“Hitler Reacts” is a series of Youtube parodies based off of a dramatic scene from the 2004 film Downfall. This movie focuses on the last ten days of Hitler’s life in his underground Berlin bunker, and his, along with his close confidents’ eventual suicide. The scene in particular that has gained so much notoriety shows Hitler’s reaction after the realization that he is going to lose the war.

With his incredible acting and close resemblance to the man himself, Bruno Ganz, (who plays Hitler in the movie) does a remarkable job of making this scene both expressive and suspenseful. Because of this scene’s power, it makes for a highly effective piece of comedy media when contrasted with ridiculous subtitles. Youtube enthusiasts soon caught on to this fact and started developing spoofs. The earliest known parody was uploaded by Youtube user DReaperF4 on August 10^th, 2006. This was subbed in Spanish, and showed Hitler fuming over a demo trial of Microsoft’s Flight Simulator X. Because of the popularity of this upload, the English subbed version was uploaded 20 days later. However, due to a copyright claim made by the film studio, the original video was deleted in December, 2009.

Since then, the popularity and frequency of uploads/views of this scene have skyrocketed. With subtitles in English, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, and many other languages, this has become a phenomenon throughout the world. In fact, in April 2009, a Youtube channel named HitlerRantsParodies was created for the community to come together and share their creations. This channel remains with over 560 uploads and 29 million views.

For the most part viewers have been accepting of these videos, and looking at them through a positive light. Because they do involve such a controversial figure, it is expected for there to be some outrage from certain groups of people. However, for the most part these videos portray Hitler as an unstable and overdramatic figure, which parallels with the thoughts of his real-life actions in World War 2. In fact, even the director of Downfall had only positive comments to give about the parodies, finding them humourous himself. On January 15th, 2010, the director was interviewed by New York Magazine’s entertainment blog Vulture. When asked about the emergence of the parodies online, he stated:

Someone sends me the links every time there’s a new one…
I think I’ve seen about 145 of them! Of course, I have to put the sound down when I watch. Many times the lines are so funny, I laugh out loud, and I’m laughing about the scene that I staged myself! You couldn’t get a better compliment as a director.

This video is one of many that stretches the boundaries of acceptable content to be posted online. Similar to the “Shit Girls Say” outbreak in 2011, they both could be viewed as offensive. However, Youtube enthusiasts have gone to show that with a good sense of humour, even touchy subjects can be created into entertainment for millions.

By Lauren Friesen

(presentation by Krystin Ellis-McDermid, Emma Bratman)

“The Dancing Baby”, a presentation by Frances Young and Matt Harris, was about one of the first viral videos, and the rise of these videos on sites such as youtube since then.

Software programmer Michael Girard wanted to show off his Kinetix Animation Software in a creative way that would interest viewers. He developed a 3D character animation of a baby dancing. This animation did more than he had hoped for when it spread throughout the web as a highly popular video- not only did people find it amusing to watch, but they took on adaptations of their own. Because this video was royalty free, people were able to remix it, and upload it all over the web. This phenomenon is especially prominent in the internet world, because it was one of the first pieces of widespread media that was not backed by an advertiser, but shared between users for their own personal enjoyment. Since then, this video has been seen in broadcast television, video games, and email across the globe. This marks the beginning of a new era of entertainment- the viral video. Below is a link to the dancing baby video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5x5OXfe9KY

Many other viral videos have become popular in the last few years with the help of youtube. With an element of humour, and a catchy image, these videos have become well known, especially in developed countries where almost everyone can be found with a mobile phone and an internet at home. Some of my personal favourites are as follows…

Trololo Guy

Eduard Khil, a Russian baritone singer from the 1960’s regained his spotlight in 2010 after a video of him singing went viral on youtube. His song, a mixture of random sounds and awkward faces, made for comedy gold. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z4m4lnjxkY

Grape Lady Falls

Originally aired as a news clip in MyFox Atlanta, this gem first aired on youtube in 2006. It starts off depicting two women in a grape-stomping contest. After one makes a playful attempt at cheating, she quickly trips and falls flat on her face. Ohh the karma. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMS0O3kknvk

The next few videos have become famous both from the hilarity of the original, and from the amount of times they have been remixed. These are a few of the most popular…

Keyboard Cat

This footage was from 1984 of a cat owned by Charlie Schmidt, who moved the cat to look like it was playing a simple tune on the piano. This meme became famous after it was added to the end of various blooper videos to “play” that person off screen after their mistake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAepgZ5iM5k

Bed Intruder

Antoine Dodson’s flamboyant and passionate interview on the local news became an internet sensation after it was made into an auto-tuned song by The Gregory Brothers on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMtZfW2z9dw

-Lauren Friesen