Viral videos of the week: RKOs, robots, a diva in the making and Star Wars remade

18 Oct 2014

Still from 'The Empire Strikes Back Uncut: Full Movie (Official)' by Star Wars on YouTube

This week in viral videos, we were watching a robot dancing like a human, a human dancing like a robot, an RKO rampage and a hotchpotch Star Wars remake.

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.

Each week, we take a look at some of the most-viewed and most-shared videos on the web, and here’s what has caught our eye this week.

Asimo’s Friday dance party

This video of the advanced robot Asimo getting a dose of that Friday feeling was uploaded to Facebook just yesterday but is already gaining lots of attention. Asimo (which comes from Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility) is developed by Honda and his impressive dance moves arrive just in time to celebrate the end of Japan Robot Week.

 

Uploaded: 17 October 2014

Randy Orton’s sneaky RKOs take over the internet

Sometimes a viral video sparks a trend of imitators (remember the Harlem Shake?) and, this week, a meme has been born. It looks like WWE wrestler Randy Orton has been running amok across YouTube, Facebook and Vine, taking anyone and everyone down with his signature move, the RKO – out of nowhere! It’s silly, but it works every time.

Uploaded: 13 October 2014

The RKO has even been transplanted into an Irish viral classic. He simply cannot be stopped.

Uploaded: 14 October 2014

Kid goes full diva on live TV

While a news reporter conducted a live TV broadcast at the opening of a shopping centre in Las Vegas, the real star of the show was Brendan Jordan, who refused to blend into the obscurity of the background crowd. Instead, Jordan makes the most of his 15 seconds of fame, channeling Lady Gaga and striking pose after pose after pose. Who could pay attention to anything else with so much fierceness to focus on? Spot the best bit when the young girl beside him almost throws off his game: dat face.

Uploaded: 11 October 2014

Irish Water charity appeal

The roll-out of water meters across Ireland has prompted plenty of entertaining responses online, and the latest from YouTube is this parody video, taking the form of the familiar charity appeal.

Uploaded: 9 October

Coolest sound ever

This video from vlogger DudeLikeHELLA is a long one at 16 minutes, but if you’re not interested in watching the protagonist and his girlfriend entertain themselves with windscreen wipers and a tennis ball, talk to the camera while driving and then go shopping, skip straight to the good stuff at 3:38 (we’ve already done it for you) and witness the sound of skipping rocks across a frozen lake. And yes, it is pretty cool.

Uploaded: 13 October 2014

Audacious Adi

This dubstep dance showcase is the YouTube debut of 11-year-old Adi Malcolm and, while you’re blown away by her skillful moves, you should know that Malcolm’s profile claims she has never had a dance lesson in her young life. Apparently, she’s learned all she knows from YouTube videos. See, watching online videos can be productive!

Uploaded: 7 October 2014

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (official full-movie recut)

Stick the popcorn on for this one, as it’s a feature-length video. You may have watched The Empire Strikes Back, the second instalment of the original Star Wars trilogy, over a dozen times – but you’ve never seen it like this. Lucasfilm has taken the trouble of compiling more than 480 fan-made recreations to produce a shot-for-shot remake of the entire film that flips from live action to animation to, even, stop-motion Lego.

Uploaded: 10 October 2014

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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