All language subtitles for Rev Youb

NARRATOR: There's a virus
loose on planet Earth.

It's infecting hundreds of
millions of adults and children

every day on every continent.

Each one of us is a
potential carrier.

HARRY DAVIES-CARR:
Ow, Charlie! Ow!

NARRATOR: And the means of
transmission couldn't be simpler

HARRY DAVIES-CARR:
Charlie that really hurt.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: Welcome
to Planet YouTube,

an unrecognizable world in which
your home movie is bigger

than a Hollywood blockbuster.

DAVID: Ah!

JAMES KIRKHAM: YouTube has been
part of a new world order.

It has shifted culture.

NARRATOR: And backyard science
experiments can go global.

FRITZ GROBE: Oh,
this is awesome.

NARRATOR: A world where
anyone can be a superstar.

SCOOTER BRAUN: He was the first
true social media

worldwide phenomenon.

NARRATOR: Where
presidents are elected.

BARACK OBAMA: Yes we can.

JOE ROSPARS: YouTube allowed
us to elect an outsider

as President of
the United States.

NARRATOR: And dictators deposed
with the click of a mouse.

PETER ERB: It's anonymous,
so it's dangerous.

NARRATOR: And the
power of the viral.

PSY: Oppa Gangnam style.

NARRATOR: Is unstoppable.

PSY: I was like, Wow, wow,
wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.

NARRATOR: Over the next hour,

we'll get to the bottom
of the epidemic,

tracking down the unlikely
pioneers and accidental

celebrities who,
in just ten years,

have brought world
culture to its knees.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

Deep in the bowels of a
high security complex,

a secret vault contains
billions of YouTube uploads.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

It's the viral mother lode.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

In one year YouTube amassed
over a trillion views.

SCOOTER BRAUN: The amount of
video that gets uploaded

every single day,
it's pretty wild.

NARRATOR: We upload three
hundred hours of video

every single minute.

TODD WASSERMAN: If
it's not on YouTube,

the video doesn't exist.

NARRATOR: All the
uploads in a single day,

would take nearly
fifty years to watch.

TOM STANDAGE: The strangest
things end up being seen by

millions of people and becoming
actually part of the culture.

NARRATOR: Where did
this virus emerge?

In a humble garage
in Silicon Valley,

where three ex-PayPal
employees, Chad Hurley,

Steve Chen and Jawed Karim
all in their 20s

were kicking around ideas
for a new business.

CHAD HURLEY: So this
is by, like, a user.

This is a...

NARRATOR: What they
came up with was simple

make it easy to share
personal videos with friends.

STEVE CHEN: May of 2005,
when we launched the site,

we weren't really sure if
this was going to work.

The lofty goals back then was
just to try to create a solution

to more of a technical problem
about how to make it possible

to share videos online.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: But months in,
the site has zero traffic,

so they repositioned
themselves as a dating site,

taking out ads on Craigslist
offering young women 20 dollars

to upload a video bio.

JAWED KARIM: Alright so here
we are on (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

NARRATOR: Jawed shot 19 seconds
of himself at the San Diego Zoo.

It's YouTube's first ever video.

JAWED KARIM: The cool thing
about these guys is that

they have really, really,
really long, trunks.

STEVE CHEN: And that
was an utter failure.

I mean, I don't think
anybody ever wanted it.

It was just such a creepy
experience to have to upload

a video bio of yourself and
upload it for the world to see.

NARRATOR: When their
dating idea collapsed,

the three guys went back
to the drawing board.

They tweaked the technology so
that anyone could upload

or share a video
with just one click.

It was YouTube's
Big Bang moment.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

Almost overnight, people
started to broadcast themselves

to the world.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

STEVE CHEN: Yeah, we never
thought that people were just

gonna be uploading content and
just say, Here, the world,

please come watch my content.

JASON TANZ: If you see
something and you're amazed

or you're touched
or you start crying,

you wanna share that
experience with somebody else.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

So suddenly you have all of this
traffic of these people

trying to share these emotional
moments with one another

and you have these
viral sensations.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

MAN: Oh my God, it's a double
rainbow all the way across

the sky.

GIRL: Don't talk back to
Darth Vader. He'll get ya.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

PROF. JONAH BERGER: I think it
really is that pure authenticity

that drove sharing
of the early content.

MAN: Kind of felt
good, didn't it?

DAVID: Ah.

Is this real life?

MAN: Yeah, this is real life.

DAVID: Ah!

PROF. JONAH BERGER: Really
seemed like it captured

a true moment, a true
experience that people wanted

to share with others.

HARRY DAVIES-CARR: Oooh! Ouch.

NARRATOR: They were all
building up to this.

HARRY DAVIES-CARR:
Ow! Ow, Charlie. Ow!

NARRATOR: Charlie Bit My Finger
is one of the biggest viral

videos in history.

HARRY DAVIES-CARR:
Charlie that really hurt.

NARRATOR: More people watched
Charlie bit my Finger

than tuned in to watch
the moon landings.

Not bad for a video that was
never supposed to be posted

on YouTube in the first place.

