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10 Viral Video Genres We All Get Sucked Into With Good Reason

10 Viral Video Genres We All Get Sucked Into With Good Reason

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Ah, YouTube. That glorious black hole of time and Internet data that we all fall into on a regular basis — especially if you have a desk job and your company hasn’t blocked the site. But as we click through the nonsense videos in search of something truly entertaining, there are certain genres that hold our attention more than others. Here are 10 viral video genres that are responsible for roughly 90 percent of global procrastination.

Piano-Lessons.net
Piano-Lessons.net

Cute animals

Cats playing the piano, chimpanzees riding segways, interspecies friendships, otters holding hands, pandas sneezing…the list goes on and on. Animals doing cute things, especially if those cute things make them seem almost human, will always draw our attention. You don’t even have to be a dog person to want to watch a video of a golden retriever dressed as a flamenco dancer doing the salsa with his owner.

MilitaryTimes.com
MilitaryTimes.com

Surprises

We’re talking all manner of surprises – military homecomings, birthdays, engagements. We love to watch somebody be taken unaware, and the (usually) happy exclamations and tears that follow. Although I do have to admit that sometimes the failed engagement surprises – where somebody says no – are the best ones. What can I say? I’m a horrible human being.

PlaygroundDad.net
PlaygroundDad.net

Kid antics

Kids are basically just tiny drunk adults, so it’s the easiest thing in the world to turn on a video camera and wait for the magic to happen. They say the weirdest, funniest things, and are prone to falling down/passing out/walking into things at any given moment. Really, what’s the point of having children if you can’t (gently) exploit them for your own amusement?

QuiteGreatMusicMarketingUK.com
QuiteGreatMusicMarketingUK.com

Music videos

A pretty self-explanatory genre, music videos on YouTube and other video streaming sites are our replacement for TRL (Total Request Live) and other music video countdown TV shows that are now a thing of the past. While it’s usually a pretty innocuous genre to get sucked into, beware of the “self-produced” category that gave us atrocities such as Rebecca Black’s “Friday.”

Parade.CondeNast.com
Parade.CondeNast.com

Singing competitions

Whether it’s an unlikely singer having the voice of an angel, or a hilarious untalented individual trying their absolute hardest but failing abysmally, singing competitions are always a fun time. “The Voice,” “Idol,” “The X Factor,” and plenty more have given us hours of material to watch, for better or worse. But regardless of what you think of them, these competitions gave us Susan Doyle, so they can’t be all bad.

RocMDance.com
RocMDance.com

Flash mobs

You can’t stand them, but it’s kind of in that way where you love to hate them. Flash mobs, whether they’re for fun or a surprise engagement (this can overlap with the previous genre of “surprises,” but flash mob engagements are particularly egregious), always manage to transfix you, if only to try to pick out the worst dancers in the crowd.

Poldersekermis.nl
Poldersekermis.nl

Epic fails

It’s human nature to enjoy watching people fail. Even if you won’t admit that you get pleasure out of it, you know you do. Slips, trips, face plants, wipe-outs – they’re all great fun. Epic fails that are the victim’s own fault are the best (because you really don’t have to feel bad laughing at them), but really watching anybody eat it is worthwhile.

EOnline.com
EOnline.com

Parodies

Whether it’s making fun of politicians, musicians or actors, parody videos can turn into a black hole of time. Fake lip reading, song parodies, celebrity impersonations, and movie mockeries are all included in this genre, along with basically any other tongue-in-cheek nonsense you can think of.

SparkNotes.com
SparkNotes.com

Tragedies

It’s human nature to be fascinated by the sad, dramatic, and tragic, and oftentimes this translates to our viral video obsession. Footage of natural disasters, kidnapping stories, profiles of criminals – the tragic is undeniably interesting.

NeilPendock.com
NeilPendock.com

General WTF

This is your category for everything else that hasn’t been covered, and is perhaps the most dangerous of time sucks. You have absolutely no idea what compelled the video creators to make something so weird, but you can only be thankful for the absurdity. Basically, they just make you say “WTF?” over and over again until you give up trying to figure it out and just embrace the ridiculousness.