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Viral Video: Tiny Terror

Apr 17, 2006  •  Post A Comment

TelevisionWeek is trawling cyberspace to find the hottest video clips spreading on the Web.

The setup: Shakespeare’s theater manager Philip Henslowe, played by Geoffrey Rush, said it best in “Shakespeare in Love,” when he quipped that theatergoers like “love and a bit with a dog.” The same seems to be true for viral video, at least the dog part. In the “Evil Chihuahua” video, a Chihuahua wearing a sweater emblazoned with an American flag bites someone’s booted foot, then growls and bares his tiny teeth for nearly 30 seconds, like a possessed Tinkerbell.

The source: A user submitted it to StupidVideos.com in February. It was then syndicated to MSN Video via a relationship between StupidVideos and MSN.

The hits: The video has been viewed on StupidVideos about 225,000 times since Feb. 10 and more than 264,000 times on MSN Video. Though the video has been available for more than two months online, it’s a classic example of a viral video that percolates solely through word of mouth. During the time it’s been on MSN it has never been featured as a top video or a highlighted video on MSN, yet it’s been a consistent performer each week and continues to be watched regularly. “The viralness of the video has sustained itself,” said Ann Garrett, a spokeswoman for StupidVideos. In the past few months, the number of animal clips submitted has risen tremendously, she said. Animal clips are among the most popular of all videos, she added.