[music playing] KEVIN ALLOCCA: I think when people say viral, I think they mostly just mean something that everybody's talking about on the web.

YOUTUBE USER 1: Content is shareable when it hits people emotionally, and it makes people feel like they're proud to have it be associated with their identity.

MICHAEL LEARMONTH: I kind of call it the new advertainment.

Make a straight content, and make it good enough that they'll want to pass it around to their friends.

YOUTUBE USER 2: Internet comedy, specifically, I think that everyone's just getting good at being funnier faster.

TODD WOMACK: 'Cause people have such a short attention span for online stuff.

CASEY NEISTAT: That's what I love about online is that it's now created this opportunity where you can make two- to five-minute videos and have them matter.

BRAD KIM: People remember them.

It has a timeless appeal.

KEVIN ALLOCCA: One of the interesting things about a viral video is there is actually no generally agreed upon definition.

YOUTUBE USER 1: A lot of people like to use the word viral to describe something that takes off or is popular.

For me, what counts as viral is are people inspired to share with their friends?

KEVIN ALLOCCA: Oftentimes it's not even the video itself that's so important.

It's what you think of the video.

It's what your reaction to that video is.

YOUTUBE USER 1: We're entering this new era in media where it's not just about serving your own needs.

It's about finding things for your friends and the people in your life.

And people are becoming curators and publishers themselves.

KEVIN ALLOCCA: It's what the video says about us when we share it.

I like to be the funny guy, so I share the funny video.

YOUTUBE USER 1: And so I think what you're seeing now is the Web is maturing.

Social signals are becoming a bigger and bigger part of it.

And there's gonna be a higher bar for content creators to make things that people actually want to watch and share.

BRAD KIM: From 2000 till 2006, accidental would be the key word in characterizing these videos.

It's an extension from "America's Runniest Videos."

Some of the most prominent themes would include cats, babies, schadenfreude moments, repetitive type of music videos, animations, and a borderline obnoxious song.

About 2006, there was the emergence of a remix artist community on YouTube.

Their primary role is to take an existing clip and totally recontextualizing them, it took the idea of viral culture to the next level.

From there, people in the professional fields of video production started taking notice.

Videos like "Dick in a Box," "Like a Boss"-- these videos totally took the absurd humor that has been running through internet videos, and they just introduced them to a much wider audience.

That was a techpoint where the mainstream and the internet culture is really converging.

How do we one-up from there?

That's the driving engine that this convergence is bringing about.

YOUTUBE USER 2: Viral videos, it's been fantastic for comedy.

As much as we try to predict what's gonna be a huge hit on the internet, you never totally know.

And we try our best.

And there's things you can do.

For example, I try to always start from a place of relatability, like some topic that people have experienced before in some way.

ANNOUNCER: Six girls you'll date in college.

You're just like my dad!

ANNOUNCER: You'll keep a picture of her to show to friends.

She will not.

TODD WOMACK: With internet video, you just have to cram it.

MARK DOUGLAS: It's visually like, hey, keep watching.

Don't click away.

Hi, hi, hi.

We try to keep everything very visual, very fast.

And within like 10 seconds, everyone needs to be aware why this is funny, where it's gonna go.

Another thing is just it's more about the execution of a concept that touches on a cultural nerve.

TODD WOMACK: Pop culture, that's the thing that's being consumed the most.

MARK DOUGLAS: We did a One Direction parody where we just totally called them, like, the seventh sign of the Apocalypse.

And all the One Direction fans were like, we love it.

As long as you're covering things that they're interested in, they don't care what you say.

YOUTUBE USER 2: People are a lot more likely to share with their friends a video that they feel relates to their own lives in some way.

But we're always surprised by what ends up becoming really popular.

MICHAEL LEARMONTH: Early on, brands started looking at YouTube creators and the so-called viral videos they were making and thought, hey, we can do this ourselves.

Initially, they were trying to get free advertising that they could mimic what was going on YouTube.

And with a gag or a funny joke or a cute animal or a baby, they could replace their television advertising.

