10 Things Every Viral Video Director Should Know

10. Say ‘No’ to Slow-Motion Replays

Every video player has a timeline. If someone wants to watch an infant crash his tricycle into a telephone pole over and over, they can. It’s very easy. All you do by adding three slow-motion replays to a video is diminish the viewers reaction and make the video look like it was edited by a 14-year-old. Replays should only be used if they reveal something that can’t otherwise be seen.

9. If it’s Fake, Make it Foreign

There’s a reason so many insane videos come from Eastern Europe: they have no laws and everyone is crazy. Setting your video in Armenia raises its believability by 50%


8. Bad is Good

You can’t plan an embarrassing video, but if you happen to find a VHS tape of your older brother singing the Pokemon theme to his My Little Pony Collection in Superman undies, you’ve got something. There’s something satisfying about watching someone else humiliate themself. That’s why you should show it to as many people as possible.

7.Trying to Kill your Viral Video will only Make It Stronger (The Obi Wan Kenobi Rule)

OK, so the video of you singing to your My Little Pony collection is on the Internet. it’s time for damage control. The last thing you want to do is to try to rid it from the Internet. The more fuss you make, the more people will want to see it. Once it’s out there, it’s out there. You’re best move now is to embrace it. Say, “Yes. I sing to My Little Pony dolls, and I’ll do it at your college football half-time show.” If you’re lucky, you can be the next Gary Brolsma and make a career of it.

6. Shorter = Better

The shorter your video, the more people will sit through it. Figure, you lose half your audience every 10 seconds, meaning at the 3:00 mark the only thing left watching is a dude’s arm. Less than 1:00 is ideal. Throw the exposition and the credits out the window and stick to the fun part.

5. Have Fun

People like fun. Weird, right? If you do something fun enough, people will want to have fun vicariously through your video. This is the reason Improv Everywhere videos are so good.

4. It’s Funny When Someone gets Hurt, It’s Really Funny When They Deserve it

If we didn’t like to laugh at other people’s pain, shows like AFV and Jackass wouldn’t exist. Unfortunately, we have this thing called a conscience. It makes us feel bad if someone takes a cinder block to the face and doesn’t deserve it. Luckily, there are plenty of jerks out there that tempt fate and lose. If they had it coming, it’s guilt free laughter. That’s the best kind.

3. The Cute Factor

Babies, cats and the elderly are so bad at everything that it’s amazing when they do anything. Give the ol’ heart strings a tug and throw one of those helpless things in your video.

2. Put “Hot Girl” in the Title

Let’s face it, the Internet is mostly made up of teenage boys. You might be one of them. If you put the words “hot” and “girl” in the title of your video, they’re all going to watch it. Teenage boys are very predictable. It’s stupid, but it works.

1. Include a Celebrity

If an ordinary person jumped a speeding car, it’d be a mild hit. When Kobe Bryant did it, it was viral video gold. I don’t understand this one. Kobe should be able to jump a car. He’s an athlete. It’s his job to be able to jump high. Show me a schlubby middle-aged guy jump a car. That’d impress me, but the Internet disagrees. For some reason, a celebrity doing something interesting is a viral video. It works both ways, though. People are a lot more interested in Lindsey Lohan getting a DUI than your Uncle Ted. So it balances out.

Kevin Corrigan has run the viral video sections of Collegehumor and TodaysBigThing.com for the past couple years, making him one of the world’s foremost experts in videos of people getting hit in the nuts, right behind the people that make America’s Funniest Home Videos.