Viral videos of the week: Llamas on the llam, Banksy and Christina Aguilera

27 Feb 2015

Gaza street art image via Banksy.co.uk

This week in viral videos, a pair of escaped llamas break Twitter, a dog shovels some snow and Christina Aguilera uses her vocal cords for good.

About 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, Facebook videos see over 1bn views per day, and more than 700 YouTube videos shared on Twitter each minute, ensuring there is always video trending on the web.

With so much video available for viewing, we take a look at some of the viral videos that have caught our eye this week.

Llamas on the llam from llawmen

Sun City, Arizona was the centre of the world’s attention this week after a pair of llamas – on e white, one black – broke free of their evil human captors at a retirement home for a show-and-tell and created an amazing Benny Hill-style chase involving the llamas, their handlers and local police.

Once word got out about the escape on Twitter, it didn’t take long for Twitter to get wind of it with stats showing that at its peak, 3,084 tweets were being sent every minute with the hashtags # llamawatch and #teamllama proving the most popular.

They’ve since been captured once again leaving the world to await the next Twitter animal hero.

Uploaded: 26 February 2015

Wheel of Musical Impressions with Christina Aguilera

Oh look, it’s Jimmy Fallon, again. It’s hard not to have a Jimmy Fallon in a chart of viral videos given how prolific his team are of tapping in to what the public want so this week saw Christina Aguilera appear to use her freakishly good voice to imitate some of the most well-known singers.

In her ‘off-the-cuff’ performance, she manages to get through Cher, Shakira and her old Disney partner-in-crime and fellow 90s/00s mega pop star, Britney Spears.

Jimmy does his own imitations pretty well although his David Bowie performance is certainly a little lacking.

Uploaded: 23 February 2015

A bat eating a banana

For whatever reason, watching videos of animals eating things is oddly captivating, regardless of it being a horse eating a carrot, or, in this case, a bat eating a banana.

Although you’d have to question what appeal a fruit bat might be as a pet, one person is certainly feeling the love for the winged nocturnal creatures after they rescued one from netting left in a tree.

So behold, a bat eating banana with a look of pure joy.

Uploaded: 25 February 2015

Elsa the dog shovelling snow

Disney’s Frozen might have made the name Elsa a household name, but one very helpful Canadian canine, also named Elsa, is making a name for herself as the most helpful dog around.

Given the fact she has no hands or opposable thumbs, Elsa manages to shovel a bit of snow in the back yard after a large amount of snow had fallen the previous night.

Now, if only she could take out the garbage as well…

Uploaded: 22 February 2015

Behold the sound of a baby troll

While the sound of somebody else’s crying baby is likely to send a person up the wall, the sound of a baby’s laughter is usually something most people can agree is enough to put a smile on your face.

Well, spare a thought for this Russian baby whose laugh is oddly reminiscent of the sound of a troll laughing.

While we may laugh now, and he/she is certainly laughing, the poor kid will eventually grow up to realise he was the troll baby all those years ago.

Uploaded: 23 February 2015

Mary Poppins sings death metal

Did you know between takes, the face behind the films The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins, Julie Andrews, would shout guttural noises in the style of death metal?

No? Well you shouldn’t have because it clearly didn’t happen. And yet, one metal lover decided to record his own metal version of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and dub it over Julie’s lines in Mary Poppins.

Seamless, huh?

Uploaded: 24 February 2015

Birdman action figure

Hot off the success of the top-gong at The Oscars, Birdman is getting a second wind at cinemas and Fox Searchlight, its owner, has been quick off the mark to promote it once again with this 90s-styled ad for a Birdman action figure.

They do get it just right, thankfully, and we can all admit to seeing ads exactly like this for whatever was the hottest action figure at the time.

Uploaded: 24 February 2015

Gaza – your next holiday destination?

Legendary street artist Banksy has taken to YouTube to raise awareness of the on-going humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip showing the appalling conditions its people are living in where, despite regular bombings, concrete is not allowed to enter into the zone.

Although from the video, most of the locals appear rather bemused by his amazing creations but either way, it has certainly raised the issue to a much wider audience.

Uploaded: 25 February 2015

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Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com