"Evian Babies" was sort of the first major super successful viral campaign that reached over a billion views on YouTube, just an amazing success.

But what they found over time is that these things cost money.

So they're investing more in it.

I like power!

MICHAEL LEARMONTH: Old Spice did hundreds of videos that were funny and made that campaign last over time.

What's interesting are startups out there and some established companies that are using video as their only marketing strategy.

The Dollar Shave Club launched, basically, on a funny video.

Another example is the Orabrush guy.

Their strategy is 100% video.

Videos that appeal to people's emotions also really work, like the Google campaigns do.

And those can be incredibly powerful.

But, you know, they're not mentioning anything specific about Google.

It's not just trusting that we can make good content, and people will love us for it.

But it's trusting that we can make good content that maybe really isn't even about us.

This is about brands creating content that people want to watch, and it's really a revolutionary notion.

CASEY NEISTAT: I love two- to three-minute stories.

Storytelling is almost all I care about.

The motivation or inspiration behind my videos is just whatever I think is interesting at that moment.

In 2003, the battery in my iPod died.

And I was really broke back then, so it was a huge deal.

And Apple wouldn't replace it.

Apple doesn't offer a new batter for the iPod?

No.

CASEY NEISTAT: We made a three-minute movie about it and put it online.

It really exploded.

It still got about five million views in a couple of weeks, and that predated YouTube.

I always try to give a character that's leading you through the story.

Whether they care about the specific subject matter or not, if they're invested in the character, it'll drive them through the videos.

Often there are obstructions that keep you from properly riding the bike on the-- [crash] I'm a big cyclist, so naturally, I make a lot of movies about bikes.

And I live in New York City, which is this amazing backdrop.

So it inspires you to want to tell that story.

And that's what like "Texting While Walking" was.

It's hard to invest yourself in a generic message.

But if it's humanized, if there's a face behind it, it's something to have a relationship with.

So if I have the opportunity to type a title in using software, and it just pops up on the screen, or I can draw the title and then film it, by drawing it and filming it, you're seeing the human hand.

You're seeing something I actually created.

I don't make movies for them to go viral.

I just make the best movies I can and happen to just love three to five minutes.

It's my favorite length for telling a story.

And certainly, that's what I love about life more than anything else is experiencing the world through stories.

KEVIN ALLOCCA: We think about viral as entertainment, but we've seen recently how powerful and very dramatic events can also spread very quickly.

So all of these trivial rules that we try to assign to what becomes popular on the web don't always apply.

BRAD KIM: Those videos could possibly lead to a discussion or a bigger debate about an issue, whether it be interracial issues or bullying in school.

KEVIN ALLOCCA: It's now starting to affect politics.

Like at the very start of the revolution in Egypt, there was a video that was posted of a guy staring down a water cannon.

[yelling] It had elements of the Tiananmen idea.

There's gotta be a comforting feeling that, somewhere, someone in the world, other people are seeing the mess that you're in.

BRAD KIM: So what we're seeing is a transition from receiving and consuming these videos to talking about the video, and we're starting another chapter.

Now people are raising funds and doing things to actually make things happen.

KEVIN ALLOCCA: When we think back and remember many of these moments, we'll remember them through these YouTube videos.

And that is a very, very different thing.

10 years ago, it would take six months for something to reach its full viral spread.

Eight years ago, it took something like two or three months.

Then it got down to a week.

Now it's something that things can reach their full viral reach within a day or two.

MICHAEL LEARMONTH: I actually think we're in this YouTube created Renaissance of content.

YOUTUBE USER 2: I think it's cool that we're in an era now that people are paying more attention to, like, how to get to the funnier thing faster.

MARK DOUGLAS: So it is kind of a game, the viral contest.

CASEY NEISTAT: I think YouTube is still entirely the wild, wild West.

Five years from now, the stuff that we're seeing online will be entirely different.

And right now, we're in sort of this transitional phase.

KEVIN ALLOCCA: We're just starting to understand what happens when you open up the power of video to the masses.

We're gonna continue to see things that surprise us for the next decades.

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