Today in my Journalism 100 class, Matt and Frances gave a presentation about the ‘Dancing Baby’ video that was released and went viral in 1996.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5x5OXfe9KY
The video was created using ‘Kinetix’ animations software by a team including Michael Girard. Social networking sites like YouTube and Facebook weren’t created at the time, but the video did go viral through e-mails and compulsive forums. It was even broadcast on TV, appeared in video games, and was shown during the half time of basketball games.
This dancing baby video wasn’t marketed, which means that people were able to take the video and adapt it and remix it into their own versions. Many times, people would just take the same animation loop and apply a different audio, mainly a different song. I found a version that actually incorporated a ‘baby rap’ as the song that used an edited baby laughing as the lyrics to a beat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIcJUfFWbTE&feature=related
The original dancing baby video was one of the very first viral Internet videos and Internet memes. The dancing baby is still popular today as people are continuing to upload their own variations of the original content. This video was uploaded as recently as 2009 which shows that the internet meme has persisted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9H28BpDwjs&feature=related
Although the dancing baby was very popular in the late 90’s and is still viewed today, more recent videos have had similar exposure. One example that I thought of before Matt and Frances even mentioned it in their presentation was the Nyan Cat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH2-TGUlwu4
This video is very similar to the dancing baby in that it just an animation loop replayed with simple, yet somewhat annoying, audio in the background. It has gone extremely viral and reached over 60,000,000 views in less than a year on YouTube alone. Like the dancing baby, the Nyan Cat video wasn’t marketed. There are many different types of Nyan Cats on YouTube today. Here is one of my favorites:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KT_89gi2Dk
I have learned from this presentation how such simple animation loops can go viral, and when they are not marketed, how people love to use the content to make their own version of the video. This can be seen in the 90’s with the dancing baby video and in 2011 with the Nyan Cat videos. The only difference between the 90’s and today is how these videos are spreading. Today with social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler and the most important video site, YouTube, videos can be shared and viewed by millions almost instantly. The use of smartphones has also allowed for quicker and more constant access to these videos. Today it is also much easier for people to manipulate an original video. This explains why there are thousands of variations of the Nyan Cat and more recent variations of the dancing baby.
I’ve actually noticed a similar trend occurring right now on YouTube with the “Sh*t xxx Say” meme. “Sh*t Girls Say” was uploaded in December 2011 and many people now are creating their own versions of the video. There is even a “Sh*t UBC Says” which has become quite popular.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i0JvZ5rGk8
– Alyssa Gauk