HOWARD DAVIES-CARR: I video when
Charlie bites Harry's finger,

which I found quite funny, but
probably a few weeks later

I came back, looked at
it and thought, Oh,

that's probably worth sharing
with the boys' godfather

in America.

HARRY DAVIES-CARR:
Charlie that really hurt.

NARRATOR: Now, a
world exclusive.

We can reveal the untold story
behind the sweetest domestic

assault in history.

HOWARD DAVIES-CARR: On the day
of the video, what I was doing,

again, is I was just videoing
the boys out in the garden,

and there is a moment Charlie
gets in the car and Harry drives

him into bushes and
leaves him there,

which I thought at the time was
really quite a funny little,

little clip. But when
Charlie then bites Harry,

it sort of feels a little bit
like just desserts because

he's got him back.

(GIGGLES)

NARRATOR: He posted
it on YouTube,

expecting feedback
from one person.

HARRY DAVIES-CARR:
Charlie bit me.

NARRATOR: Instead, within ten
months it had been viewed

eleven and a half million times.

Everyone wants to know
what is his secret.

HOWARD DAVIES-CARR: I think that
is the beauty of a viral video,

there is no secret.

If there was a secret, I would
have made a second, wouldn't I?

NARRATOR: But some academics
who've studied virals disagree.

PROF. JONAH BERGER: Some people
think that viral's just random,

luck, chance that it's
like bottling lightening.

But it's not.

There's a science behind it.

NARRATOR: A science that
was about to be exploited.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

Even before Charlie Bit My
Finger had entered the culture,

a video emerged of Brazilian
soccer star Ronaldinho.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

What he does next is
almost unbelievable.

JASON TANZ: So the Ronaldinho
video was one of YouTube's

first big sensations,

in part because it was
capturing something that seemed

so super human, this
great soccer player kicking

the ball off the cross beam of
the goal four times in a row.

NARRATOR: The buzz wasn't about
Ronaldinho's ball skills,

but whether or not
the video was real.

JASON TANZ: There is something
a little bit suspicious

about the golden box with the
Nikes in them that he opens,

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

And the way that it pulls back
so you can't really see

the detail so well at the
most important moments.

There was a lot of speculation
over whether it was real or fake

and debates that went on online.

NARRATOR: The clip is the
first to reach a million hits

before the creators are
soon exposed as Nike.

TOM STANDAGE: And that made
lightbulbs come on all over

the place, that actually there
was potential in YouTube

and online video as an
advertising medium.

NARRATOR: Nike had subverted
the home video viral

and commercialized it.

The next mutation would
be even more surprising.

BREE: Well, I guess my
video blog is about me.

My name is Bree, I'm 16. Ummm.

I don't really wanna tell you
where I live because you could,

like, stalk me.

NARRATOR: On June 16th 2006, a
video appears on YouTube

with the tagline Lonelygirl15.

Within three months, the teenage
star would be the subject

of a media frenzy, bringing
YouTube to mass attention.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

JASON TANZ: Lonelygirl15
was this cute,

really candid teenager.

She was sort of fighting
with her parents a lot

and she was arguing
with her boyfriend

and if you wrote
an email to her,

she would respond to you and
say, Thanks for the idea,

you know, here's
another thought,

so people formed this really
personal connection to her.

NARRATOR: Within three months,
over half a million viewers

are tuning in for
Lonelygirl15's updates.

The more eagle-eyed of them
began to notice that

Bree's bedroom blog is just...

JASON TANZ: It was just
a little too neat,

you know, the edits were
a little bit too good,

the music was
synced up too well.

One fan went through and noted
all of the items in her bedroom

were from Target, so there was
some conjecture that maybe

this was some sort of
viral marketing.

NARRATOR: Fans demand
answers from Bree.

When she doesn't reply, an LA
Times reporter smells a scoop.

RICHARD RUSHFIELD: It
was a great mystery,

this girl hiding in
plain sight, as it were.

NARRATOR: He sets off to learn
the true identity of Lonelygirl

But no one was quite expecting
what he would uncover.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

RICHARD RUSHFIELD: And that's
when we knew we had her.

NARRATOR: In the summer of 2006,
the viral video went mainstream

as an online mystery turned
into a real world manhunt.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

The race was on to track down
the vlogger behind the latest

YouTube sensation, Lonelygirl15.

BREE: Ok, so I'm kind of
in a blue mood again today.

JASON TANZ: This was, like,
huge national news.

She wouldn't say
where she lived,

so there was this kind of
treasure hunt kind of aspect

to it.

BREE: I've been calling
my parents all day.

NARRATOR: Gradually the videos
began to take the form

of a thriller, with a plot
almost as intriguing

as Lonelygirl herself.

RICHARD RUSHFIELD: It
was a great mystery.

No-one knew who she was
and no-one could find her.

Let's find who this girl is.

BREE: What are they doing?

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

RICHARD RUSHFIELD: There was a
botanist who analyzed the flora

and the fauna in the video and
said it could only appear

in this one little portion
of Northern California.

NARRATOR: But where?

After ten fruitless weeks, the
reporter and colleagues launched

an audacious sting to out
Lonelygirl15

using an email tracker.

RICHARD RUSHFIELD: In those,
days when you sent a message

through MySpace, you could
implant a tracking code

that allowed you to see where
that message had been opened.

