Andy Warhol’s famous quote “in the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes” have become true for some of us in this Web 2.0 era (even 3.0 or 4.0) due mostly to the existence of video sharing websites such as YouTube, Metacafe and Dailymotion. These websites have given the opportunity to anyone on the planet to become a web All-Star by producing a video that has this little something that would help to go viral. As a tribute to these web All-Stars and mostly to the ones that became famous via YouTube, the videoclip “Pork and Beans” (See below) produced by Mathew Cullen in 2008 for the band Weezer, was an integration of at least 27 of these web All-Stars. Interestingly, this videoclip also went viral (18,428,484 views as of Thursday June 30th 2009) due mainly to the population’s interest for these YouTube All-Stars. However, every time someone mentions this videoclip, he/she can recognize only few of these web All-Stars. Thus, I thought that I could summarize who these 27 YouTube All-Stars are by translating and expanding a compilation written in French by blogger Henry Michel. Here is a 6-point summary of who these people are:
(1) Order shown in the Weezer videoclip;
(2) The first moment this person appeared in the videoclip;
(3) The first and last name of each person;
(4) Why this person is a web All-Star;
(5) The YouTube link to the original videoclip;
(6) The number of views on Youtube as of Thursday June 30th 2009.
| Order | First Appearance at … | First Name | Last Name | Known For … | Original Video Link | # Views |
| 1 | 0:00 – 0:08 | Jeong-Hyun | Lim | Playing Pachelbel’s Canon on Electric Guitar | Click here | 60,698,242 |
| 2 | 0:00 – 0:15 | Connor | Berge | Being the one-man band | Click here | 1,355,471 |
| 3 | 0:15 – 0:17 | Gary | Brolsma | Lipdubing on “Dragostea Din Tei” by O-Zone | Click here | 29,995,662 |
| 4 | 0:19 – 0:20 | - | - | Being the dramatic Prairie dog | Click here | 15,339,276 |
| 5 | 0:22 – 0:28 | Mark | Hicks | Being an Afro Ninja that missed his backflip | Click here | 7,224,410 |
| 6 | 0:30 – 0:38 | Fritz Stephen | Grobe Voltz | Conducting Experiments using Mentos and Diet Coke | Click here | 9,565,187 |
| 7 | 0:37 – 0:40 | - | - | Being a parody of the GIJoe | Click here | 1,003,068 |
| 8 | 0:47 – 0:51 | Matt | McAllister | Wearing 155-T-Shirts at the same time | Click here | 10,377,102 |
| 9 | 0:59 – 1:03 | Chris | Crocker | Being a crying fan of Britney Spears | Click here | 12,442,944 |
| 10 | 1:03 – 1:06 | - | - | Being a parody of the awful translation “All your base are belong to us” from the game Zero Wing | Click here | 2,441,073 |
| 11 | 1:10 – 1:16 | Lauren Caitlin | Upton | Being Miss South Carolina Teen USA 2007 with her bright answer to “1/5 of US Americans can’t locate the US on a world map: why do you think this is? | Click here | 35,826,432 |
| 12 | 1:13 – 1:16 | Ghyslain | Raza | Being the Star Wars Kid | Click here | 6,981,151 |
| 13 | 1:23 – 1:26 | Jordan | Ross | Doing a choregraphy with friends on “Crank That” by Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em | Click here | 12,117,258 |
| 14 | 1:26 – 1:29 | Judson | Laipply | Doing the “Evolution of Dance” | Click here | 122,028,603 |
| 15 | 1:29 – 1:36 | Tay | Zonday | Singing with a unique voice in his song entitled “Chocolate rain” | Click here | 38,892,476 |
| 16 | 1:38 – 1:43 | Kevin | Federline | Recording in a studio | Click here | Removed |
| 17 | 1:47 – 1:51 | - | - | Being the “Daft Hands” from Freckle Studio on “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” by Daft Punk | Click here | 31,953,763 |
| 18 | 1:51 – 1:56 | Tiffany Steffany | - | Being the “Daft bodies” on “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” by Daft Punk | Click here | 9,132,931 |
| 19 | 2:06 – 2:08 | Kicesie | - | Talking about sex with her colourful socks | Click here | 38,478,985 |
| 20 | 2:28 – 2:35 | Liam Kyle | Sullivan | Doing an humourous video on shoes | Click here | 27,262,243 |
| 21 | 2:36 – 2:38 | - | - | Being replicas of Unindentified Flying Objects (UFO) in Haiti | Click here | 9,741,999 |
| 22 | 2:37 | Ryan Michael | Wieber Scott | Their famous Ligthsaber dual | Click here | 4,188,340 |
| 23 | 2:37 – 2:38 | Ronald | Lussier | Being the dancing baby (variant with Donald Duck in the video) | Click here | Removed |
| 24 | 2:38 | - | - | Being the Sneezing baby panda (Shown in the back in the video) | Click here | 36,495,651 |
| 25 | 2:43 – 2:44 | - | - | Being the banana from “Peanut Butter Jelly Time” | Click here | 13,652,809 |
| 26 | 2:53 – 2:55 | Tom | Dickinson | Being the founder of the blender who blends everything from “Will it blend?” | Click here | 6,990,937 |
| 27 | 2:54 – 2:55 | Jason | Steele | Creating the adventures of Charlie The Unicorn | Click here | 15,716,367 |
These videos altogether have a total of more than 550 million views (559,902,180 as of Thursday 30th 2009), and evidently a lower number of unique viewers. However, it is important to notice that some of these videos have gained popularity way before the creation of YouTube, which means that the real number of views of some of these videos is underestimated. Hope you enjoy watching and remembering some of these videos. If you have found other web All-Stars in this video, feel free to share.
Jean-Francois Belisle
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