8 Unforgettable Songs From Viral YouTube Videos

Take a trip back into your childhood with the most memorable songs made famous by viral videos.

Written by Micaela Garza
Illustrated by Mark Yoder

Before there was Snapchat, Tik-Tok, and even the now-defunct Vine, we had YouTube to keep us entertained. In the string of viral videos that we passed around to our friends or clicked on by chance, there were a handful of videos that included songs. Take a trip down memory lane, where we remember the top eight songs made famous by viral videos.

“Dragostea Din Tei” (Numa-Numa) — O-Zone

The Numa-Numa guy comes from the good ol’ days when all you needed was a 240p webcam and a good sense of humor to make something the internet would never forget. It’s possible that this was the dawn of viral videos. It’s also highly possible that no one would have ever had this Romanian hit playing in their head while they zone-out during a standardized test, had it not been for the YouTube video that made it famous.

“Axel F” — Crazy Frog

2006 brought two beautiful things into this world — this video, and the Flip Video Camera. We all begged our parents to buy us those cameras for Christmas so that we, too, could post videos on YouTube erratically performing lip-syncs to hit songs. It’s now 13 years past, and if this song came on at the club, the dance floor would erupt into an elementary school P.E. turn up.

“Shoes” — Kelly (LiamKyleSulivan)

Kelly released other great songs like “Let Me Borrow That Top” — but the hit that she is most remembered for is undoubtedly “Shoes.” While the video was hilarious to us as children, young adults can understand Kelly on a deeper level. Her father asks her, “What are you going to do with your life?” and her timeless reply — “I’m going to get what I want!” — is as motivational as a TED Talk.

“Chocolate Rain” — Tay Zonday

This song was humorously included in commercials for Comedy Central and Dr. Pepper, but Tay Zonday made one thing clear: “Chocolate Rain” is a metaphor for institutional racism. As silly as it is to watch Tay Zonday *move away from the mic to breathe in,* the lyrics are cryptically powerful. Also, no one expected that Morgan Freeman voice to come out of a nerdy kid in a white t-shirt, but alas, the internet is full of surprises.

“Friday” — Rebecca Black

Most of us hate Mondays, but this song might have ruined Fridays, well, forever. Buzzfeed interviewed Rebecca Black in 2019, which just goes to show that this song has maintained cultural relevance for our generation in the time since it was first released. Autotune, repetitive lyrics, and that girl who does that weird arm thing in the car make this song all too memorable. Next time you’re on a rooftop partying with your friends or at the club on a Friday night, you won’t be able to help but think of this song.

“The Gummy Bear Song” — Gummibär

I’m not saying that any of us actually like this song. In fact, the video is minutely disturbing, but if you don’t want to watch it, picture this: a sleazy looking gummy bear with a five o’clock shadow flashes his buttcheeks and bounces around. Regardless of whether you think the gummy bear is annoying or cute, the one lyric (“I’m a gummy bear, yes I’m a gummy bear”) that is repeated over and over throughout the course of the song is still stuck in the heads of millions of people across the world.

“The Bed Intruder Song” — Antoine Dodson and The Gregory Brothers

Next year will be the 10-year anniversary of this absolute banger. A remixed version of this local news interview about a home invasion brought Antoine Dodson and his family internet infamy. Dodson offered his support to the Gregory Brothers when they approached him to ask about selling the song on iTunes, and incredibly the news interview-turned-hit-song went on to sell over 100,000 copies. So you can run and tell that, homeboy!

“Never Gonna Give You Up” — Rick Astley

This 1987 British single was a hit when it came out, and nearly 20 years later, it soared in popularity as it became the number one internet prank — the “Rick Roll”. Originally appearing as an email with an unrelated subject line that opened up to the music video when the reader clicked on the attached link, it quickly turned into an elaborate scheme to link people to the video in any way possible. The song is catchy and the video is completely mesmerizing — even the Foo Fighters got in on the action when they “Rick Rolled” the Westboro Baptist Church in 2015.