Erstellt am: 14. 9. 2011 - 06:33 Uhr
Hey Austria! What are you listening to?
Oh Interwebs. Every now and then, an idea starts on one of your public forums, and then it spreads like wildfire and there is no escaping from it, even on your favourite Radio.
I was recently one of innumerable victims of a contagious idea which started in New York with a dude with a camera named Tyler Cullen.
It seems like ages ago in "internet time", but it was in fact just in the middle of May that Ty posted the following video on YouTube:
The idea is very simple, yet strangely compelling. A cursory glance at the video's statistics show me that the video has been watched 1,411,532 times (as I post this). As unimpressive as that number might seem on an internet dominated by the likes of Rebecca Black, the Double Rainbow Guy, and of course Maru ♥, this particular meme comes with a twist.
Easy Replication
Over the following days, weeks, and months, "response" videos began appearing from all over the world on YouTube, many of them garnering tens of thousands of hits and leading to more videos.
While the concept of a "response" video on YouTube is nothing new, the fact that each of the videos seemed to be more of an extension of the original idea, rather than a parody or derogatory satire, suggested that this was turning more into a movement than a meme.
With nearly 440,000 views, one of the London responses was particularly successful.
The Lisbon edition fared less well, with just over 83,000 views.
Even South East Asia got its own entry with Singapore.
And so on. Months passed, and slowly the rest of the world began to forget about the meme. This, of course, was the signal: it was time for Austria to make its mark on the map.
As an experiment, I went to Innsbruck with a video camera, curious to see what people were listening to in the mountains.
[There used to be an Austrian version. Honest.]
Unsatisfied to stop there, I also went to Bregenz, and explored the musical soundtrack of the capital of Vorarlberg. Check back here, as we will be posting a link to this video in the next day or two!!
Over the next few weeks I will be flogging the dead horse in some other Austrian capitals as well. Stay tuned, for the Austrian soundtrack!