
Ten years on, revisiting YouTube’s first viral sensation - bloat
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/16/lonelygirl15-bree-video-blog-youtube
======
danso
The first YouTube viral video that blew me away, in terms of content and in
showing the potential of democratized video, was the anonymous Korean kid
shredding Pachelbel's Canon in D in his bedroom:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjA5faZF1A8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjA5faZF1A8)

The Times wrote a story about it here: "Web Guitar Wizard Revealed at Last"

[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/27/arts/television/27heff.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/27/arts/television/27heff.html?ref=arts&_r=0)

~~~
themartorana
I remember watching that, and now re-watching it, it's still amazing. This kid
has serious skill, I could watch it over and over.

My father, a life-long musician and music teacher, always told me the hallmark
of a good piece of music is that it can be transposed and arranged into any
other genre of music and still sound amazing. I don't know if he was right or
not, but this seems like decent evidence he wasn't all wrong.

~~~
bane
I agree in some sense, an astonishing number of Bach pieces have been
rewritten for a bewildering array of instruments and sound absolutely amazing.
But Bach is kind of like Math, it's true regardless if it's written in chalk
on a chalk board or in mustard on an umbrella.

Yet there's also plenty of great music that really only sounds good on the
instrument, something about it is very "subjective" with respect to the
particulars of the orchestration.

I'll sometimes spend hours digging into covers of favorite songs on youtube,
and it really is amazing how different kinds of music can survive this kind of
instrument shifting.

 __just some sharing __

here 's a well known Bach Suite
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGQLXRTl3Z0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGQLXRTl3Z0)

now on guitar
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGipFrts650](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGipFrts650)

on piano
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhfxM5FOzjQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhfxM5FOzjQ)

flute
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWKQevA68DY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWKQevA68DY)

on Nyckelharpa
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs3aUCM8BX8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs3aUCM8BX8)

electric guitar
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bsr0MyH-3IU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bsr0MyH-3IU)

another electric guitar
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8OVpjdBevs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8OVpjdBevs)

Baritone Saxophone
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXz67syyse0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXz67syyse0)

Michael Hedges
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfnm__lNNUg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfnm__lNNUg)

Bass Guitar
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-tzPu7e2pg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-tzPu7e2pg)

Recorder
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PAhkoATipk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PAhkoATipk)

Tuba
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neiTiiFp0bM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neiTiiFp0bM)

Banjo
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLyM4gCrn1k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLyM4gCrn1k)

Rock version
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIo59bHw54Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIo59bHw54Q)

Bobby McFerrin (not quite the same, but still...)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14LcvpXmb74](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14LcvpXmb74)

Pipe Organ
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRMrGo2UTH0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRMrGo2UTH0)

Marimba
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0eVALniBKE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0eVALniBKE)

Ukulele
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC230wdYl1c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC230wdYl1c)

Clarinet
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdTh4plaV9E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdTh4plaV9E)

Dubstep
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7qxeXNqCHw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7qxeXNqCHw)

Mandolin
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdKGI5zfkE0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdKGI5zfkE0)

Harp
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUWU4DdxdwU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUWU4DdxdwU)

Horn
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNsdcmDoDY0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNsdcmDoDY0)

Chapman Stick
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbWkDlPM8oI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbWkDlPM8oI)

Bassoon
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMl7j-Q1DEE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMl7j-Q1DEE)

Accordion
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGE4l7ObPvQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGE4l7ObPvQ)

Trombone
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqvapAxXsVE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqvapAxXsVE)

It survives completely intact across instrument types, performance arenas,
recording methods, synthesis, voice, octave...it's absolutely astonishing.

~~~
Bromskloss
> Michael Hedges
> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfnm__lNNUg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfnm__lNNUg)

Judging from his manners in that video, what a nice guy!

~~~
jgrowl
He passed away too soon. My favorite Michael Hedges song:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTC7kPZZmuM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTC7kPZZmuM)

~~~
bane
An absolute genius who probably pushed the art of the guitar ahead by two
generations.

------
norea-armozel
It's sad how much of the original spark that made Youtube interesting is long
gone. I use to had a vlog myself where I would discuss issues particularly
from a right-libertarian perspective (most of those vids are private or
deleted now since I don't believe anything I've said back then anymore). I
think the first thing that killed such vlogs at least in my opinion was the
removal of the whole comment system. It wasn't the best thing in the world but
you could actually setup reply videos which made conversations possible. It's
weird how YT's dev team never though to reintroduce the reply system like that
again. That was the best part of YT at least for vloggers even if they didn't
like each other (Me and FringeElements/ConfederalSocialist didn't get along.
Same with HannibalBarca/HannibalVictor.) because you could see if a thread
going on via video replies. I doubt YT will ever reintroduce such a feature
again since it led to weeks long flame wars that did eventually lead to some
people getting doxxed like thunderf00t (I know a few others were doxxed well
before him, but he's one that I remember in detail, especially with his spat
against DawahFilms).