We set up a lot of fake
accounts pretending to be fans

of Lonelygirl and sent messages
to her MySpace page

and it was opened
in a server belonging

to the Creative Artists' Agency,

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

and that's when
we knew we had her.

NARRATOR: The Creative Artists'
Agency represents actors,

writers and directors.

When Richard confronts
them with the evidence,

the real Bree comes forward.

19 year old actress,
Jessica Rose.

BROADCASTER: Millions believed
in her, but it was all an act.

Now for the first time, meet
the girl behind Lonelygirl

and the men who pulled
the strings.

MILES BECKETT: So the idea
was we're gonna build

a huge audience, we're
gonna make them committed

and passionate about this
character and the storyline.

DIRECTOR: Cut.

MILES BECKETT: she's gonna run
away from home

and then we're gonna
release a DVD

that will be an independent
feature film

about the story of a group of
fans on YouTube

trying to find this girl
who's vanished.

NARRATOR: The movie
never happened,

but Lonelygirl continued
online for two years.

BREE: I now see the world from
a completely different point

of view from when I was four.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: The YouTube viral
video was evolving at faster

and faster rates.

But some videos were more
infectious than others,

inspiring viewers
not just to watch,

but to make a
version of their own.

One of the first videos to have
this effect was created

by an unlikely pair of
backyard chemists.

FRITZ GROBE: My name is Fritz
and I had 20 years working

as a professional juggler.

STEPHEN VOLTZ: My name's
Steven and I had 20 years

as a trial lawyer,

but a friend of ours
told us about this

Coke and Mentos experiment.

He asked me, have you ever
heard about this crazy thing?

You drop Mentos into the Diet
Coke and something happens.

FRITZ GROBE: And so Stephen
came to visit me and said,

we gotta try this.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

So we went out into the
backyard, like a lot of people,

dropped a handful of Mentos
into a bottle of Coke.

Oh, this is awesome.

STEPHEN VOLTZ: That's
how it started.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: On June 3 2006,
Stephen and Fritz posted

their own Coke and Mentos
display online,

an epic 101 bottle tribute
to the Bellagio fountain

in Las Vegas.

FRITZ GROBE: When we first
put our video online,

it was a Saturday
morning in June.

We told exactly one person.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

STEPHEN VOLTZ: The next
day we'd 14,000 views

and by next afternoon had
hundreds of thousands.

FRITZ GROBE: All from telling,
FRITZ/STEPHEN: One person.

NARRATOR: By the end of 2006,
their Coke and Mentos spectacle

had turned into a YouTube mega
viral with 12.5 million views.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

And something about it made
people want to make Coke Mentos

videos of their own.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

TOM STANDAGE: Diet Coke and
Mentos, what a fantastic meme.

MAN: I can put the
Mentos in your mouth,

TOM STANDAGE: I've
done it myself,

I've made my own film of it,
I've put it on YouTube, in fact.

It's great, it works
on so many levels.

On the one hand, it's sort
of a science experiment

you see it and you go, really?
Does that really work?

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

MAN: Dear God.

Ughhh... All right.

I think this is
not going so well.

NARRATOR: Stephen and Fritz
have their own theory

for its viral success.

FRITZ GROBE: Everyone's
favorite moment on our video,

they always say it's, that's
that moment of humanity

that you can really
connect with.

That's what helps make
it extra contagious.

NARRATOR: The contagion boosted
global sales of Diet Coke

by five per cent;
Mentos, 15 per cent.

Silicon Valley's giants took
notice of YouTube's

growing power.

Meanwhile the explosion of video
content meant that YouTube's

servers were sent
into virtual meltdown.

STEVE CHEN: And there were
times where we were hours away

from running out of hard
drive space,

storage space and we
just overall,

we couldn't take anymore videos.

There was, like,
four hours left.

I didn't think it was going
to blow up that quickly.

I mean, it was a good thing, but
it was my credit card

that was getting blown up
as well.

NARRATOR: YouTube needed
a bigger home, fast.

NEWS ANCHOR: YouTube, a
website that didn't even exist

two years ago,

was purchased today by Google
for 1.65 billion dollars.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

[LAUGHING]

MAN: I don't know.

TOM STANDAGE: The acquisition of
YouTube by Google was one of

the best deals in the
history of the world.

The estimated value of
YouTube now is something like

70 or 80 billion.

[LAUGHING]

STEVE CHEN/CHAD EVANS: The king
of servers and the king of video

have gotten together. We're
gonna have it our way.

NARRATOR: YouTube now had the
resources of a major player.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

The viral video was about to
take off in a whole new way.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

SCOOTER BRAUN: I was looking
for the right person

who could do it.

I was looking for that
star who was truly a star.

NARRATOR: Scooter Braun was
an ambitious music exec

who recognized YouTube's
potential early on.

JUSTIN BIEBER: ♪ I will sing
my song 'til I go mad, ♪

♪ you're my girl. ♪

♪ I'm gonna tell it to
the whole wide world. ♪

NARRATOR: On YouTube, Scooter
found a 13 year old Canadian kid

who'd posted a video of himself
performing in a talent contest.

