I'm Molly Wood, in for Brian Cooley with a CNET Top 5: the top Internet video memes of
the year.
Now, when our producer, Sarah, had the idea to do the memes of the year, we
tried to explain to Cooley what we were talking about.
That conversation went a little
something like this.
So, we decided I�d take this one.
Let�s get started, shall we?
Coming in at Number 5, the It Gets Better project.
It started on Dan Savage�ss
podcast Savage Love after a rash of gay teen suicides.
He asked people
to start posting video address to suicidal teens.
By year�s end, there were
more than 5,000 videos with more than 20 million views.
Many, many
celebrities made videos, as did companies like Google and Pixar, and
even President Obama.
Hey, CBS?
Where�s ours?
At number four, it�s the Taiwanese news animations.
Now, admittedly, the first one did
happen in December 2009, re-enacting the Tiger Woods accident and arrest.
But that�s
pretty much 2010, and the meme really took off with the Steve Jobs reality distortion field
animation in July, and who could forget their takes on Snooki, Lindsey Lohan getting out
of jail, and flight attendant Steven Slater quitting his job in spectacular fashion?
So good.
At number three, it�s gotta be the Double Rainbow guy.
Paul Vasquez
recorded his own HIGHLY emotional response to seeing a double rainbow
in Yosemite National Park, and uploaded it to YouTube.
No big, right?
Ha.
The Internet collectively loved it, leading to multiple songs and auto-tunes,
a KFC Taco Bell spoof, pop culture and Twitter references galore, and
multiple songs and auto-tunes.
Plus, these awesome belts on Etsy.
The
world loves a double rainbow, people.
Coming in at number 2?
My boyfriend, Isaiah Mustafa, and Old Spice�s
The Man your Man could smell like campaign.
Normally, we caution any
company against trying to manufacture a viral hit.
It never works.
UNLESS
it�s this commercial.
It got millions of YouTube hits, there were almost as
many spoofs and remakes, and there was even a Sesame Street cover!
Plus, Old Spice played it perfect, with a single day in which Mustafa made
personalized videos responding to tweets, emails, and Facebook.
Old man
never smelled so memey.
And before we get to Number One, let�s have a look at some of the other
major memes of the year.
Coming in at 6 to 10, there was:
The Trololo guy.
Creepy Russian sings without moving mouth.
Can�t get
more Internet than that.
The Scarface school play.
The sight of children play-shooting each other
and calling each other fudging mother fudgers was disturbing � LY
AWESOME.
Don�t worry, it was all an Internet joke.
The OMG Cat, which was then mashed up into the OMG Cat that cannot
unsee the horror.
Cats.
Always a winner.
Not a video, but you had to love the BP Global PR fake Twitter account,
which kept BP and the disastrous Gulf oil spill front and center long after
BP�s real PR team wished it would go away.
Plus, they raised money for
Gulf relief!
And then were was Justin Bieber.
Who not only consumed fully 3 percent
of Twitter�s servers at any given time, but made his OWN spoof videos of
Internet memes over at Funny Or Die.
The meme redoing the memes.
It�s
all so meta.
And with that, it�s time to get to the Number One Internet meme of 2010.
The Bed Intruder.
This is the kind of thing that can only happen on the
Internet.
Antoine Dodson saves his sister from a would-be rapist, gives an
interview on the local news, the Gregory Brothers of Auto-Tune the News
fame turn it into a song � The �song� got more than 45 million views, and
even some of the countless covers numbered in the millions of views.
There were Halloween costumes, Antoine Dodson endorsements, and he
even �performed� the song at the BET awards.
Plus, he got some sweet
extensions out of it.
Well done, Internet.
Well done.
And that�s it for this Top 5, everyone.
Hopefully Cooley now knows what a
meme is, although I�ll do this episode any time.
I'm Molly Wood and you can
find all the CNET Top 5 videos at CNETTV.com.