~~~
Declanomous
> It wasn't the best thing in the world but you could actually setup reply
> videos which made conversations possible.

I had completely forgotten about that system. I really enjoyed video replies.
Not only did they foster discussion, it was a great way to learn, discover
music, and the replies allowed a great collaborative humor to develop as well.
I seem to remember that they were starting to become very spammy about the
time they disappeared though.

>That was the best part of YT at least for vloggers even if they didn't like
each other

I remember reading a scientific paper a while back that suggested social
networks grew much better when they had [likes/eprops/upvotes/etc] than they
did without, but allowing negative feedback (beyond comments) stifled growth.
We naturally try to surround ourselves with like-minded individuals as well.
Our natural tendencies coupled with incentive social networks have to censor
information that we disagree with means we all live in bubbles where our ideas
are rarely challenged.

The YouTube reply system made viewing content from the "other side" really
easy. I'm pretty sure I watched more vlogs from people I disagree in a single
month before that feature was taken away than I have in the entire time since,
especially with the new changes to the "recommended videos". Which is a shame.
It makes it much easier to demonize the other side.

As a side note, someone on Reddit made a snide joke about the
Demosthenes/Locke story arc in Ender's Game and how unrealistic it was; the
point being nobody gives a shit about two bloggers having a fight. That story
arc might actually make sense on YouTube, given how much better we empathize
with people in a video than we do with people who are hidden behind the
written word.

~~~
taneq
Even without downvotes it's unsettling how much of an echo chamber my Facebook
list has become. The only points on which I disagree with any significant
number of my friends on are those aligned with the hard left (draw from that
what inference you will) but talking to new people I meet out in the real
world, I get a totally different picture of the what other people think.

Edit: The whole point about Demosthenes and Locke was that any sufficiently
persuasive person could be widely influential in an anonymous online system.
Putting it on YouTube with videos destroys a portion of the anonymity. Who
would take Demosthenes seriously, knowing that he was a girl in her early
teens?

~~~
Declanomous
I wasn't thinking of a video of an actual person, more of a visual
representation of one. I remember a few of those older videos had people who
always talked with masks on or something similar. Video is more compelling and
easier to digest than mediums that only work via one sense at a time.

------
swang
Side note: Holy cow. I was initially posting to say I distinctly remembered
Lazy Sunday coming out in 2004, because I remember posting it on my blog in my
dorm room freshmen year. Then I remembered if it was in 2004 I was almost done
with college, and so it couldn't have been from my dorm. Then I check the
Wikipedia and realized he was right about the Dec 2005 date, which means I had
already finished school. The mind is weird.

~~~
onion2k
It's an interesting field of research -
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructive_memory](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructive_memory)

------
foldor
I distinctly remember being 17 years old and being fascinated watching these
videos on YouTube. It was really one of the first things to get me interested
in logging into YouTube actively as opposed to simply being linked to the site
from elsewhere. Nice to see that the actors didn't come out of it for the
worse :)

------
asb
I also fondly remember "The Show with Ze Frank" from back in 2006:

[http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/](http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvL6NITEozY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvL6NITEozY)
(sadly the frame-rate in this reupload is messed up)

~~~
soylentcola
I know a lot of people (myself included) aren't huge fans of that frenetic,
jump-cut-heavy style of vlog/video that's so common on YouTube but I'm pretty
sure The Show was one of the first to really popularize it.

Still, I also loved The Show. At the time, I was used to IRC and forums and
the comment sections of goof sites like Fark but it still felt like something
really cool and unique when Ze would put out calls for submissions or
contributions that would then be featured in episodes.

I'd done much smaller collab projects with forum friends in the past but his
personality and fairly large fan base made it seem a lot more fun and like
being part of a bigger crowd.

edit: it also led me to find the "pilot" for a show that was never produced:
The Remnants. I'd watch that over The Walking Dead any day.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQFv0Le2DyI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQFv0Le2DyI)

------
fredleblanc
It looks like they might be doing something for the 10 year anniversary, as a
new video was posted to the lonelygirl15 page today, the first in 7 years
according to the comments:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qwklfIbSAgA](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qwklfIbSAgA)

~~~
vl
What an amazing coincidence: The Guardian article and the new video right at
the same time... :)

------
tacos
So many articles from just ten years ago are dead links now. But I found this
amusing:

"lonelygirl15 is the hottest thing on YouTube at the moment (18,222
subscribers, 1.5 million views)"

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2006/aug/28/islo...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2006/aug/28/islonelygirl15)

18,222 subscribers! And they're still talking about it a decade later.

Meanwhile rocketboom.com was serving up QuickTime that required a plugin to
install before you could view a video and claiming 400,000+ downloads _per
episode_. (Later investigated and disproved by BusinessWeek.)

Early web video was a debacle. So many shady companies. Cool times, though.
Fun to watch the history get re-written. Note how CAA was in on it from nearly
day one.

------
sotojuan
Pretty crazy to think some YouTube series like AVGN have been going on for ten
years—only a few TV shows make it that far.