He first tried to launch
him with the record labels.

SCOOTER BRAUN: Everyone said no.

Everyone said no because they
said it was kids on YouTube,

you can't monetize this, so
the only way to make people

understand was to not care
about the gatekeepers any more,

not care about the suits
and care about the people.

JUSTIN BIEBER: ♪ This is what I
found. Nobody wants to be, ♪

NARRATOR: So Scooter turned
back to YouTube

and devised strategies
for building Bieber

a cult following.

JUSTIN BIEBER: You gonna
sing with me or what?

SCOOTER BRAUN: One of
the tricks that I used,

that I've actually never
talked about in any interview,

is that I never let
him introduce himself.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

The reason I did that is because
when you watch a video

when someone doesn't
introduce themselves

and the video's extraordinary,

you feel like you're
getting to see something

you're not supposed to
see, it's more exciting,

and that was one of the tricks
that I felt worked for us

and made those views
even bigger and bigger.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: Then the time came to
test Bieber's online popularity

in the real world.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

Neither Scooter nor the
music industry predicted

how it was about to
change everything.

SCOOTER BRAUN: I announced with
social media that he was going

to do an acoustic performance
and sign autographs

in front of the Universal
Music building in London.

JUSTIN BIEBER: If you
guys don't wanna stop me,

you have to sing along
(UNINTELLIGIBLE) my time.

SCOOTER BRAUN: He played his
guitar and the whole crowd

was singing all the
words at one time.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

JUSTIN BIEBER/CROWD MEMBERS:
♪ My one love, my one heart, ♪

SCOOTER BRAUN: Everyone at
the label was looking out

of their widows just in complete
shock because no-one had ever

pulled a crowd that big.

He didn't even have
a song out there,

and that's when I knew
that it was working,

JUSTIN BIEBER: It was crazy.

There's a lot of
girls, as you can see.

SCOOTER BRAUN: It's
because of YouTube.

MAN: Oh, here we go.

Justin Bieber was the thesis
statement of taking a person

from YouTube and using
YouTube as a platform

and building it into
a worldwide star.

He was the first true social
media worldwide phenomenon

and YouTube was the platform
I chose to make that happen.

YouTube has completely
changed the music industry

on how we discover and how
we promote things.

If you go to a record
label now and you say,

Hey I have this new
artist, they say, Well,

can you send me a
YouTube, you know, clip?

And how many views does it have?

Gatekeepers are meaning
less and less and less

and the people mean more
and more and more and that,

it's democracy.

NARRATOR: Scooter had
created YouTube's first ever

global superstar,

but no-one could have seen the
epidemic heading our way.

PSY: My biggest regret of
entire my life was making

that horse dance move.

PSY: Oppa Gangnam Style.

JUSTIN BIEBER: ♪ This is what I
found. Nobody ever, ♪

NARRATOR: Within
years of its launch,

YouTube made it possible to
almost instantly transform

budding pop stars into
global celebrities.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

The next superstar could be
anyone and, as it turns out,

from anywhere.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

PSY: ♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: Psy was a South Korean
pop star barely known outside

of his country, but with over
10 hit singles to his name.

PSY: My previous songs
and previous dance moves

and previous video, all of
them were, like, similar.

PSY: ♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: Then, in 2012,
he wrote a song poking fun

at his swanky neighborhood,

Gangnam,

and threw his energy into
creating a new dance move.

PSY: Gangnam is a name
of district in Korea.

You might think the district as
some sort of Beverly Hills type,

hot end, wealthy area.

I have my own choreograph teams
in Korea and we were focused

on making a new move
for the new song.

We literally tried
everything on the universe,

not just horse but every animal,
every creatures on the universe.

PSY: ♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: PSY finally settled on
an equine dance and made a video

intended only for
Korean broadcast.

PSY: I was not friendly with
internet things at all,

so I didn't do Twitter
and I didn't do Facebook

and I honestly didn't
know that much about

YouTube before Gangnam Style.

NARRATOR: But one of his
team persuaded him to post

the new video onto YouTube.

Two weeks later, he gets a call
from a major player

in the music business.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

SCOOTER BRAUN: My buddy sent
me a video that had 100,000

views out of Korea and I
said, I can make this huge.

He goes, you want him
to do it in English?

I said, No, I want him
to keep it in Korean,

and two weeks later I'm talking
with his translator

explaining that I wanna
keep it in Korean.

PSY, he looks at me,
looks at his translator,

looks at me again and goes,
If you come drinking with me

in Korea Town tonight,
I'll do this deal,

and I looked at him and I
said, You speak English?

And he goes, I went to Berkeley.

SCOOTER BRAUN: To Psy.

To Korea.

To breaking down barriers.
To the future.

PSY: Thanks a lot.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: Scooter and his
team used their network

to help spread Gangnam
Style fever in the West.

[CLAPPING]

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

PSY: A lot of worldwide
celebrities started to tweet

my video - Britney Spears,
Robbie Williams, Tom Cruise.

People told me, like,
your song became, like,

trending off the Twitter,
and I was like, Trending?

What is trending?
(LAUGHS)

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

PSY: There were a lot of people
eager to learn the dance moves.

