Viral videos of the week: a racist B&B, an optical illusion and live Photoshop

16 Jun 2013

Still from 'optical illusion dance' by walldoo99 . on YouTube

We take a look at some of the most-viewed and most-shared videos on the web. This week features a handy instructional video from PlayStation, a Photoshop magician at work, a trippy optical illusion, ‘Get Lucky’ through the ages, a parody of Ireland’s racism problem and a scaredy-cat.

About 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, 500 years of video watched on Facebook every 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.

Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video

This week we had the war of the consoles breaking out at E3 as Microsoft and Sony went head to head with press events for their next-generation games systems. By most accounts, Sony came out on top for simply sticking with the status quo in terms of sharing permissions and connectivity, while Microsoft’s Xbox One has been criticised for introducing a restrictive licensing policy and the need for a constant online connection. Just one look at this video from PlayStation demonstrating how to lend games to a friend on the PlayStation 4 sums up why you shouldn’t over complicate things.

 

Uploaded: 10 June 2013

Racist B&B

When Tara Flynn visited her hometown of Kinsale, Co Cork, with her African-American husband, the racial slurs spouted from a small selection of individuals shocked her into video-making action. The lesson from this video is not that you shouldn’t be racist to a talented comedian’s husband whose backlash will come in the form of a scathingly funny viral video sending up our so called ‘Ireland of the Welcomes’, but really that you just shouldn’t be racist – ever – nor should you just turn a blind eye to it.

 

Uploaded: 10 June

Optical illusion dance

Somehow, this mind-blowing video passed under our radar following its upload in March, but we’re delighted to have discovered it being shared on social media this week. With nearly 3m views to its name, we can only imagine how much confusion has resulted from watching this dance designed to mess with your head.

 

Uploaded: 20 March 2013

Tiger just wants a drink

We all know that you should let sleeping dogs lie but this video teaches us to let thirsty dogs drink uninterrupted, too. Even if you are a bad-ass tiger, this pooch is having none of your guff.

 

Uploaded: 6 June 2013

Evolution of ‘Get Lucky’

This video is more of an aural sensation than a visual feast, as PV Nova covers fellow French musicians Daft Punk’s feel-good hit of the summer through the ages, reworking the track in every decade’s definitive musical style from the 1920s to the future. It gets a bit more animated at the end when PV Nova turns up to let us know of his plans to make a music video from fellow YouTubers’ contributions. We’ll be keeping an eye out for it!

 

Uploaded: 10 June 2013

Photoshop Live – Street Retouch Prank

To pull off this creative prank, AdobeNordic enlisted the help of ‘Photoshop magician’ Erik Johansson. The photographer and retouch artist is known for his incredible surreal imagery created using Adobe’s famed software, and here he put his skills to the test with a live Photoshop challenge – to the surprise and delight of these unsuspecting public transport patrons.

 

Uploaded: 7 June 2013

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Elaine Burke is the host of For Tech’s Sake, a co-production from Silicon Republic and The HeadStuff Podcast Network. She was previously the editor of Silicon Republic.

editorial@siliconrepublic.com