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The Documentary: My viral video and me

My viral video and me

17/01/2021 GMT

BBC World Service - The Documentary, My viral video and me

Colm Flynn tracks down the internet’s original viral video superstars

Colm Flynn tracks down the internet’s original viral video superstars.

Colm Flynn tracks down the internet's original viral video superstars and reveals how becoming an online sensation changed their life.
 
So many people spend their time chasing the allure of fame, however, very few ever reach the level of world-wide recognition that viral phenomena obtain almost overnight.
 
Colm tracks down the people he watched online growing up, to find out what happened to them after their initial viral fame faded. He visits people who amassed hundreds of millions of worldwide views and embedded themselves in the minds of a generation.
 
A child of the internet’s early days, Colm felt the thrill of watching and sharing videos that seemed real and raw. Now, a decade on, he’ll find the stars of those videos – the ones that gained popularity before the times of social media influencers and vlogger personalities.
 
He finds out what it was like to be in that whirlwind and discover the opportunities and challenges that going viral presents.
Colm meets Rebecca Black, whose song, Friday, gained international renown. He finds out how the reaction to the record impacted her life and shaped her future. He catches up with Tay Zonday, the man behind Chocolate Rain and Judson Laipply, star of Evolution of Dance – potentially YouTube’s first ever viral hit.

(Photo: Colm Flynn (L) and Rebecca Black (R). Credit: Colm Flynn)

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