NARRATOR: It seemed
no one was immune

from the Gangnam infection,

not even the Secretary
General of the United Nations.

PSY: He became the second famous
Korean in the universe

right now.

NARRATOR: And it triggered
countless copycats.

PROF. JONAH BERGER: I
think it was really

a cultural phenomenon.

What he was doing was
crazy, it was surprising,

and so they shared it with
other people 'cause

they couldn't believe
what was happening.

PSY: Like, once it exploded, you
know, like, huge, I was, like,

surprised literally every day
and every moment, like, Wow,

wow, wow, wow,
wow, wow, wow, wow.

BRENDAN GAHAN: Nothing
draws a crowd like a crowd.

A few people share it and then
they see their friends share it

and they don't wanna be left
out, so next thing you know,

they start sharing it and
it becomes this snowball.

KEVIN ALLOCCA: We watched as
this video spread from Korea

to the United States to
South America to Europe.

NARRATOR: As Gangnam style
continues to rack up

one million views per day,

will Psy always be
living in its shadow?

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

PSY: My biggest regret
of entire my life

was making that horse dance
move, you know?

I cannot top it.

I cannot top it, you know?

SCOOTER BRAUN: We came up with
a game plan and that video now

is the most watched video in
the history of the internet.

NARRATOR: Gangnam Style has now
been watched 2.3 billion times.

That's the equivalent
of everyone in China,

Europe and America combined.

TODD WASSERMAN: It's incredible.

It's like being
struck by lightning,

something that happened and I
don't think will ever happen

again on that scale.

PSY: ♪ Korean
what I'm saying ♪

SCOOTER BRAUN: He gave a little
bit of happiness to everyone

and music has always done that.

The difference is now a
slightly overweight - sorry, Psy

man from Korea can make
a dance and a song

and an incredible piece of
content with that video,

put it online and the entire
world can enjoy it

within seconds.

That was never possible before.

NARRATOR: Gangnam Style showed
that YouTube now reached

a global population
like nothing else.

Soon, it wasn't only pop
stars harnessing their power.

BARACK OBAMA: Yes we can.
[CROWD CHEERING]

Yes we can.

NARRATOR: And for
better or worse,

YouTube became the
propaganda tool of our time.

In 2008, one visionary
recognized the internet's

ability to reach a new audience.

But did YouTube help
elect an outsider

as President of the United
States?

In 2007, Barack Obama was up
against the well-financed

Hillary Clinton in the
Democratic Presidential

nomination.

JOE ROSPARS: Hilary Clinton had
most of the party establishment

behind her and so the only path
for Obama was to build a big

national grassroots
movement from scratch.

NARRATOR: Joe Rospars was a
new breed of strategist

employed to head up Obama's
social media campaign,

starting with
Obama's own website.

BARACK OBAMA: I hope that you
use this website as a tool

to organize your friends, your
neighbors and your networks.

We can do a different
kind of campaign.

Here's the thing, it can only
happen if you get involved.

JOE ROSPARS: We wanted them to
forward along our content

from YouTube, we wanted them to
make phone calls from home,

we wanted them to
knock on doors,

we wanted them to chip in five
and ten dollars here and there.

That was the nature of
the grassroots activity.

CROWD (CHANTING): Obama. Obama.
Obama. Obama. Obama.

NARRATOR: A video of one of his
speeches posted on YouTube

went viral and so too...
BARACK OBAMA: Thank you!

NARRATOR: ...did his campaign.
BARACK OBAMA: Yes we can.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

JOE ROSPARS: The Yes We Can
video actually went viral

over the weekend.

We didn't make the video.

That was something that
supporters made and then

posted to YouTube which
ultimately allowed it to spread.

BARACK OBAMA: We will begin
the next great chapter

in the American story with three
words that will ring,

JASON TANZ: If you hit
the right emotional notes,

this stuff can go everywhere.

You're not dependent
upon the media

to define your message for you.

NARRATOR: But just as YouTube
was inching Obama ever closer

to the White House,
his rivals hit back,

questioning Obama's track
record on the subject

of race politics...

threatening to split
his support in half.

JASON TANZ: This was kind
of a cliff hanger moment

for the election, you know,

was this going to sink
this candidate?

How would he respond?

And there was a lot of
build up to the speech.

BARACK OBAMA: Against all
predictions to the contrary,

we saw how hungry the American
people were for this message

of unity.

Despite the temptation
to view my candidacy through

a purely racial lens...

NARRATOR: Obama's race speech
was hailed as a game changer.

Uploaded onto YouTube,
it snowballed,

getting 1.6 million
views in 48 hours.

JASON TANZ: He really did
knock it out of the park.

Even his critics sort
of admitted this.

NARRATOR: Fueled
by this success,

Obama's team posted over 2,000
YouTube clips during his march

to the White House.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

It raised Obama's profile
across the nation.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

OBAMA GIRL: Hey, B, it's me,

NARRATOR: At the same time,
Obama fans were getting in

on the act, posting their own
campaign messages online.

OBAMA GIRL: ♪ 'Cause I
got a crush on Obama, ♪

♪ I cannot wait 'til
2008 (Barack Obama), ♪

NARRATOR: Obama Girl was a
huge viral video of the time,

scoring over 26 million hits.

