Viral videos of the week: Snow jokes, animals amuck and Oscar mishap

16 Jan 2015

Still from 'Hippo Charge on Chobe River Jan2015, recorded with iPhone 6'

This week in viral videos, the world gets a glimpse of how Ireland reacts to a brief flurry of snow, animals do their own thing, and a few Oscar nominations experience mishaps.

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.

Snowing in Sligo!

First up this week is Alan Lally’s reaction to the first snowfall of 2015 having taken Reddit by storm for his childlike-glee at what is, frankly, nothing but a light dusting as Ireland experiences this particular cold snap.

To the great annoyance of his housemate John, Alan begins to run around the house to peer out of his window, only to be caught dead in his tracks by the way the snow lands on the Buddha statue’s arms.

While it seems the accents have made this video quite popular abroad, it couldn’t be typified as more Irish as when it the midst of his tired confusion, John still can agree on getting a cup of tea.

Uploaded: 13 January 2015

‘Ye wouldn’t be long getting frost bit’

Amazingly, two Irish videos with two very different accents managed to amaze the world this week, as one Derry teenager had his own reaction to Ireland’s ‘Snow Hell 2015’ (not an actual event) caught on camera.

Frankly, this journalist was amazed to discover that this was a teenager, and not a retired gentleman spinning a yarn to the local UTV news crew.

Almost word-for-word like a conversation that would be heard between a corner-shop owner and his or her regular small-talk loving customer, the Derry teen confirms it is indeed cold and that it wouldn’t be long before you’re ‘frost bit’.

Uploaded: 13 January 2015

Live stage fail

If there is one thing that remains consistently funny, it’s when a person walking out on live TV falls over.

This week’s latest ‘flop’ was on the Egyptian TV channel Alhayah, where ‘Back to School’ was introducing one of Egypt’s celebrities (disclaimer: this journalist is not familiar with who this person actually is) who decided to come out to the crowd with a cocky stride.

A cocky stride which subsequently ended in hilarity as he just about manages to maintain his balance for enough time before eventually succumbing to gravity. A fine fall, indeed.

Uploaded: 13 January 2015

Cristiano Ronaldo screams at audience

The world’s biggest football stars had their chance to strut their stuff other than on the football pitch this week as the FIFA Ballon d’Or 2014 awards took place.

While Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi were the stars, most Irish eyes focused on who was to be awarded the Ferenc Puskás Award for the best goal of 2014, with Ireland’s Stephanie Roche hoping to become the first female and Irish winner of the award, which sadly didn’t come to pass.

However, the main award of the night went to Ronaldo, who true to form celebrated his win by making some strange guttural sound out of kilter with the tuxedo-laden crowd.

Uploaded: 12 January 2015

Oscar nominations 2015 – Dick Poop

Another award ceremony in the headlines this week was the Oscars, whose nominations were announced yesterday. Birdman, Boyhood and The Grand Budapest Hotel are some of the hot favourites to win big.

However, another film being discussed was Mr Turner and the best cinematographer of the year nomination for Dick Pop. Oh sorry, Duck Pip. Blast. Apologies, but it really is a difficult name to say, at least according to one US TV news reporter who made the even worse mistake of calling him Dick Poop. (It’s actually Dick Pope).

The reporter wasn’t the only one to have a nightmare when dealing with names. The Guardian’s Alex Needham was in such a rush to announce the winners that his spelling went out the window during a live blog.

Uploaded: 15 January 2015

Hippo charges a boat

As a species, hippos have progressed from being seen as a lumbering semi-aquatic mammal to one of the deadliest creatures to roam the continent of Africa, with estimates putting the number of human deaths per year at their hooves as high as 3,000.

So when one boat owner saw a hippo coming towards him on the Pangolin Photo Safari in Botswana, he had the right idea to high tail it out of there.

Hippos’ lumbering speed on land is no match for their speed in water, which can be seen from this clip, as the animal just misses the boat after making up distance in the space of a few a seconds.

Uploaded: 11 January 2015

The Royal Dutch Guide Dog Foundation (KNGF) commercial for veteran dogs

The old adage of a dog being man’s best friend is shown to be true in this touching advert for The KNGF, which offers dog companions to those who have been affected by trauma from war, as well as those who are blind.

Short and sweet, the video certainly leaves a lasting impression about the horrors of war.

Uploaded: 10 January 2015

Dog rides a bus to the park

And finally, keeping with dogs, one black Labrador has caught the attention of the internet masses for her can-do spirit of loving the park so much that she’s willing to get on the bus and go by herself.

Like a young ‘Rosa Barks’, the dog named Eclipse appears quite happy to roam around the bus during the journey to say hello to fellow passenger and even give them a slobbering.

So what of her owner? Jeff Young says she is most definitely an ‘urbanised dog’ and says the reason she takes off on her own is because Young feels the need to stop for a cigarette – if the bus comes before he’s finished, Eclipse will happily run on to leave him behind.

You go, girl.