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Susan Boyle, Domino's Jackasses Make for Weirdest Viral Vid Week Ever

By Catharine Taylor

Updated on: April 16, 2009 / 12:46 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

I'll try to stay as far away as possible from grandiose statements about what this all means, but I've been struck over the last few days about what an incredibly high and low week it's been in the world of viral video. Here's all the evidence any of us needs:

A video from the English show "Britain's Got Talent" featuring a dowdy, 47-year-old named Susan Boyle singing an exquisitely beautiful rendition of "I Dreamed A Dream" creates worldwide headlines and at this writing, has resulted in tens of millions of YouTube views.
Two (now former) Domino's employees upload a video of themselves doing disgusting things with ingredients at the chain, leading not only to hundreds of thousands of viewings on YouTube, but a full-blown PR crisis for Domino's, which has been forced into releasing a video response, on YouTube, naturally.

There will be other viral sensations this year, but it wouldn't be surprising at all, if, when we look back at the year that was, we point to these two videos as two of the biggest phenomenons -- truly for better or worse -- this year. I'll just close by saying if anyone doubts whether the online world is now completely reflective of society as a whole, they have some reconsidering to do.

(Since, thankfully, the Domino's video is now gone -- bizarrely, due to a copyright claim by one of its pathetic creators -- I will only embed the other one here. Thanks to AllThingsD's Kara Swisher for finding an embeddable version at DailyMotion. The long-form version which I linked to above, is definitely worth a look, but on YouTube its embedding is "disabled by request".)

Britains Got Talent 2009 Susan Boyle 47 Year Old Singer Uploaded by kj1983