OBAMA GIRL: ♪ Or Hillary in
debate, won't you big up your. ♪

BARACK OBAMA:
I went on YouTube once,

I don't go real often, just
to see what was being

sort of generated under my name.

Some of them were pretty
creative and there's some

cartoon and,
WOMAN: Yeah. Ears.

BARACK OBAMA: You know,
the ears are all huge.

JOE ROSPARS: People are hungry
for content that's outside of

the traditional press, which
allowed us to run a grassroots

campaign to elect an outsider as
President of the United States.

MAN: And it's my
pleasure to welcome you,

NARRATOR: After Obama
became President,

he continued to use the platform
to connect directly

with the nation.
BARACK OBAMA: Thanks.

MAN: We've invited three top
YouTube creators here

to the White House today

we're in the East Room
and they have set up

their own YouTube sets right
here in the White House.

BARACK OBAMA: Great
to see you, Hank.

HANK: President Obama.

BARACK OBAMA: Hey, Gozelle.
GOZELLE: Hello.

BARACK OBAMA: How are you?
GOZELLE: Good. How are you?

BARACK OBAMA: Good to see you.
GOZELLE: Great to meet you.

BARACK OBAMA: Thank you.

HANK: I don't really
feel like I'm having you,

this is your house.
BARACK OBAMA: I know. Well,

it's the people's house.

This is a...

NARRATOR: Obama's YouTube
campaign proved once and for all

that anyone could get their
message to the world.

PROF. JONAH BERGER: The value
of a channel like YouTube is

it allows for the
democratization of content.

Before, only the media outlets
could decide what news we saw.

GOZELLE: Can you take
a selfie with me?

PROF. JONAH BERGER: But now,
each one of us can create news.

GOZELLE: All right!

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: In 2007, YouTube
underwent a seismic change

MAN: No!

NARRATOR: The modern smartphone
hit the mass market

and this technological
evolution created a new way

of capturing and sharing news,
called citizen journalism.

MAN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) here.

This is not a war.

We want our rights.

PROF. JONAH BERGER: One
individual that shoots a video

on their camera phone,
thousands of people can view it

in a few minutes

and it can be shared to
thousands more in the next hour.

PROF. RAMESH SRINIVASAN: Anybody
with a mobile phone and access

to the internet can become a
journalist with the advent

of YouTube.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

JASON TANZ: Having YouTube
clips of disasters

as they're happening lends them
this intimacy and this reality,

that otherwise it would
feel fairly abstract.

It's very hard not to be
touched and not to care.

NEPALESE EARTHQUAKE:
(FOREIGN DIALOGUE).

NARRATOR: In the hands
of citizen journalists,

the power of the viral video
can turn personal stories

into global stories.

PROF. RAMESH SRINIVASAN: YouTube
allowed people all over

the world to actually
create their mechanisms

of sharing their own stories,

so you can take a story
that might be very personal

all of a sudden, using
virality, make it something

that has a level of global
sympathy.

PEOPLE: (FOREIGN DIALOGUE).

NARRATOR: In June 2009,
during protests in Tehran,

26-year-old Neda Agha Soltan
was shot in the street.

PEOPLE: (FOREIGN DIALOGUE).

NARRATOR: These images from
Iran went viral on YouTube

and shocked the world.

PROF. RAMESH SRINIVASAN: It
wasn't just the fact that

she was brutally killed, it was
the fact that a video in very,

very visceral and graphic detail
showing her killing actually

was being captured at that very
moment and they used YouTube

to make that story
much more global.

MAN: (FOREIGN DIALOGUE).

NARRATOR: Viral videos began
to drive social change.

MAN: (FOREIGN DIALOGUE).

NARRATOR: Change that was
spreading across the Middle East

in what became known
as the Arab Spring.

JASON TANZ: Abuse can't
happen in secret any more.

Whether its autocratic
governments in the Middle East,

whether it's police abuse
here in the United States,

in the era of YouTube
and Smartphones,

everybody is a
potential journalist.

You can't kick every potential
journalist out of the country

because you'd have to kick
everybody out of the country.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

PROF. RAMESH SRINIVASAN: Every
form of social change has always

had a media component to it.

The fundamental media propaganda
tool of our time today

is YouTube.

So that doesn't mean that
it's a truth-telling,

storytelling mechanism.

It means it's a
tool, like any other,

that can be used by different
parties for different types

of political and social aims.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: YouTube has
helped create presidents,

topple regimes,

PROTESTORS: (FOREIGN DIALOGUE).

NARRATOR: and create
worldwide phenomena.

Now things have come full circle
as ordinary people would cash in

big on YouTube fever.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

Today, YouTube has given birth
to a new generation of media

creators - and their
fan base is huge.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

SUSAN WOJCICKI: Variety just
did a study among teenagers

and asked them who are
their top stars,

and the top five stars
were all YouTubers.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: YouTubers are ordinary
people creating content

for their own channels.

TODD WASSERMAN: They're trying
to make YouTube

more like a TV network

and they're promoting their
stars with ad campaigns,

which is something that you only
have seen media properties

do before.

