YouTube’s first video, a brief clip of one of the platform’s co-founders telling an understated sex joke, has turned 20 years old. Since the video’s publication, the platform has become the default for independent video publishing. At the same time, the website has also become a site for traditional media such as TV and film to dump shorter-form clips. However, the ephemeral, highly bizarre quality that the website possessed early on is still very much alive. For every Jimmy Fallon highlight, there is a video of someone making chainsaw noises while cutting cheese.
YouTube is a well-established and incredibly ubiquitous media platform. There is, however, relatively little discourse about YouTube videos as an important, studiable medium. So, in a somewhat playful manner, I would like to explore some of my favorite YouTube videos in attentive, vaguely academic terms.
I have selected these videos based on some relatively simple criteria: These are videos uploaded specifically for this platform. This excludes any videos that are simply clipped from other non-YouTube pieces of media, like the aforementioned talk show snippets or TikTok reuploads. Also, these are just videos I get a kick out of and I think are worth describing in detail. I am making no attempt to create a YouTube canon, though a better understanding of the medium may emerge. With that in mind, here is a textual analysis of some of my all-time favorite YouTube videos.
“Singing All the Notes on a Piano (C7 and below in this video)” (2013)
If singing every single note on the piano was not impressive enough, the title further emphasizes the singing of the piano’s very highest notes. In this 41-second, completely unedited video uploaded by user Ivan Dorin, Dorin sets up a camera on top of a piano and plays the highest note. With great agony and professionalism, he attempts to quietly screech out the tone. After momentarily matching it, he sings the descending white keys—which resemble dolphin calls—for about an octave. Twenty seconds into the video, Dorin’s voice is finally in a manageable range, but quickly becomes gravelly 13 seconds later as he moves into the lowest octave. Dorin sings the piano’s low A and then abruptly ends the video, taking no time to admire his feat. The brevity with which the video begins and ends, having journeyed the entire piano, is remarkable.
A great detail of this video is that Dorin appears to be filming at a piano in a public mall, apparent from the glassy storefront and escalator behind him. Despite this being in a public place, nobody acknowledges what Dorin is doing. One can only wonder why was suddenly inspired to sing every note on a piano while at the mall.
Many of Ivan Dorin’s most popular videos are about singing tremendous ranges, such as “Low Notes: F1, E1, D1” (2017) and “My New Highest note” (2018), but “Singing All the Notes on a Piano (C7 and below in this video)” (2013) remains my favorite, as it most succinctly demonstrates Dorin’s bizarre talent and the efficiency with which he performs.
“Grinds My Gears: Racism” (2019)
This questionably premised video is the very first uploaded from the channel “The Real Life Peter Griffin.” To me, it is one of the most compelling YouTube videos ever uploaded to the platform on a structural level. I am far from the first to discuss this particular clip, but it is worthy of further examination. In the video, Rob Franzese plays the character “Real Life Peter Griffin,” an uncanny live-action impression and costuming of Peter Griffin from the long-running animated sitcom “Family Guy.”
Replicating a popular segment from the show called “Grinds My Gears,” Franzese, in character as Griffin, humorously describes his gripes with the incredibly challenging topic of racism. He opens the video with the line, “You know what really grinds my gears? Racism. I mean, the only things I am intolerant of are our giant chickens and Meg.” Griffin riffs on the topic for about twenty seconds, complete with an already then dated reference to Iggy Azalea, before landing on the flippant line, “The only N-word that we drop on a daily basis in my house is Nachos BellGrande.” The video abruptly cuts to Griffin excitedly shoving Taco Bell’s Nachos BellGrande in his face, covering his visage in cheese sauce.
Then, in a sudden, jarring cutback to a cheese-sauce-less Griffin, Franzese removes his glasses, signifying a break in character. He drops the Griffin voice as well: “All kidding aside, I don’t think racism is cool. It doesn’t have a place in today’s society. We’re trying to be better as a people. And we’ll never do that if we can’t get past this stupid thing called racism… I’m not down with any of that crap. If you’re down with racism, I’m not down with you. And that’s what grinds my gears.” The video ends on a surprisingly didactic moment. It is arguably a fairly empty gesture to say that racism is bad, but on a platform that can often be entirely glib on serious topics, Franzese’s whiplash pivot into complete sincerity is something I find incredibly endearing.
Since releasing this video, Franzese has made a relatively successful YouTube career as The Real Life Peter Griffin, discussing what grinds his gears on far less controversial topics such as winter, gas prices and Fortnite, none of which I have watched.
“My longest yeah boy ever” (2015)
The premise of this video, uploaded by user llMegaxlxll videos (Kondwani Sichinga), is not dissimilar to Dorin’s, as it features the attempt of a somewhat impressive vocal feat. However, Sichinga appears to be alone in his room and spends far longer introducing his premise.
In an exhausted appeal to the audience, Sichinga, who appears to be no older than 15, laments, “I’m already tired as you can tell.” It seems unlikely at that moment that the longest ”yeah boy“ could possibly occur in this video. Sichinga stumbles and stalls for the first 40 seconds, which includes a brief look back at the door as if he is adjusting his volume for his fellow residents, before finally properly introducing the video. In this time, Dorin has already sung the entire length of a piano. Sichinga pessimistically states, “I will be attempting the longest yeah boy ever. I will fail, just so you know, so don’t get surprised.” He continues, “I got my drink just in case.” Sichinga holds up a canned beverage. It is unclear what scenario having/not having the drink would matter, as only one take appears in the video.
Talking in a low voice, one assumes he is being conscious of other people in the house, but he then proceeds to shout “yeah boy” so emphatically that his camera mic buzzes. Sichinga holds the “yeah boy” for about 31 seconds. After achieving this lengthy feat, he immediately contextualizes what he just did: “While having three hours left of energy [not an insubstantial amount of energy], I attempted to do the longest yeah boy ever.” He then mentions that Flavor Flav achieved a much less impressive 20-second “yeah boy,” whose “yeah boy” ad-lib on Public Enemy tracks clearly inspired this attempt.
I remember roughly the time that this video became popular, and my appreciation of it has definitely shifted over time. The intro and outro were once just filler to me and the 31-second yeah boy delightful ear candy, but now I find the video’s framing far more compelling than the “yeah boy” itself.
This is by far the most popular video I have discussed, with over 32 million views, but unlike Dorin and Franzese, Sichinga never repeated or built on this video. llMegaxlxll videos has 11 videos, none of which involve subsequent “yeah boy” attempts. I think if this video came out seven years later, Sichinga would have become some sort of niche celebrity like the Rizzler or Corn Kid and would go on a few talk shows, do the feat live and meet Flavor Flav. But 2015 was a different time. Kids just put out videos, got extremely popular online and went to school the next day.
I hope this provides you with some understanding of the nature of popular video creation on YouTube in a set of videos that you could watch in less time than it might take to read this piece. I am not sure how I stumbled upon any of these videos (such is the nature of algorithms), but I am incredibly grateful that they passed my way.