Viral videos: Baltimore ‘Beat It’ and ‘Daenerys Targaryen’

1 May 2015

This week in viral videos, one man dances to Michael Jackson’s Beat It in Baltimore, a pug will be watching you and ‘Daenerys Targaryen’ appears on Jimmy Fallon.

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.

Baltimore man dances to Beat It

The news has been filled this week with stories from Baltimore in the US where rioting over the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody continued to cause carnage throughout the city.

However, in a rather odd sub-plot, footage began to emerge of one man’s own unique protest against the Baltimore Police Department by using his rather impressive dance skills to dance along to Michael Jackson’s Beat It, not just on top of the delivery truck, as seen in this video, but also on the street at night.

Given the amount of violence over the past week, this type of peaceful protest is a nice change.

Uploaded: 27 April 2015

Jimmy Fallon meets ‘Daenerys Targaryen’

If you can’t tell from the inverted commas, no, Jimmy Fallon did not actually meet a fictional character from Game of Thrones, but rather the always-hilarious Kristen Wiig dressed as the Khaleesi.

It revealed some startling facts about the dragon queen that you may not have known, including that she also does her own stand-up comedy, specifically about swords and rocks.

What makes this piece even better though is that Wiig has clearly never watched an episode of Game of Thrones in her life, given that she breaks character so many times that it becomes a joke in itself.

Great stuff.

Uploaded: 29 April 2015

Watermelon + melted aluminium = creepy sculpture

One backyard scientist across the pond has asked the question no one was asking: what happens when you pour molten aluminium into a watermelon? Yet, nearly 5m of you realised that, actually, it would be pretty cool to see what would happen.

The YouTuber, calling himself The Backyard Scientist, went into the experiment expecting the molten metal to react rather violently with the water-laden fruit but, to his surprise, a totally different reaction happened.

What results is something that is both creepy and fascinating, much like a robotic spine one might see in the Terminator franchise.

Robots disguised as watermelons sent back in time to kill John Connor? No, probably not.

Uploaded: 28 April 2015

The history of the gays in Ireland

Paddy Power didn’t find itself in a particularly good light following its publicity billboard campaign ahead of the upcoming marriage referendum, which some felt was a bit inappropriate to say the least, but with its follow-up attempt its managed to pull off a pretty great piece of satire.

Recruiting Peter and Chris from Epic News, the pair chart a rather humorous take on how Ireland has a rather chequered history when it comes to gay rights and the treatment of gay people through the ages.

Uploaded: 29 April 2015

Sting pug will be watching you

Not much to say about this video, just that pugs remain one of the internet’s favourite dogs and in this case Filip Nordin on YouTube feels that if Sting were a dog it would be his pug as it stares into your soul to the sounds of I’ll be Watching You.

“I fell (sic) like the pug is a mob gangster and he’s asking where’s my money”, says Webster the Mac in the comment section. You might be on to something there, Webb.

Uploaded: 29 April 2015

Jeff Bezos’ first New Shepherd rocket launches

It appears we’ve entered a new age of the space race, not between competing nations, but rather ultra-rich tech entrepreneurs, as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos finally sees his New Shepherd rocket make its inaugural test launch.

Despite Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic already getting their projects underway, Bezos has actually been working on his rocket technology for longer than the pair given that he started this space firm, Blue Origin, all the way back in 2000.

Either way, the addition of another player to the space exploration market can only be good news.

Uploaded: 29 April 2015

World’s first triple backflip dirt bike jump

Well this is pretty impressive. Described by his peers as being equal to the legendary Evel Knievel, Josh Sheehan spent a year training with his dirt bike to attempt the world’s first triple backflip on a motorcycle.

With his fans and team cheering on from the sides of the ramp, Sheehan managed to pull of the stunt, which, when seen through Sheehan’s own helmet cam, looks even more impressive.

Uploaded: 28 April 2015

My uncle vs Korean toilets

No, this is not some bizarre anime film, but rather one man’s attempts to break down cultural barriers and ask: “What would it be like for my toilet to wash my posterior?”

With much giggling, you have to commend him for choosing the least invasive option, given that one of the options to choose from with South Korea’s hi-tech toilets is ‘enema’. Yeesh.

Uploaded: 29 April 2015

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Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com