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The Forgotten Viral Video that Could Never be Made Today

2024-09-24 · story · Hank · 7:17 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Internet & YouTube (also: Pop culture) · mode: Personal essay · tags: calendar ritual, self promotion

Hank tells how Bree Sharp's 1999 X-Files fan song 'David Duchovny' spread among fans over Napster and how two X-Files crew members made a music video for it, full of 90s celebrities, for their Christmas party; he argues this amateur video, unaware of its viral future, could only have been made before anyone understood viral video.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Gal Gadot's celebrity Imagine video as a foil; a forgotten pre-YouTube celebrity collab

  • ★★ Hank counts Gal Gadot's Instagram video of celebrities singing John Lennon's Imagine in many keys among the pandemic's harms, though far down the list. (playful) — 00:00:00 · Instagram
  • ★★★ Hank's subject is a celebrity collab made before smartphones, YouTube, Instagram and Homestar Runner, so pure and goofy it could only exist in a world that did not know viral videos. — 00:00:00 · YouTube, Instagram

00:00:29 — The forgotten video's list of 90s celebrities

  • ★★ The now almost forgotten video featured 90s celebrities: George Clooney, Erik Estrada, Whoopi Goldberg, Rosie O'Donnell, Alex Trebek, Pamela Anderson, Kevin Nealon, David Spade, Jerry Springer, Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden, Jerry O'Connell, Garry Shandling, Charles Nelson Reilly and Calista Flockhart. — 00:00:29

00:00:58 — Late-90s internet: bulletin boards, The X-Files and its fans, fan creation then and now, Napster

  • ★★★ Hank stresses that the video was not made for the internet, whereas today all videos are, especially ones with dozens of celebrities. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Before social media there were instant messaging and bulletin board systems that almost no one used, but they created spaces where people could love things together. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Hank loved The X-Files, a show about FBI agents investigating the paranormal: a very nerdy show with devoted fans that was also hugely successful. — 00:01:27
  • ★★★ Hank says fan creation is now ongoing and everywhere in small units built on others' ideas, while back then things leapt out fully formed in discrete moments that lasted. — 00:01:56
  • ★★ Hank says nothing on the internet lasts anymore: things are over minutes after they happen, whereas in the 90s something could run for months. (playful) — 00:01:56
  • ★★ In the late 90s sharing things online, specifically MP3s, got easier through Napster, an illegal music-sharing service. — 00:02:26
  • ★★★ In 1999, the year Napster launched, Bree Sharp released 'David Duchovny', a well-produced, funny X-Files fan song about being in love with the actor who plays Fox Mulder. — 00:02:26

00:02:55 — Bree Sharp's song goes viral; X-Files crew film a music video for their Christmas party; why it feels special

  • ★★ The song went viral among X-Files fans before the word existed, spreading through chats, bulletin boards and conversation; people downloaded Napster just to get it. — 00:02:55
  • ★★★ The song was also a hit with the X-Files crew, and two people who worked on the show filmed and edited a music video for it purely to play at their Christmas party. — 00:03:24 · Christmas
  • ★★ Hank says the X-Files makers had clout in a smaller TV industry, and maybe things then were less transactional, with more room for weird stuff. (hedged) — 00:03:24
  • ★★★ Hank says the video is not made to go viral, not a cause video like We Are the World, not a cameo-packed Taylor Swift video, but an amateur office Christmas party video that happens to star Whoopi Goldberg and George Clooney, which makes it special. — 00:03:53 · Christmas

00:04:23 — A viral video unaware of its future that could not be made today; how people got it in 1999

  • ★★ In 1999 no one watched videos on the internet: for almost everyone it was too slow to download videos, especially five-minute ones; some college students had fast connections. — 00:04:23
  • ★★★ As a fan and near-scholar of online video, Hank loves it as one of very few viral videos completely unaware of its future as a viral video. — 00:04:52
  • ★★★ Hank says it could not be made today, when everyone knows two dozen A-list celebrities means millions of views: too many questions, too big a favor, too many agents and managers. — 00:04:52
  • ★★ Hank says the video sat right on the line when no one knew what the internet could do but it had just become capable of doing it. — 00:05:21
  • ★★ Napster could not handle video files, and more versatile peer-to-peer services like Kazaa arrived a couple of years after this video. — 00:05:21
  • ★ Hank declines to explain IRC but says he and others figured out how to get the video. (playful) — 00:05:21
  • ★★ The video now has under half a million YouTube views, but when people emailed videos to each other in 1999 it was huge. — 00:05:50 · YouTube

00:05:58 — Excerpt of the music video

00:06:48 — Pizzamas: items selling out, pizzamas.com and the app, daily dad jokes; sign-off

  • ★★ Hank says the Pizzamas items closest to selling out are the apron, the Magic 8-Ball, the dice set and the blanket hoodie. — 00:06:48 · Pizzamas
  • ★★★ Hank points viewers to get all the Pizzamas items at pizzamas.com or in the Pizzamas app. — 00:06:48 · Pizzamas
  • ★★ Hank says he sends a bad dad joke through the app every day of Pizzamas; viewers have already missed some, and earlier years' jokes are there too. (playful) — 00:06:48 · Pizzamas

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says Hank loves this because he was there: it felt big, weird, wild and important though basically no one knew it was happening. — video description
  • ★★ The description says one of Hank's superpowers has always been believing things are important when other people don't. — video description
  • ★ In a channel comment Hank insists Homestar Runner was the first online video project. — creator comment

Humor (significant)

  • Hank lists Gal Gadot's celebrity Imagine video among the harms of the pandemic. — 00:00:00

    “sang the John Lennon song Imagine in a bunch of different keys.”

  • After the A-listers Hank names stars whose fame has faded. — 00:00:29

    “Also people who I swear were big deals once”

  • Hank pauses to explain Napster and feels old doing it. — 00:02:26

    “and I cannot believe that I feel like I have to explain Napster right now, but that is how I feel.”

  • Fans spread the song even in real life, in an old-fashioned way. — 00:02:55

    “in real life in actual conversations that people used to have.”

  • Colleges installed fast internet, Hank says, for one reason. — 00:04:23

    “so that they could do the important work of distributing fansubbed anime.”

  • Hank describes his own credentials on internet video. — 00:04:52

    “and almost a scholar of online video”

  • Hank invites viewers to read all his past Pizzamas dad jokes. — 00:06:48

    “You can read through all of them and just be disappointed.”

  • Hank closes his Pizzamas plug. — 00:06:48

    “I don't know why I spent time making a complicated video during Pizzamas, but I did.”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: David Duchovny (song) · The X-Files · viral video

Also: People: Alex Trebek · Brad Pitt · Bree Sharp · Calista Flockhart · Charles Nelson Reilly · David Duchovny · David Spade · Erik Estrada · Gal Gadot · Garry Shandling · George Clooney · Jerry O'Connell · Jerry Springer · Kevin Nealon · MC Chris · Pamela Anderson · Rosie O'Donnell · Taylor Swift · Whoopi Goldberg

Projects: Pizzamas

Works: Homestar Runner (web series) · Imagine · Pizzamas app · We Are the World

Organizations: Instagram · Napster · YouTube

Concepts: dad joke · online video · SARS-CoV-2

Events: Christmas

Characters: Fox Mulder · Tyler Durden

Products: IRC · Kazaa

Only in the description or credits: John Lennon

Also centred on viral video: Watch This If You Want To Smile (Pizzamas Day 3) · The #1 Tip for People Who Use the Internet

Later videos replying to this one