Viral videos of the week: Beat boxing baby, Cork’s talking birds and epic don’t drink prank

5 Jan 2014

We take a look at some of the most-viewed and most-shared videos on the web. This week features a beat boxing one-year-old, the top news bloopers of 2013, the gales in Salthill and Cork’s talking birds (of the feathered kind, boy).

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.

Beat boxing baby

Let’s start the year with the cutest thing you could imagine – yes, a beat boxing baby.  More than 9m people tuned into see YouTuber iLLyNoiiZe’s one year-old niece help him complete some beats. He popped out a beat pattern which was completed by the rhythmic toddler sending iLLyNoiiZe into gales of laughter. I dare you not to smile at this.

 

News bloopers from 2013

If we’re not laughing at the antics of silly politicians, we love it when those moral guardians in starched shirts and make-up – yes, newsreaders and TV journalists – get it wrong or reveal themselves to be human, too. This collection of news bloopers from 2013 – which includes at least two Irish entries, such as RTÉ newsreader Aengus Mac Grianna’s infamous make-up moment and TV3 journalist Siobhan Bastible choking on-air incident – is guaranteed to entertain rather than inform.

 

Cork’s talking birds

In what has been described as a fiercely short documentary from the People’s Republic of Cork, we were treated to an insight into Cork’s wildlife, namely the feathered creatures who frequent Cork City’s Lough area. If there’s one things the Corkonians can claim over their Dublin rivals it is their birds can talk – mind you, a cheeky bird from Dublin called Deco makes an appearance. Our favourite are Canada geese Ted and Séan, who are attempting to march in step.

 

The Gales of Salthill

If there’s one thing the Irish people love to talk about it is the weather. We get loads of it here in Ireland and this weekend our wee island is taking quite a bashing. No words were necessary but thousands watched in grim fascination this week as the waves battered the Galway resort town of Salthill. No doubt many more videos of wild, thrashing storms and floods Ireland was subjected to this week will surface – why doesn’t someone make a video compilation and we’ll see if it goes viral by next week? Gwan, gwan, gwan ….

 

The most epic – but serious – prank ever

One of the most watched videos over the Christmas period – notching up an impressive 18m views – was the Epic Don’t Drink and Drive Prank, in which a group of friends converted an unused office into a hospital bedroom with the intention of scaring a friend who drank too much into amending his ways. The alcohol-loving victim of the prank had already passed out from boozing and awoke to find himself in what he believed was a hospital only to be told he had been in a coma for 10 years. While it has been termed a prank, the video has serious meaning.

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John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com