When many people think of YouTube, the image that comes to mind consists of a place to find hilarious videos, cool clips, or their fifteen minutes of fame. Yet in a phenomenal turn from the typical meant-to-make-you-laugh content of the ever-popular website, one video set out to make the world take a moment to stop and think about the fact that despite any differences between the inhabitants of this planet we call home, we all belong to “One World.” The response to this message came in the form of a video titled “The Message.”
The “One World” video was added to YouTube’s video directory almost five months ago. Only forty seconds long, the video is currently the Most Responded video of all time for the website. The video consists of a simple invitation to “make a difference . . .
When watching the “One World” video for myself for the first time, it seemed strange that such a short video with little more than an invitation to respond in kind could elicit such strong feedback. Yet almost five months after its original posting, the forty-second video still draws big crowds and responses. Watching the conclusion to this YouTube phenomenon, the “Message” video itself, was nothing short of inspirational. The amazing this is not so much that the video garnered so many views or was, for a while, so popular. Rather, the truly profound realization about this video is that, of all the videos posted on YouTube, this one forty-second clip managed to elicit such a wide response from its viewers. That is, while many videos on the site garner good laughs and some silly responses, this one managed to touch so many viewers, and more, inspired them to actually do something.
The creator of this video did a masterful job of compiling many of the responses to his initial invitation as one final message. Each pen or marker-written response, boldly displayed on the hands of each respondent, is at once simple and thought-provoking. The video has seemingly had a profound effect on its viewers as well, with some claiming to have been brought to tears and others going so far as to say the video renewed in them a long-lost desire to live. It is simply wonderful to find that in a world where the often mindless “fifteen-minutes of fame” concept is engaged to reap in laughs, one video producer, as well as the more than two thousand who took on his challenge, instead chose to use it to spread hope.
The “One World” Video
“The Message”
