Catching Viral Video: Personal Journey Through YouTube

I had heard of YouTube before, but I didn't dive headlong into the site until I saw links to it on one of my favorite websites, www.metalsludge.tv. For the uninitiated, Metal-Sludge is the CNN / National Enquirer / Mad Magazine for 1980s hair bands, and I've had fun reading it for years. On the site's gossip board, someone who calls himself PimpyPimperson has been putting up links to old videos I literally hadn't seen in over 20 years, back when MTV actually played videos.

But having written a book on these bands (here is my shameless plug: "Bang Your Head," Three Rivers Press), I certainly know that metal can bring back a lot of bad memories for me as well. Once I started looking around for other things, I was often incredibly amused by what I found.

What I've always liked about the Web in general is it's often run by regular folks like you and me. We can put up whatever we create, hawk our wares, review things and have a voice. What I discovered on YouTube may not be the work of the next great director looking for a place to upload his or her masterpiece, but if you are looking for a good laugh, some fun or a stroll down memory lane, you've come to the right place.

YouTube was created in early 2005 by several former Paypal employees who wanted to create a site that would host short video segments that users themselves could contribute. YouTube chugged along for a few months, gradually luring more viewers and hosting an increasingly large numbers of clips. Last November, a venture capital firm invested $3.5 million in the small company. But the investment money was a minor occurrence compared to what happened a month later: in December, the memorable "Lazy Sunday" skit from "Saturday Night Live" found its way on YouTube and suddenly the site exploded. Sure, a few months later NBC Universal demanded YouTube take down "Lazy Sunday" and other NBC content. But that hasn't stopped a mind-boggling 35,000 clips from being uploaded to the site each day, from the E3 2006 "Halo 3" trailer to a hilarious live action version of "The Simpson" introduction. There is also some cool user-generated content, such as the "Hey clip," which features two girls dancing and lip-synching the Pixies' song "Hey."

What else can you find on YouTube? Let us take a look.