It’s hit me recently that it’s no big deal any more to get a million views on YouTube. (Probably while I was watching a really bad video that had a million views.) This gave me the curiosity to look up YouTube’s most popular videos of all time:
http://www.youtube.com/browse?s=mp&t=a
Check out our top-vote getter, “Evolution of Dance,” starring “inspirational comedian” (?) Judson Laipply. No, I mean just look at it – you’ve already watched it. So have 125,950,053* other people.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg&hl=en&fs=1&]
It’s definitely not the best video on YouTube. It’s not even particularly good. And yet there it sits, millions of views ahead of others perhaps far more deserving. What gives?
I guess it has just enough low-grade, inoffensive humor and catchy pop-culture references for everyone and their mother—mostly their mother—to have seen and forwarded it. It doesn’t take any unexpected turns, and tells the visual jokes you expect it to tell. What’s interesting is that Judson doesn’t even do that much dancing in the video, besides a truly impressive worm at 2:20 and some prodigious hip-swivelling throughout. The creepily enthusiastic audience—I’m gathering that they’re high-school age and majority female—serves as our sitcom-style canned laughter.
Kudos to the artist, Judson, for not only netting this much popularity, but doing so on a self-posted video. Half the time it’s a random YouTuber who sticks someone else’s video up and gets all the page views. Then again, Judson loses a few points by leading off his video description with, I shit you not, “The funniest 6 minutes you will ever see!” Laying it on a little thick, aren’t ya?
The answer is yes, yes ya are. There’s the official Evolution of Dance website, featuring the sequel video (more of the same, I assure you) and online store (buy the “EOD Tee Shirt,” only $17.95). Hell, keep it up, I suppose; Judson probably hasn’t had a desk job in years.
Meh, I don’t hate it, but there’s not much “evolution” involved—just a random collection of recognizable dance moves that don’t even go in chronological order (“Mr. Roboto” came a year before “Thriller”). Who knows, it was probably funnier in person.
* Fun fact: I started writing this about 10 days ago and the watch count was around 125,400,000. So it’s gotten a half-million MORE views in a week and a half; a half-million views is more than most YouTube videos will ever see combined. Long Live Judson Laipply!
