My favorite YouTube video is “Evolution of Dance”. One of my friends from home showed it to me about three years ago when we were home for Christmas Break, and since then I have watched it many times. This video has been viewed over 154,000,000 times, and is currently #7 on the list of most viewed YouTube videos all-time. It is the second most viewed YouTube video that is not a music video.
This video can be classified as a viral video because it has simply been passed along through word of mouth. My dad heard about it in a email chain from one of his coworkers. It appears that the video was shot using a camcorder because the quality of the video does not appear to be clear enough that it was shot by a professional.
The video features one man, a comedian named Judson Laipply. In the video, he dances to a series of songs ranging from Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog” to Jay-Z’s “Dirt Off Your Shoulder”. (The full list can be found here.) I find this video very entertaining because he is a very good dancer and it is evident that he put a lot of work into this video. When I first saw it, I thought it was going to be stupid because it was just one man standing on the stage so I thought that there was no way it could be amusing, but I was wrong. He did a great job selecting songs and dances that everyone would know. I showed the video to my mom and she loved it because she said she hadn’t seen some of those dances for years. She then sent it to her group of friends.
The fact that this video has so many views in just four years is incredible to me. I always wonder what is going through Judson Laipply’s mind because he has become so famous because of a video that was 6 minutes long. Due to the success of “Evolution of Dance”, he uploaded the official sequel in January of 2009, called “Evolution of Dance 2”, which has been viewed almost 13,000,000 times. In this video, he is wearing the same outfit that he wore in “Evolution of Dance”.
According to Laipply’s Wikipedia page, on June 16, 2010 he announced that he will release of “Evolution of Dance 3”. He said that he wants to include much older music and possibly another dancer. I don’t like the idea of having another dancer, because these videos are clearly entertaining enough with just him. This video has been a perfect example of a viral video, and I’m sure Judson Laipply is not complaining about its success.
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