Top 10 Viral Videos for 2008

Don’t you just love the internet? 2008 was one pretty amazing year, isn’t it? For once, I only worked half of the year and the other half was being an internet bum! I still remember those dancing prisoners from Cebu who captured the worldwide audience with their Thriller moves. Many more things happened. There’s Arnel Pineda and Charice as two of the biggest YouTube wonders. Whereas Reyna Elena is still figuring out how YouTube works and wonders when she will be discovered.

Now, to break these monotonous political chorvalais and other eklavu that’s happening in the Philippine blogosphere, let me present to you the 2008 Top 10 Viral Videos that sprouted on the internet and went worldwide like a wildfire. Though numbered from 1 to 10, the views on each of the videos does not reflect it’s popularity.

Enjoy the videos after the jump!

1. Where the hell is Matt?

Matt Harding is a 32-year-old videogame designer who quit his job in 2003 to travel around Asia. Along the way, he recorded and posted a short video of himself doing an elbow-intensive jig in Hanoi. That clip got passed from one person to the next and eventually got the attention of Stride Gum, which decided to sponsor two more of his trips. In his latest video, Harding visits 42 countries over 14 months and invites the locals to join in the fun. That includes everyone from some Huli Wigmen in Papua New Guinea to a group of school kids in the Solomon Islands. The sheer silliness and joy of Harding’s adventures will keep you smiling long after you’ve watched them — and give you a serious case of wanderlust.

2. Western Spaghetti

Filmed in stop motion, Western Spaghetti is a clever cooking simulation, an arts-and-crafts extravaganza that manages to make bubble wrap look like boiling water and lets red velvet fill in for tomato sauce. The ingeniously inedible meal is the work of Adam Pesapane, 37, a digital artist in New York City who goes by the nickname PES. For more of his self-described twisted creations, check out PES’s site at eatPES. It’s truly magical.

3. Christian, The Lion

It may be impossible to truly tame a wild animal, but you can definitely win its heart. This two and a half-minute clip contains footage from a documentary about Christian, a 35-lb. lion cub purchased in 1969 at British department store Harrod’s by best pals John Rendall and Anthony “Ace” Bourke (whose last name is misspelled in the intro on YouTube). A year later, when Christian had reached 185 lbs. and outgrown his caretakers’ home, they brought him to a wildlife refuge in Kenya so he could roam free. The friends visited sporadically, until 1974, when the refuge’s overseer reported that Christian had not been seen for more than nine months — a sign that he had fully adapted to the wild. But Rendall and Bourke managed to find Christian, who by then was leading his own pride. Their emotional reunion, which turned out to be their last, is nothing short of amazing. Kleenex recommended.

4. Hamster on a Piano (Eating Popcorn)

One of the best things about the internet is its ability to make a star out of the little guy. This couldn’t be truer than in the case of the wee white hamster lying on his back atop a keyboard, made famous with the help of Parry Grip, a whimsical songwriter formerly of the group Nerd Herder who, if his random musical oeuvre is any indication, apparently has way too much time on his hands. The riff is catchy, the pet is adorable — and, we’re pretty sure, was unharmed in the making of this video. Why is it so funny? Well, as the song says, there’s a hamster on a piano and he’s eating popcorn…on a piano. In short, it’s the mundane made madcap. That’s why you log onto YouTube, right?

5. Obama’s Loss Traced To Nonvoter

This video has a premise similar to that of the recent Kevin Costner film, Swing Vote: the idea that the presidential election could hinge on a single ballot. But the brilliance of this fake news clip — which was sponsored by Moveon.org and aimed at motivating people to get to the polls — is that you can personalize it. Type in a potential nonvoter’s name, send him the link and the resulting clip will blame him for Obama’s losing by one vote. We can’t prove this video helped the winner, but chances are it didn’t hurt him either.

6. Super Mario Rescues The Princess

We’re all familiar with stories about damsels in distress getting rescued by hyper-masculine heroes. But Super Mario Rescues The Princess — a spoof of the many Super Mario video games created by Nintendo’s legendary game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto — updates this formulaic fairy tale for the digital age. We don’t want to spoil the ending for you, but given that it was created by Seth MacFarlane, the Emmy-winning smart aleck who created Fox’s Family Guy, let’s just say that things don’t go quite as planned. Anyone in the dating trenches today will be able to relate, and everyone else can just have a good laugh.

7. The Onion: Pretend You Give A Shit About The Election

If all the earnestness about the significance of this year’s election felt a bit excessive at times, then you’ll love this fake morning show segment courtesy of The Onion. In it, faux political correspondent Dan Carlyle offers tips on how to avoid revealing your lack of political views and gives recommendations on concocting a bogus “poll anecdote” about what happened when you went to vote — when in fact you aren’t even registered.

8. Star Wars according to a 3 year old

Bad news for all those fans out there who think George Lucas is a complex genius. Turns out the whole plot of the original Star Wars film can be summed up neatly and accurately in 90 seconds — by a toddler. This one drinks juice and peruses a calendar while sharing her surprisingly deep insights on the various characters, like C3PO (“the shiny guy always worries”) and Darth Vader (“he’ll getcha!”). If only someone’s kid could have explained Episode III: Revenge of the Sith so pithily before we all paid to sit through that galactic cheese.

9. Spoofs of T.I.’s Whatever You Like music video

The hiphop fantasy that unfolds in T.I’s Whatever You Like, a hit music video in which a fast food worker gets romanced by the smooth-shaven Atlanta rapper, has been viewed some 33 million times since it debuted in August. But many of the knockoffs and parodies are even better, from the heartwarming, election-season rendition (above) by the 6th and 7th graders at Atlanta’s Ron Clark Academy to Weird Al Yankovic’s recession version, in which he seduces the video hottie with promises of two-ply toilet paper, to comedian Alphacat as Obama in the Oval Office, chanting, “First black prez, ain’t that nice? I’m in the highest office, now I can do whatever I like.” When viruses mutate, it’s usually bad news. But sometimes when viral videos morph, it’s all good.

10. MadTv No Frills Airlines

‘Tis the season for hellish travel. If the prospect of getting on a plane makes you want to boycott the holidays altogether, you’re not alone. When the folks at MadTV put this skit together early this year, it was meant to parody the myriad ways that airlines nickel and dime their passengers — the clip shows passengers being forced to pay an extra charge for seat belts and an emergency supply of oxygen. But the soaring cost of air travel and the elimination of even peanuts from cross-country flights is no joke anymore. Watch and weep.

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Tagged as: 2008 Viral Videos, Mad TV, T.I.'s Whatever you like, Top Viral Videos for 2008