WOMAN: Yeah. Ah!

KEVIN ALLOCCA: When we think
about the early days of YouTube,

we think about the
individual viral video,

the person who captured
that one moment and shared it

with the world.

I think one thing that's changed
dramatically is that more

and more people have been
producing things regularly.

NARRATOR: These homemade
YouTube channels are drawing

billions of views,

creating a new generation
of bedroom millionaires.

LLOYD AHLQUIST:
(UNINTELLIGIBLE).

NARRATOR: Two of the most
successful content creators

on YouTube started off

on the live comedy circuit,
then created...

Epic Rap Battles of History.

NARRATOR: Epic Rap Battles pits
two famous icons against

each other in
a rapping competition.

PETER SHUKOFF: I stopped playing
live concerts and started

performing live concerts
in my bedroom for a camera.

It's still performing
live, but you're through

a camera lens instead.

You can still say hi and thank
you and see you next time,

but the people watching are just
through their own computer.

LLOYD AHLQUIST: Yeah, you
get clicks instead of claps.

PETER SHUKOFF: Yeah.
That's nice.

LLOYD AHLQUIST: Thanks, brother.

You're pitiful lyrically, lucky
for history you didn't write

the Art of Rapping.

NARRATOR: Their Epic Rap Battles
are produced out of this

tiny studio in LA.

LLOYD AHLQUIST: I get
these headaches

in the back of my neck.

I'm like, Why do I have these
headaches and strains

in the back of my neck?

And then I look at the behind
the scenes videos and it's me

like (MAKES NOISES) and I was
like, Yeah that makes sense.

JOHN LENNON: ♪ Help, you're
making my ears bleed, ♪

♪ you need a muzzle. ♪

♪ Why you pissed off all the
time? ♪

♪ Didn't your mom
give you a cuddle? ♪

NARRATOR: Their first featured

John Lennon versus Fox news
anchor Bill O'Reilly.

JOHN LENNON: ♪ For an hour. ♪

♪ Every time I watch your show,
all you do is scream at me, ♪

NARRATOR: The video had
a budget of 50 dollars.

JOHN LENNON: ♪ I'm John
Lennon, I'm a legend. ♪

♪ I can see through
all your tricks. ♪

PETER SHUKOFF: I
talked, you know,

through the lens to the audience
that was watching my videos

on YouTube, there's was
few thousand people,

and asked them for suggestions
of who we should do

and they came back with John
Lennon versus Bill O'Reilly.

LLOYD AHLQUIST: Mmm.

PETER SHUKOFF: And we both saw
that and were like,

this is, yeah, this is funny.

BILL O'REILLY: ♪ Stop
your presses, Lennon, ♪

♪ you call me
Mr. Bill O'Reilly ♪

♪ When it comes to
squashing Limeys, ♪

♪ I can recommend it highly. ♪

♪ You reek. ♪

♪ Between you and me,
there's no comparison. ♪

LLOYD AHLQUIST: The John Lennon
and Bill O'Reilly video got

about 150,000 views, which
was enough to be like,

this is great.

We should do another
one of these,

so we read through the
suggestions and we saw

Darth Vader versus Adolf Hitler

and we both again knew,
we were like,

oh, this is, that's funny.

For some reason, Hitler was
super popular on the internet

right then.

PETER SHUKOFF: Huge
on the internet then.

LLOYD AHLQUIST: And then
that one went really big.

Back then, you could get on
the front page of YouTube

and it was, like, a big deal.

PETER SHUKOFF: It meant
a million extra views.

It could change your whole life.

NARRATOR: Soon, their witty
and inventive clashes

would start drawing millions
of viewers on release day.

Epic Rap Battles is now

one of the most successful
channels on YouTube.

WOMAN: Ok, all right.

NARRATOR: So. What is the
key to its success?

LLOYD AHLQUIST: I think that
people like competition

and they like getting
behind a side, you know?

So people.
PETER SHUKOFF: Yeah.

LLOYD AHLQUIST: Like to
root for their favorites;

and then I think a big thing
about it was at the end of

the video, we asked who won

and who's next and people
wanna participate.

Epic Rap Battles of History.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: With amateur channels
like these now making millions,

YouTube is investing heavily
by building its own studio

in LA and major channels
creators get to use it for free.

YouTube has become the new
Hollywood for the average Joe.

BRENDAN GAHAN: You look at the
top 100 channels on YouTube,

there's not a single consumer
packaged good

or power brand there.

JUSTINE EZARIK: Hey,
guys, how's it going?

So I'm super excited to make
this video for you today.

BRENDAN GAHAN: There's only a
handful of media companies,

but it's really individuals that
have been incredibly successful

on the platform.

NARRATOR: YouTube creators
are a new kind of celebrity,

forging one on one
relationships with their fans

through their computer screens.

LILLY SINGH: I think it's a
feeling I never get used to.

Every single time I
have a fan meet up,

I feel extremely overwhelmed.

It's like a very, you
can't explain the feeling.

BRENDAN GAHAN: The individuals
that have become incredibly

successful are those that have
been able to cultivate

an audience.

