2009: The Year I Went Viral
Something crazy and unexpected happened to me this year that I was not ready for. I discovered a new way to peel a banana I had never known before and I wanted to share it with everyone. I ended up sharing it with more people than I ever expected.
How did it happen?
In July, I stayed with my friend for a week in Arlington, VA after a wedding in Maryland. When I was there I wanted to eat a banana that was a bit too ripe I couldn’t just crank the handle back without mashing the banana to pieces. His sister-in-law Brittny was staying with him at the time and was carrying a grilling spatula. I asked her if I could borrow it to make a cut in the rid.
Brittny: “Oh you don’t know how monkeys peel bananas?”
Me: “No..”
Brittny pinches the tip of the banana and opens it from the bottom
MY HEAD EXPLODES
I couldn’t believe it, how did I go through 28 years of life not knowing this? PEOPLE MUST KNOW!!
I immediately tweeted my discovery:
“holy crap, I just learned the way monkeys peel a banana (just pinch the end and peel) http://twitpic.com/9n7r3“ 9:08 PM Jul 7th from Tweetie
My friend Alistair re-tweeted and replied.
“DUDE! Youtube it”
It wasn’t until the next morning when I was making breakfast and wanted to put banana in my cereal that I thought about Alistair’s tweet. I should put my discovery on Youtube, why not?
I tweeted
“Dropping some knowledge, my 1st YT how-to video: “Open a Banana Like A Monkey” http://bit.ly/dmIId @F1LT3R thanks for the push 
”
10:37 AM Jul 8th from Tweetie in reply to F1LT3R
I setup the camera on the counter and recorded the first take, fumbling over my words and massacring English in the process. I uploaded it to Youtube later that afternoon and when my friend Mike came back from work I showed it to him. He got a kick out of it and submitted it to Reddit, he’s pretty active in the community there.
Part of the reason it shot up in Reddit I believe was because the athiest community saw my video as reply to Ray Comforts religious slant on peeling a banana, the monkey method basically blew his line of thought out of the water.
The clip ended up making its rounds in mid July. It was a crazy ride. Eventually around 600k views on YT I was invited to their partner program. I didn’t know I could make $ off of the Youtube clip. Eventually I did up earning a couple hundred bucks for sharing my discovery.
Some Milestones
55th most popular link in 2009 on Reddit!
Popular on YT: World-Wide
Lifehacker
Featured as a Food Hack
Yahoo Homepage! Twice!
Reuploaded on Yahoo! Video, Voted to Best Videos of ‘09
Busch Gardens made a video response
with Kashina, a REAL Gorilla!
I’m on TV in Japan!
NHK Video Clip, transcript
Lots of interesting video responses, some concerning.
Lots of supporting comments. Lots of not-so-nice comments.
Could I do it again? Doubtful
- No Script, genuine. Just me (in my pj’s)
- Polarizing subject – you loved it or you hated it. You knew about it or you didn’t.
MIND = BLOWN or You’re a MORON - Monkey Pants (I swear I did not plan that)
- Killer headline on Reddit “Holy crap, I never realized I was peeling a banana wrong my entire life [Vid]“
- Timing, released early in the week, went more viral as the week went on
- Wasn’t the first to do a YT banana peeling video. (I like to think that it was my likeliness that made it catch on like it did)
- It seemed like a perfect storm of factors brought it together at the end.
Lots of copy-cats. First, my clip was picked up was poached from YT and submitted to Yahoo! It made the front page and got 2mil+ views before I submitted my own original then I contacted them and got it pulled. I got to the homepage again with this resubmission in the best viral videos batch.
I tried to capture screenshots of the craziness as it happened in my Banana Trail Flickr Photoset.
If I were to estimate, between YouTube, Yahoo, all of the articles, and times I saw it refactored & reused I’d say the video received over 10mil+ views worldwide. Maybe more.
That’s Pretty Awesome To Think About
