It would be easy to make the argument that no other site has transfixed Internet users like YouTube. Simply put, YouTube lets users upload videos that other users can watch. The site’s brilliance lies in its simplicity—it is incredibly easy to use, which is the main reason why it has become so popular. In fact, Google thought YouTube was worth paying 1.6 billion dollars for—a price that today seems like a bargain. The most popular videos of all on YouTube are often music videos by celebrities like Lady Gaga, but when many people think of YouTube, they think of the viral videos that average people post. Here are a couple interesting stories of ordinary people who gained unexpected fame through their viral videos on YouTube.
“Star Wars Kid”
A Canadian teenager once made a video of himself wielding a staff and pretending to be the character Darth Maul from the Star Wars movies. The tape was found and shared on the Kazaa file sharing network as a prank. Within a few weeks, the video had been viewed by millions of people, and “Star Wars Kid” was born. Unfortunately, the teenager who made the video was more embarrassed than pleased by his newfound fame— but at that point, there was no way to take the video down, since it had been shared so widely.
“Rickrolling”
Born as a prank, “Rickrolling” is the practice of creating a link to Rick Astley’s video for “Never Gonna Give You Up” that seems to be leading to some other kind of content. Though Astley had popularity as a singer, the prank has become so widespread that he may have received as much popularity from the prank. In fact, there are hundreds if not thousands- of links on YouTube that seem to link to something else but in fact link to Astley’s video instead.