JAMES KIRKHAM: A lot of what you
can see which is successful on

YouTube is about
humanity anyway,

it's about people and faces.

It might be making you laugh, it
might be emotionally charged,

it might be very
sad, it might be,

there's probably human
storytelling at its heart.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: But what if the
biggest stars on YouTube

aren't humans at all?

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

By the time you've finished
watching this programme,

over 18,000 hours of video will
have been uploaded onto YouTube.

On Planet YouTube you
decide what you share

and the content you post in the
virtual world can have an impact

in the real world.

BARACK OBAMA: Yes we can.

CROWD (CHANTING): Obama. Obama.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: But did YouTube's
founders have any idea

their little start-up would
make such an impact?

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

STEVE CHEN: It certainly
has surpassed any goals

that we had set when we
first started YouTube,

looking ten years back.

We never expected, I think,
videos to reach

the hundred thousands,
millions, billions of views.

NARRATOR: YouTube owes its
success to its phenomenal

viewing figures,

but how much does Steve
himself know

about what makes a
clip go viral?

STEVE CHEN: Frequent videos that
I put up always featured my cat.

(MEOW)

And it's not that my cat videos
were of any particular interest,

other than it being the
first cat video on YouTube.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: But what even Steve
couldn't predict was that cats

would become the viral
superstars of the internet.

PROF. JONAH BERGER: What
makes the internet go round?

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

Cats.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: There are more than
two million cat videos

posted on YouTube.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

With over 24 billion views,
cats are one of YouTube's most

popular genres.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

JASON TANZ: Cats are
a little standoffish.

They don't beg for
your attention,

they don't beg for anything,
they could pretty much take you

or leave you, and there's
something about that in an era

where everybody is clamoring for
your attention and dying for you

to look at them and approve
of them that's actually

very compelling.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: So who are some of
YouTube's top feline stars?

If you ever hear a snarky
reference to YouTube as

'cats playing pianos', chances
are this is the cause.

Keyboard Cat's original video
has been viewed over

40 million times.

But one cat has gone a step
further and turned viral fame

into money.

Grumpy Cat, real
name Tartar Sauce,

is now a bona fide
celebrity worth millions,

with her own YouTube channel,
book deals and merchandising.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

But, why cats?

TODD WASSERMAN: My theory with
cats is that people started

to get this ability to
make videos very easily,

so they're sitting around and
looking around their house

and that's the only thing
that's interesting.

Now why cats versus dogs?
I don't know.

That's a debate for the ages.

NARRATOR: With even cat videos
proving lucrative business,

it's no wonder people are keen
to unlock the secrets

of the viral video.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

TOM STANDAGE: I think if you
could put your finger

on what viral videos
have in common,

then you'd make a fortune.

It's like playing you a whole
load of pop songs and saying,

these have all been hits.
What do they have in common?

You know, you can sometimes find
some commonalities between them

but it really is trying
to nail jelly to the wall.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: Whatever the reason
some of YouTubes' earliest stars

have had their
lives transformed.

STEPHEN VOLTZ: Now we have
Eepybird Studios and we make

viral videos for brands like
Coke and Office Max and,

FRITZ GROBE: McDonald's.
STEPHEN VOLTZ: McDonald's.

FRITZ GROBE: All kinds of
things. It keeps going.

The madness continues.

STEPHEN VOLTZ: So these
nozzles hold the Mentos

on top of the soda bottle.

NARRATOR: They even
have a viral manifesto.

STEPHEN VOLTZ: There's
certain characteristics

that make a video go viral.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

FRITZ GROBE: Don't
waste our time,

make sure you get down
to business right away.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

Be unforgettable, do something
we've never seen before.

[APPLAUSES]

FRITZ GROBE: But
really ultimately,

it's all about humanity.

[APPLAUSES]

CHARLIE DAVIES-CARR:
(MAKES NOISES).

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: Recognize these guys?

You should do.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: Harry and Charlie's
video has now been viewed,

HARRY DAVIES-CARR: It is
just less than a billion.

CHARLIE DAVIES-CARR: A billion?
Oooh!

HARRY DAVIES-CARR:
Which is about a sixth

of the world's population.

Ow! Ouch, Charlie.

NARRATOR: And what does Charlie
credit for its success?

HARRY DAVIES-CARR: Ah!

CHARLIE DAVIES-CARR: I think
it's so popular for the laugh.

[GIGGLES]

PROF. JONAH BERGER: If I
see something funny

and it makes me laugh,
that's great.

But if I share with you and
it also makes you laugh,

together we have that
shared experience.

NARRATOR: The viral video has
become a social phenomenon,

a contagion to which none
of us has been immune.

SCOOTER BRAUN:
YouTube, I realized,

was the same feeling of
self-discovery for kids

that my dad had with vinyl
and I had with mix tapes.

It was this feeling of, Oh,
I saw it on YouTube first,

I have ownership in that.

NARRATOR: And with the power

to rewrite the rules
of pop culture,

TOM STANDAGE: There
were these gatekeeping

industries and they are no
longer controlling

what comes out of
your computer screen.

You get to decide.

PSY: My biggest wish?

Maybe I can make another
viral video within 50 years.

(LAUGHS).