Viral Friday: Guys Backflip into Jeans

Written by Paul van Veenendaal on May 9th, 2008 |

Viral Friday is the weekly viral video chart of ViralBlog, showing the 10 most popular viral videos, commercials or user-generated videos, carefully selected and ranked by popularity, viral impact & spread.

This weeks Viral Friday #1 position goes to Guys Backflip into Jeans. Last year Ray-Ban’s viral “Guy catches glasses with face” became a huge internet success. Now we see a very similar video for Levi’s Jeans (according to Gawker). The runner up spot is for Humanitainment.com with The Empire Strikes Barack. Two weeks ago Humanitainment.com scored a Viral Friday top 3 ranking with their YouTube hit “Baracky: The Movie”, and now they do it again with “The Empire Strikes Barack”. Shark Surfer completes this week’s top 3. In the video, presumably for sun glasses brand Notorious, we see a surfer going out surfing with a white shark.

Do you want to see this week’s list from 1 to 10? Go on then, and have a look! We’d like to hear your opinion about the virals. Have fun!

1. Guys Backflip into Jeans

Exactly one year ago Ray-Ban’s viral “Guy catches glasses with face” became a true internet meme. The video got over 1 million views in just 4 days and spread around the internet at lightning speed. The makers of the video, Feed Company, managed to let the professionally made clip look like an amateurish user generated video. Last week a (according to Gawker) very similar video appeared: 1. The stories are the same 2. The music is the same 3. The editing is the same 4. The packaging is the same. Gawkers money is on Levi’s Jeans for making this video.

2. The Empire Strikes Barack

Two weeks ago Humanitainment.com scored a Viral Friday top 3 ranking with their YouTube hit Baracky: The Movie. The video is no longer available on YouTube after a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. copyright claim, but can still be seen on Funny or Die. After the pre-elections in Indiana and North Carolina Hillary’s chances seem to decrease even further. With “The Empire Strikes Barack” Humanitainment gives their view on the Democratic election.

3. Shark Surfer

Several video sharing sites like YouTube, Break, Revver, Funny or Die, Spike and MetaCafe feature Notorious415’s viral “Shark Surfer”. In the video, presumably for sun glasses brand Notorious, we see a surfer going out surfing with a white shark. The video got about 1 million views since it was uploaded one week ago.

4. Why So Serious: It’s all part of the plan

The above visual leads you to a new Dark Knight viral website. If you click on the joker card nailed to the wall with a knife on the new “It’s All Part of The Plan” web page, we get a look at a new poster for The Dark Knight which features Batman standing in front of a burning building, the Bat symbol set on fire with the tagline “Welcome to a World Without Rules.” The website scored over 410 blog reactions in about two weeks. (Source: /Film)

5. Stroyent: Humanifil Killemal

Attention gamers: do you have a hard time firing? Perhaps you’re suffering from a medical condition called P.D. (Projectile Dysfunction). But do not worry, there is a cure: Stroyent (humanifil killemal). The ad promotes Activision’s Enemy Territory: Quake Wars game.

6. Ford Ka

In this commercial Ford shows us how spacious their new Ka is. The video was viewed over 180,000 times since it aired one and a half week ago.

7. Loctite Super Bonder: Worth Every Penny

DM9DDB, from Brazil, created this guerilla ad for Locite Super Bonder, a Brazilian glue company. They spend 400 coins on the streetvertising which lasted two weeks. (Source: Ads of the World)

8. Chanelle Hayes Sex Tape

A ’sex tape’ featuring the 20-year-old UK Big Brother 8 star Chanelle Hayes cavorting around a bedroom in her underwear was leaked onto the internet two weeks ago. The video features Hayes enjoying a sexual encounter with a character from the new MTV puppet comedy series Fur TV. (Source: Yahoo! TV UK)

9. Mentos Kiss Cam

BBH London and Perfect Fools together created an interactive movie for Mentos that lets you create a perfect kiss with a screen siren or stud called Mentos Kiss Cam.
Using your webcam, you can either get intimate in the “freshest experience of your life” with a blonde beauty or in “the film that is on everyone’s lips” with a dashing actor.

10. BT Business: Gremlins

The Gremlins, the small, destructive monsters from the 80’s, are back! They now make Dragons’ Den star Peter Jones’ live a living hell in this BT commercial, created by Swarm. It took a crew of 34 specialist technicians and over 2,500 man hours to produce the different component parts required to bring the mischievous creatures to life; over 100 liters of liquid latex and 75 liters of soft foam went into the bodies; hundreds of teeth had to be made and each set of eyeballs painstakingly hand painted. Swarm have also released this making of video. (Source: Filmdetail.com)