~~~
godzillabrennus
I'm glad the dude behind AVGN found success with that show. Seems like most
YouTube personalities are broke.

~~~
sotojuan
I've been watching him since I was in middle school—I graduated college this
year. It's pretty crazy and it speaks volumes about the power of the Internet
and YouTube.

James Rolfe studied film in college and spent his whole childhood/teenagehood
making home movies. It's probably a dream come true that he's able to
entertain millions and got a "real" movie out. Pretty cool!

------
aidenn0
The first video I remember downloading from the internet was The Spirit of
Christmas in 1996[1] followed by Troops[2] the following year. 30MB takes a
_long_ time to download over a 28.8 modem. Streaming was out of the question.

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_of_Christmas_(short...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_of_Christmas_\(short_film\))

2:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troops_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troops_\(film\))

~~~
walrus01
South Park definitely set a precedent. There was also a very active community
of sharing MPEG1 recordings of Futurama in the warez 'scene' from the very
first episode which aired in March 1999.

~~~
aidenn0
I remember when VCD (subset of MPEG1) was the standard for releasing movies
online. I was even in a group that converted them from VCD to MPEG4 for those
for whom 2CDs (1400MB downloads) was just too big.

~~~
walrus01
... and god help you if you were a 'scene' group and released a movie in
anything other than a multi-part RAR set of 15MB files containing 2 x 700MB
files. nuked!

~~~
overcast
Ahhh those days from 98-99, being a courier for the biggest releases was
frantic! Getting a PRE on your box was like Christmas.

------
goodJobWalrus
Watching Lazy Sunday again made me go check whether Mapquest still exists. It
looks weird now.

------
Razengan
I was expecting Numa Numa for some reason.

~~~
nommm-nommm
That was pre youtube- it was on Newgrounds originally.

------
rasz_pl
You might think this format died after lonelygirl15 was exposed, but there are
plenty of moderately successful copycats, like "14 year old" Pupinia Steward
[https://www.youtube.com/user/Robloxobbystar/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/Robloxobbystar/videos)

All it takes is one good troll video landing you on top of reddit
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYsi6Z6sXY8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYsi6Z6sXY8)
(All about my Incest) hitting 1 mil views and you get the ball rolling. Throw
in a plot twist of being madly in love with Trump (and into older men in
general) and you have a success on your hands. Might even be Jimmy Kimmels
long con for the election, like the Olympics wolf inside hotel video.

------
donatj
First video I ever saw in youtube[1] is still up, worse than I remember, and
has less than 500k views. That strikes me as so strange.

1\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwVslAo8Cz8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwVslAo8Cz8)

~~~
sverige
Um, yeah, I clicked it and can't see how it got more than 10,000 views.

~~~
EdiX
High production values, they even shot on location.

------
NTDF9
For me it was smosh pokemon theme song lip sync.

Unfortunately, Smosh were sued for using the theme song and had to take it
down.

Here's a duplicate of it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOX3OmUhQoo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOX3OmUhQoo)

------
Arzh
Wow, I was watching YouTube from the beginning and I have never heard of this.
I guess I was more in the sketch comedy and sudo public access side of it.

------
smaili
Does anyone remember those Darth Vader parodies? Those were pretty good but
totally forgot the name of the series.

~~~
blatherard
Do you mean Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wGR4-SeuJ0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wGR4-SeuJ0)

~~~
rpgmaker
Man, times sure have changed. Right now people would kill for that extra
shift.

------
gcb0
so every social site lately required fake users?

this is not as direct as reddit own staff posting but pretty close

~~~
soylentcola
It was still user generated content. It was just telling a fictional story in
a faux-realistic format...the vlog.

Not much different that the fake documentary style horror movies like Blair
Witch. They just managed to keep the fantasy going for longer.

------
CyberDildonics
If I remember correctly what really rocketed youtube from being a website with
nothing but crap to a site worth going to were the home videos from tourists
caught in the the Tsunami in Thailand.

~~~
nommm-nommm
The earthquake/tsunami was in 2004 but youtube didn't launch until 2005.
Unless you are talking about another tsunami.

~~~
CyberDildonics
No, I'm talking about the same tsunami and your dates are correct, but there
no reason that video taken from the tsunami wouldn't be posted later once
there was a platform for them, which is what happened.

------
maruhan2
That girl is super cute, but having been a Youtube addict back in 2006/07, I
don't really recall her being that popular. As mentioned in the comments, the
big one was Canon in D. Pokemon parody by Smosh. Evolution of dance. Urban
ninja.

