YouTube can be the window to a city's soul. What content our residents (and in some cases elected officials) generate that spreads out to the rest of the world can define who we are in their eyes. Here are ten videos that show us at our best and at our worst that truly broke out and became viral sensations.
Paul Bell and Taylor Swift Thomas Jung took Taylor Swift's recent hit "Shake It Off" and perfectly synced it to a 1989 aerobic dance competition video that netted hundreds of thousands of views. The competition was in California, but Click2Houston figured out that one of the dancers in the hilarious vid was a Houston man named Paul Bell and tracked him down for an interview. Good thing, too, because the copyright bots at the Universal Music Group blocked the video and scrubbed it from YouTube. You can still find it if you look, but we won't link to it so as to hopefully not alert the cyberpolice. Instead, you can view Bell still showing off his dance moves in the Click2Houston coverage.
Creepy Burglar Stares at Sleeping Infant Somewhat less fun a viral video is this one that was released by the Harris County Sheriff's Office. It was taken from a homeowner's surveillance camera, and showed a burglar from April of this year stalking through their home and watching their baby while the family slept. The HCSO asked for help identifying the suspect as the video racked up views, and also used it to promote their app for reporting suspicious characters, iWatchHarrisCounty.
HFD to HPD...Will You Marry Me? Houston firefighter Jesse Gonzales decided the time was right to pop the question to his girlfriend, Olga Peck of the Houston Police Department. So he staged a fake fire in a house in an area where Peck was patrolling. When she arrived to assist the HFD, Gonzales walked out of a smoke-filled garage (smoke machine, don't worry) with Bruno Mars's "Marry Me" playing at top volume. He proceeded to get down on one knee and offer her a ring, and the ploaded video racked up more than half a million views on YouTube.
Beatdown at Chacho's It wasn't one of Houston's finer moments, that's for sure. Two women entered Chacho's and ordered margaritas, eventually asking for a to-go cup. Told that they could not take an alcoholic beverage out of the restaurant, they grew irate and asked for their money back. The interaction escalated until a manager tried to physically move one of the women away from the counter and a brawl ensued. The cell phone video of the incident was uploaded to YouTube and quickly went viral. Three Chacho's employees lost their jobs over the incident.
Ault Elementary Lets it Go Odds are you've heard the hit single from Disney's Frozen so many times that scientists from the distant future will be able to clone the song from our embedded DNA. Open your ears to one more rendition, though. The administrators at Ault Elementary managed to score a minor viral sensation with their parody meant to prepare for the STAAR test. Apparently it struck just the right tone.
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