What Does The Fox Say? Dissecting Viral Videos

Most of you are probably aware of the latest viral sensation to sweep through the Internet- Ylvis’ “The Fox.” At the time of this writing it has garnered 7.5 million views in just over four days. Viral videos are, of course, the Holy Grail of the Internet. Everyone wants to post a video and suddenly have the entire world watching it- from the preteen who thinks she can sing to the massive corporation who thinks they can sell more of their product.

Of course, it’s one thing to create a viral video. It’s quite another to create a viral music video. Today, let’s take a look at what components make up a viral music video by examining some of the most popular YouTube videos and their content. We’ll also take a look at how some of these things can be misused, and finally, we’ll predict just how far The Fox will run.

I identified five music videos that went viral and subjected myself to watched them once again to see what made them unique. Four qualities stood out: Comedy, Spontaneity, Anonymity, and Repeatability. Every viral video contains all of those qualities in some form or another, but contain the perfect balance of each.

Friday by Rebecca Black (2011): By some measures, it seems like Friday has been around forever. By others, it’s hard to believe it’s already been 2 ½ years. Regardless, Friday was the video that really opened up the eyes of many to the transformative power of the viral video. (including, for example, Forbes.)

Comedy: The comedy in Friday comes from the song being hilariously bad. The lyrics go from repetitive (we, we, we, so excited) to bluntly obvious (Yesterday was Thursday- today it is Friday) to oddly mundane (Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal). Combined with the wonderful world of autotune, Friday is perched delicately atop the so-bad-it’s-good curve along with the likes of Sharknado.

Source: xkcd

 Spontaneity: A viral video has to contain things that are completely unexpected, and there’s not much more surprising to see in the middle of a white teenage girl’s poor attempt at a music video than a sudden slightly-better-but-not-really rap break.

Anonymity: You hadn’t heard of Rebecca Black before Friday, and I’m guessing that now you wish that you hadn’t. I’m sure the feelings mutual.

Repeatability: Friday survived for as long as it did in part because of its name. For the next few months after its release, it would be virtually impossible to get through the eponymous day of the week without hearing the song. You’d groan a little, ask for it to be turned off, but- dare I say it?- secretly grow to enjoy what was dubbed “the worst song ever.”

Gangnam Style and Gentleman by Psy (2012, 2013): The most viewed YouTube video ever isn’t even in English- it’s South Korean Psy’s Gangnam Style. Despite the fact that many of the people who viewed it couldn’t even understand the lyrics, “Oppa Gangnam Style” became common fare around the world for months. Later, Psy used his fame from the former song as a springboard for another viral hit, Gentleman, which would surpass half a billion views.

Comedy: Much of these videos’ humor lies in their absurdity. They are intentionally absurd, but it works. The choreography in the videos were quirky enough to catch on, and besides the Gangnam Style’s title phrase, may be the most lasting part of Psy’s viral hits.

Spontaneity: The humor and unexpected go hand in hand in Gangnam Style and Gentleman.. Scenes such as the ones involving elevators, playgrounds, treadmills, and the garbage wind tunnel are so unexpected that they give the song much of its charm. Are those sprinklers on a playground in Gentleman?

Anonymity: Psy, like the group who recorded “The Fox” (Ylvis) had relative domestic success prior to his video’s release. However, outside of South Korea- especially in the United States- exceedingly few people had heard of Psy, and most of the population wasn’t entirely fond of K-pop. Psy may not have invigorated a K-pop movement in the U.S., but he has certainly made a name for himself.

Repeatability: The choreography of Gangnam Style was what made the song so much fun to play over and over again. The song was catchy, but I’m not convinced a song in a foreign language would be quite as viral without that extra boost from the dancing. Similarly, Gentleman received a boost from Psy’s popularity that put a catchy song over the edge.

 

Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen (2011, U.S. 2012): Call Me Maybe was initially released in 2011, but wasn’t released in the United States until spring of 2012. That’s when the song really took off. It was catchy enough on its own to perhaps go viral, but it received a little boost from some of its parody videos as well.

Comedy: Call Me Maybe didn’t rely quite as much on comedy to go viral. Some would argue that it went down a similar “so-bad-it’s-good” route as Friday, but it wasn’t anywhere close to Rebecca Black’s level. Perhaps the comedy comes from the many parodies and lip dubs created in tribute to the track.

Spontaneity: There are some slightly unexpected moments throughout the music video, but none so much as the ending, which (spoiler alert? Haven’t you heard by now?) definitely puts a twist into the stereotypical romantic music video by making the love interest interested… in the other gender.

Anonymity: Carly Rae Jepsen did place third on Canadian Idol in 2007, but if that show is anything like the American version, that might not mean much. Certainly, she wouldn’t be throwing out first pitches at baseball games in America based just on that honor.

