The Top 20 Viral Videos of All Time ~ Tech Toxic

Chocolate Rain

“Chocolate Rain” is a simple video — Tay Zonday, the video's singer and star, stands at his microphone and belts out a strange song about, well, a rain made out of chocolate. Text on screen (written by Zonday after he filmed himself singing the song) makes fun of the song and the video itself. Words can't really describe how strange this video truly is.

Numa Numa

"Lip-dubs" is a genre of viral videos that's defined by someone on screen lip syncing to a song that's playing in the background. Numa Numa is the mother of all "lip-dubs."The video's creator and star, overweight and quirky Internet celebrity Gary Brolsma, taped himself singing along to Moldovan pop group O-Zone's song "Dragostea din tei." The combination of the incredibly strange song and Brolsma's weird dance moves made the video an instant Internet sensation that has spawned several imitators, but nothing beats the original.

The Star Wars Kid

Star Wars Kid

Watching the Star Wars Kid is like driving by a car accident—you'd like to look away, but you can't. The video stars a reluctant and overweight French Canadian teenager who filmed himself performing light saber moves used by Darth Maul in the film Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. Like a lot of viral videos, this one will have you howling while you're watching it but will make you feel bad when it's over.

Lazy Sunday

“Lazy Sunday” is comedy rap video by Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell about two guys having a boring, lazy Sunday that originally appeared on Saturday Night Live in December of 2005. Once the video made it to the then-fledgling video website YouTube, the popularity of both “Lazy Sunday” and YouTube exploded.

Afro Ninja

Actor/stuntman Mark Hicks' audition tape—in which he falls flat on his head, gets back up and attempts to use a pair of nunchucks until he falls back onto the floor—has been viewed over 80 million times and remains one of the funniest and most satisfying viral videos ever.

Evolution Of The Dance

Stand-up comedian and motivation speaker Judson Laipply's routine, "Evolution Of The Dance," holds the slot for the most viewed video on YouTube, with 120,364,195 views (as of 5/28/09). The clip is just as the title suggests: Laipply, within the span of 6 minutes, takes a live audience (and the YouTube viewer) through the evolution of dancing through time.

Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent

Susan Boyle

Scottish singer Susan Boyle's appearance on a 2009 episode of the TV show Britain's Got Talent truly was a viral sensation—the clip received over 60 million views in just over a month. In the clip, the slightly overweight and frumpily dressed Boyle is set up in the clip to be an embarrassing joke. But, unlike most viral videos, the tables have been turned and this time, the subject of the video, Boyle, triumphantly sings "I Dreamed A Dream" from the musical Les Miserables.

Rick Astley-Never Gonna Give You Up

Rick Astley

Thanks to a very common Internet prank called Rickrolling, the music video for singer Rick Astley's 1987 song "Never Gonna Give You Up" is one of the most viewed viral videos ever. Rickrolling is a simple prank—the prankster convinces his or her victim to click a link, telling them it's going to be one thing (like a funny video, an interesting news story, or whatever might interest the victim). But when the prank's victim clicks the link, they are taken to the music video for "Never Gonna Give You Up." That person has just been "Rickroll'd."

Iron Mic: Eli Porter vs. Envy

Eli Porter

Not much is known about the stars of this viral video that was taped in 2003 but appeared on the Internet in the fall of 2007. We do know that made for a high school public access network and that is quite possibly the worst rap battle ever recorded. Both rappers are terrible, but where Envy is standard-issue bad, it's Eli Porter's strange and misguided performance that shot this video to viral video status.

Little Superstar

This scene from a 1990s Indian film is simple but nonetheless quite amazing. In it, the titular "Little Superstar" figure, an incredibly talented child dancer, break-dances to the Madonna song "Holiday" with a skill that eclipses most adult break-dancers, let alone other children dancers. Thanks to the child's adult-like motions, the clip is both rather funny and fairly freakish.

OK Go - Here It Goes Again

OK Go's music video for their song "Here It Goes Again" was probably cheap to make—it's done in one location, with one single shot and only eight props. But thanks to those eight props -- eight treadmills -- and an injury-defying coordinated dance involving them, the clip has made the rare jump from music video to viral video.

David After Dentist

David Goes To The Dentist

Videos of kids who are drunk or high on drugs would probably be sort of funny, but mainly just wrong. But the viral video “David After Dentist,” in which a 7-year-old kid named David is hopped up on the dentist's gasses after a visit to get some teeth pulled? That's comedy gold.

Diet Coke + Mentos

Who knew when you combined Diet Coke with Mentos it'd create a geyser-like spray of foam? Well, thanks to the Diet Coke + Mentos viral video, we can know and enjoy that fact without having to ruin a perfectly good bottle of Diet Coke.

All Your Base Are Belong To Us

Thank goodness for whichever horrible Japanese-to-English translator was working on the video game Zero Wing. Thanks to him or her, we have the wonderful and rather hilarious viral video "All Your Base Are Belong To Us." The clip is a cut scene from the game that's meant to be dramatic, though the drama and emotion of the scene is completely ruined by the horribly broken English. There are a few versions of the clip, but the most popular has a techno remix tailed on the end, for good measure.

Leave Britney Alone!

Chris Crocker

International pop superstar Britney Spears was going through a rough patch in the fall of 2007. She had gone through a divorce, shaved her head, had a dismal appearance on the MTV Video Music Awards and released an album that was savaged by music critics everywhere. So Britney Spears super-fan Chris Crocker took to the Internet to tearfully beg everyone to, as the clip's title suggests, leave Britney Spears alone. The emotion that Crocker conjures up in this clip is what made the video shoot to viral status—it's like watching a 2-year-old have a meltdown, except it's a 20-something and its on the Internet. Like the Star Wars Kid, this is one of those clips you wish you could look away from but just can't.

Leprechaun In Mobile, Alabama

When a local news station in Mobile, Alabama sent a reporter to film a segment on some Leprechaun sightings they found a perfect storm scenario for making a viral video. Just watch.

Bubb Rubb and Lil Sis

A TV news reporter in Oakland was sent to investigate a new automotive trend where people get mufflers that whistle loudly and annoyingly. What he found was one of the funniest interview subjects ever—as Bubb Rubb himself would say, "Whoop whooooop!"

Bill O'Reilly Flips Out

The Fox News Channel anchor Bill O'Reilly used to be an anchor for Inside Edition. And, in this vulgar but hilarious out-take from O'Reilly's "Inside Edition" days, he loses his cool. In a BIG way.

The Landlord

When comedy legends Will Ferrell and Adam McKay started a video website called Funny Or Die, they decided to kick things off with a video of their own, called "The Landlord." The premise is simple: Ferrell's landlord is a 2-year-old child, who happens to be Adam McKay's daughter Pearl. A 2-year-old cursing at the biggest comedy star in the world?