a drink at a terrace in New Orleans when he heard a choir, the First Baptist Church’s Voice of Praise choir from Lewisville to be exact, sing a song [...]

Ke$ha x Star Trek

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 17:33:19 +0000

The Internet’s current favorite pop culture viral mash-up blends the old with the new: the infectious pop of Ke$ha’s Tik Tok is set to scenes from the classic Star Trek television series. As the creator MissSheenie aptly says, “Working on the Enterprise is pretty much a non-stop party as far as I’m concerned.” In related [...]

OK Go’s latest video: 18 hours of dancing, 192 hours of timelapse, and 1 million frames

Matthew Rodriguez — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:59:38 +0000

The masters of viral music video blockbusters, OK Go recently released their latest video for "End Love," directed by Jeff Lieberman and Eric Gunther, which is already rapidly approaching 1 million views on YouTube. Lieberman explains:

The fastest we go is 172,800x, compressing 24 hours of real time into a blazing 1/2 second. The slowest is 1/32x speed, stretching a mere 1/2 second of real time into a whopping 16 seconds. This gives us a fastest to slowest ratio of 5.5 million. If you like averages, the average speed up factor of the band dancing is 270x. In total we shot 18 hours of the band dancing and 192 hours of LA skyline timelapse – over a million frames of video – and compressed it all down to 4 minutes and 30 seconds! Oh and don’t forget, it’s one continuous camera shot.

Google homepage surprise

Matthew Rodriguez — Fri, 21 May 2010 18:17:30 +0000

In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the classic arcade video game Pac-Man, Google has a surprise on their main homepage. This is currently dominating Twitter’s top trending list. Without spoiling too much, go to www.google.com and wait a few seconds and let the logo fully load. You’ll get a playable surprise that “packs” quite [...]

The Google job experiment

Matthew Rodriguez — Fri, 21 May 2010 17:05:53 +0000

Wanting a change to a creative advertising firm, which is often a highly competitive process, 28-year-old copywriter Alec Brownstein showed social media and marketing "experts" how to really leverage the power of the Internet along with some good old fashion psychology. While researching his favorite creative directors on Google, Brownstein noticed that there was no sponsored ad links (which appear at the top of the search results) attached to their names. If these directors were like the rest of us narcissists, he assumed they Googled themselves.

Documentary: What happened to the $%!#ing Winnebago Man?

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 19 May 2010 20:23:39 +0000

For YouTube’s 5 year anniversary celebration, guest curator Conan O’Brien selected the Winnebago Man (see above) as a noteworthy video. With over 1.6 million views to date on YouTube, this (hilarious) video compilation of profanity laced outtakes from a 1988 Winnebago commercial starred a very frustrated salesman Jack Rebney, or better known as the Winnebago [...]

Neat iPhone music video

Matthew Rodriguez — Tue, 04 May 2010 21:00:46 +0000

Israeli band Izabo incorporates multiple iPhones in their fun music video for their single “On My Way.” It can also be viewed like the next iPhone ad campaign concept. This is also the perfect segue to share an impressive video of a one-girl band using four iPhones to recreate Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.” This YouTube [...]

Most popular YouTube videos in 2009

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:06:47 +0000

On their official blog YouTube ranked the most viewed videos and most searched words on YouTube in 2009. The segment of Susan Boyle's beautiful voice featured on Britain's Got Talent (120+ million views) was number one this year, but the next most watched video, "David After Dentist" on YouTube was actually this year's most "viral" amateur video with over 37 million views. If you've been living in a cave this year and haven't seen it, then here it is:

Sesame Street raps

Matthew Rodriguez — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:39:11 +0000

The video of Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie spliced to look as though they were rapping M.O.P’s popular hit “Ante Up” became a global viral hit with over 4 million views on YouTube. I mean, you really haven’t lived until you’ve seen this puppet (are they or aren’t they) couple boast: Things that we need, [...]

Meme scenes minimized

Matthew Rodriguez — Sat, 30 May 2009 14:25:48 +0000

Andy Baio isolated the backgrounds of famous (or infamous) videos or photos that went on to become Internet memes and legends by removing the subjects from them. This brilliant exercise if anything validates their seat in the pantheon of viral Internet memes. Can you name them all? [Via]

100 single ladies

Matthew Rodriguez — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 14:01:42 +0000

Full disclosure: You’re about to watch a “viral” video to promote a free Beyonce concert sponsored by Trident. That said, who doesn’t want to watch 100 girls in London’s Piccadilly Circus mimic Beyonce’s music video for her hit song “Single Ladies,” which has been hilariously parodied. This is a template for how to create a [...]