Viral Video Day Date in the current year: April 29, 2024

The term viral content (or viral media) refers to content that spreads to numerous users online within a short time period, similarly to how viruses propagate by replicating themselves and how diseases spread. If something goes viral, it is shared and discussed by many people.

People shared video content long before the Internet by word-of-mouth, film festivals, VHS tapes, etc. Some regard the propaganda film Reefer Madness as the first viral video. Produced in 1936 under the title Tell Your Children, it was financed by a church croup to show the dangers of marijuana use. The film was rediscovered in 1970 and screened at college film festivals.

The rise of the global Internet in the early 1990s made sharing videos much easier. The first viral videos circulated as animated GIFs. They were spread via email as attachments, as well as on P2P file sharing sites and message boards. Two of the most successful videos that went viral online during the early years of the Internet were The Spirit of Christmas (a stop motion animated short that would form the basis for the hugely successful animated series South Park) and Dancing Baby.

The modern era of viral videos began in 2005, when Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim launched YouTube. In fact, it was a viral video that helped make YouTube famous. In December 2005, a single and short film by the American comedy trio The Lonely Island titled “Lazy Sunday” aired on Saturday Night Live. Its bootleg copies were uploaded on YouTube and were watched more than 5 million times before being removed due to copyright infringement. The viral effect helped popularize both The Lonely Island and YouTube.

Most videos that go viral are humorous or touching because people like to share content that evoked an intense emotional response in them. Sometimes videos are created with the intent of going viral (for example, the 2014 Ice Bucket Challenge was launched to promote ALS awareness), but a lot of videos went viral even though their creators had never intended them to. The rise of TikTok in 2018 has made viral videos even more common because the app is easy to use and is more of a social media than a video sharing platform.

Viral Video Day is one of several dozen holidays created by Jace Shoemaker-Galloway, an American freelance author and editor known as the “Queen of Holidays”. She created it in 2013 to celebrate the videos that have been watched and rewatched by millions and even billions of people around the world.

There are many ways to celebrate Viral Video Day. You can rewatch your favorite viral videos, share them on social media with the hashtag #ViralVideoDay to encourage others to participate in the celebration, and upload your own videos on YouTube or TikTok. Maybe they will go viral, maybe they won’t, but you’ll never know till you try.