Skip to main content

Digital Trends’ top 5 viral videos for January 14, 2011

We are back with a new selection of videos to tickle your fancy. These videos are not all from this week, but they all made us laugh or caused our jaws to drop recently. Enjoy!

Amy Walker: Woman of 1,000 accents!

Well, technically it is just 21 accents, but it is still impressive. This video is actually a few years old, but it has floated back to the surface of the viral video ocean, and is worth the watch. After watching the video, it is ok to try to speak to someone in a new accent. You know you want to.

By Crikey! Even the floods in Australia are bigger!

A recent flood in and around Australia’s third largest city, Brisbane, was a tragic reminder of the devastating power of nature. It also made for some awesome video of stuff getting’ destroyed.

New clip from the upcoming show Portlandia: Did you read?

Being based in Portland, this clip quickly made the way around the Digital Trends office. The show itself, Portlandia, is due to premiere on IFC next Friday, but clips have begun to find their way online. You don’t have to know Portland to appreciate the comedy, but if you do you probably know a few people eerily similar to these two.

Still Lovin’ it?

Digital Trends’ very own PR guru, Jeff, tried a little experiment a few years back that he recently edited and tossed online. When Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me hit the theaters, most left the theater preaching the evils of McDonald’s, swearing that they would never again step under the golden arches. Some kept their resolve for days, weeks, and months, some even swore off the Big Mac forever. Others…well, they didn’t make it quite as far.

The Frontier is Everywhere

Behold! Earth and stuff. This fan made video is by Michael Marantz, who then used the words of Carl Sagan to highlight the beauty and potential of the human race. It is a message to NASA, who will hopefully one day get their s#@* together. It is a sad commentary that the NASA Facebook page has under 300,000 fans, while Lady Gaga has over 26 million.

Editors' Recommendations

Ryan Fleming
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Ryan Fleming is the Gaming and Cinema Editor for Digital Trends. He joined the DT staff in 2009 after spending time covering…
YouTube’s new HD music videos let you relive your youth in vivid detail
YouTube Photo

 

You can now watch many of your favorite music videos in vivid HD thanks to YouTube’s latest partnership.

Read more
Digital Trends Live: Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Note 10, Harry Potter AR, and more
episode 155 1198497656

On this episode of Digital Trends Live, host Greg Nibler and Luke Larsen, DT’s section editor of computing, dive into the trending tech topics of the day, including Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Note 10 unveiling, YouTube’s AR makeup tutorials, Niantic's new Harry Potter AR game, a Tesla pickup built by a YouTuber, and more.

Nibler then speaks with Olga Andrienko, head of global marketing for SEMrush, about the growing popularity of voice search, and the future of optimization in voice recognition.

Read more
YouTube purges extremist videos, from flat-earthers to Holocaust denial
youtube to remove more hateful and supremacist content going forward logo phone

YouTube announced further steps it plans to take toward reducing the amount of harmful content published on its site.

The video-sharing site published a statement on Wednesday, June 5, that outlined its plans to remove “more hateful and supremacist content” from its platform. Specifically targeting hate speech, the statement went on to say that YouTube’s updated video removal policy will include “prohibiting videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status. This would include, for example, videos that promote or glorify Nazi ideology, which is inherently discriminatory.”
In addition to removing videos that feature supremacist views, YouTube also intends to remove videos that deny the existence of “well-documented violent events, like the Holocaust or the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary.” The video publishing platform also said it would crack down on videos claiming the Earth is flat or promising miracle cures for diseases.
YouTube’s updated policies also include reducing the spread of content it deems “borderline” or more specifically, content that generally contains harmful false information such as “videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, or claiming the earth is flat.” But instead of removing borderline content, YouTube is opting to use a different approach to reduce the number of views borderline videos receive. Specifically, a system update that limits recommendations of that content in the first place. The system update was tested in the United States in January and YouTube intends to bring the update to more countries by the end of this year. YouTube also plans to increase the recommendations for content created by authoritative sources, like trusted news organizations.

Read more