Repeatability: Call Me Maybe is just so incredibly catchy that even if you don’t physically put it on repeat, it will end up on repeat in your head for hours at a time. As noted previously, Call Me Maybe was also the target of many parody videos, which perpetuated its viral nature.

Harlem Shake by literally everyone (2013): The Harlem Shake is unique in that the original video isn’t the one that garners most of the attention- it’s the many, many, many, many, many other videos based around a section of the original song that give the Harlem Shake its viral status.

Comedy & Spontaneity: The spontaneity of the Harlem Shake is what provides its comedic value. One person, dancing alone and ignored in a room full of other people is already so brash and outgoing that it can be considered mildly funny. When the rest of the room throws away whatever they were doing and joins in, it’s a twist that produces some hilarious moments and many, many views on YouTube- albeit not as much of a twist the 700^th time you see it.

Anonymity: The original artist  who wrote the Harlem Shake is so anonymous you don’t even know his name. It’s Baauer, according to Wikipedia. You learned something today.

Repeatability: The Harlem Shake isn’t something that you put on repeat on your iPod. Rather, it gets repeated in a different way than the other videos on this list: by the creation of videos around the song itself. It should be noted that many videos are created (and viewed) because of the length required: just half a minute, making them easy to film, upload, and view in a very short amount of time.

But it’s difficult to replicate that kind of success, as hundreds of thousands of YouTube uploaders would tell you. It’s easy to go wrong in many of those categories. Forced comedy is not good comedy, and it’s easy to tell when someone is just trying to hard to be funny. True spontaneity can be difficult to achieve. Either the audience isn’t surprised, or again, it’s obvious you’re trying too hard to be spontaneous and include lots of non sequiturs. And it’s very difficult to come up with a song catchy enough to be put on repeat for days on end. Most of the time, you will be anonymous- and stay that way. So how does The Fox fit in?

The Fox by Ylvis (2013): Ylvis originally intended the video to at least somewhat catch on in Norway, where the duo runs a comedy/variety show that the song was intended to advertise. They claimed they didn’t expect it to catch on outside of Norway, but that doesn’t mean that isn’t what they were trying to do.

Comedy: Since the duo are essentially both comedians, they’re able to be funny with relative ease. I compared The Fox to another one of their recent video attempts, Stonehenge (slightly NSFW), and it’s clear much of their humor, at least in these pieces, is derived from asking questions not many people might think about, and turning into an obsession that supersedes everything else in life.

Spontaneity: I have to admit I was not expecting the outburst of sound in the chorus, where Ylvis attempts to answer their own question. With the dance beat behind it, it’s fairly catchy. But the thing that made the clip for me was the random CGI fox at the end of the song that starts scatting. I don’t know if there was a better way Ylvis could have ended it.

Anonymity: Like Psy, Ylvis has had success in their home country. It will be interesting to see if they use their newfound viral fame as a springboard, like Psy, to expand their brand internationally.  According to this article, they’ve already received many similar offers.

Repeatability: The Fox is a song that apparently gets better with age. When I first saw it, I was hesitant. But gradually, it grew on me, and now I can’t stop playing it.

It’s tough to use statistics to predict things such as viral videos. YouTube does provide statistics on their videos, and those can be helpful to look at. But the very nature of viral videos is that they are unpredictable. “The Fox” has already gone viral. It’s up to 8 million hits now. Will it get up in to the hundreds of millions? Time will tell. It’s off to a good start, in just four days, but one wonders if the excitement is already beginning to die off.

The good news for The Fox is that the ratings have been overwhelmingly positive. Its upvote ratio (Likes/All Ratings) is higher (93.9) than any other song we’ve covered in this post. And that’s a good sign for views. The only song with a negative ratio is Friday, which has received substantially fewer views (though still many more than The Fox currently has). People who like a song will often come back and listen to it multiple times, thereby boosting the view count.

The Fox also has a high significance rating (All Ratings/Views).  About 1½% of the people who view the video take the time to like or dislike it. Only Friday has a higher significance rating on our list (2½%). I wouldn’t read too much into that, though. People can view videos multiple times but can only rate videos once. As the number of views increases, the significance rating inevitably decreases.

The statistics indicate that The Fox should have a bright future ahead of it. It will likely never surpass Gangnam Style, and I’m hesitant to suggest it will reach the half-million mark like Call Me Maybe and Gentleman. But it should easily surpass Friday, and end up with a rather large pile of views. The overwhelmingly positive response from YouTubers should make Ylvis optimistic. After all, when you’re trying to go viral, the question isn’t “What does the fox say?” Instead, it’s “What do the people say?”