Double Rainbow all the way (and what does this mean?!)

            Double Rainbow refers to a YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI)
 that went viral in early 2010.  The video, titled "Yosemitebear Mountain Giant Double Rainbow 1-8-10," was posted by Paul Vasquez (also known as YosemiteBear or Bear) under the username Hungrybear9562 on January 8, 2010. In the video, Vasquez focuses his camera on two concentric rainbows, hence a "double rainbow," that he saw at Yosemite National Park. In his excitement, Vasquez oohs and ahhs at the double rainbow, and he can even be heard crying because he is so awestruck by its beauty. Popular quotes from the video include, "Oh my God, it's full on double rainbow across the sky!," "What does this mean?" and "It's so intense!” Many believe that Vasquez was under the influence of a drug substance at the time of the double rainbow, explaining his enthusiastic outburst, but Vasquez has never officially stated what that drug might be. As of now, it has been viewed 30,344,054 times and has accumulated 141,507 likes and 5,239 dislikes by YouTube users.

            It was posted on January 8, 2010, but did not become popular until 6 months later. From January to July, the video had virtually no activity. On July 3, 2010, Jimmy Kimmel was the first to tweet about the video to his 90K twitter followers, which led to the explosion of the video. Only an hour afterwards, Bill Simmons (a sports columnist and former Jimmy Kimmel Live writer) re-tweeted the video, and it began to pick up momentum. The Double Rainbow video's popularity was skyrocketed in a matter of days.
It was enhanced by the Double Rainbow song, which takes auto-tuned clips of Vasquez's original audio and makes it into a song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX0D4oZwCsA&feature=sh_e_se&list=SL)  Another YouTube user, Schmoyoho, released the Double Rainbow song on iTunes on July 6, 2010. This was quickly followed by an interview with CBS News by Shira Lazar on July 8, 2010 and an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live on July 22, 2010. During the interview with Kimmel, he admitted he has taken some substance that day prior to shooting the video. And the drug has made him cry and laugh at the same time in the video.

According to Google Insight, the peak interest for the double rainbow video was in July 2010. Searches for Double Rainbow began to decline quickly. Google Insight shows that Double Rainbow video hits were down to 71% of its peak in August 2010, dropped to 46% of its peak in October 2010, and finally, searches leveled off to about 10% of its peak in March 2011. The last attempts to keep Double Rainbow popular were in the Fall of 2010. Vasquez was featured on a Microsoft Commercial released on September 1, 2010 for the Windows Live Photo Gallery (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jXz7NrfzsI&list=UUVGOyzms_XJNk_DHqrffXCw&index=99) . The commercial demonstrated how to add a double rainbow to an image. And lastly, the Double Rainbow iPhone app, which adds double rainbows to your pictures, was released on August 26, 2010 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXogeq9U78M). It now has roughly over 26 million hits. However this did not deter the decline of the video's popularity, as noted above.

               Another meme that followed in the footsteps of Double Rainbow was the Bed Intruder Song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMtZfW2z9dw). An NBC newsclip interview of Kevin Antoine Dodson, whose sister was victim of home intrusion and attempted sexual assault, was also turned into an autotuned song by Youtube user Schmoyoho as a “Songify this” video and became viral. The Bed Intruder Song has 89,681,130 Youtube hits, and Dodson has also appeared on the television show Tosh.0, on which Daniel Tosh jokes about current internet phenomenon.

               There is also a trail of parodies inspired by the Double Rainbow phenomenon that can be viewed at http://socialtimes.com/top-10-double-rainbow-parodies-omg-so-intense_b17417. Jokes about “double cheeseburger” and “KFC double down” that became popular in the wake of the original “double rainbow.” The video has also expanded into parts of other memes, such as the “Hitler reacts to …” series, found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rcpxa8gS9g8&feature=player_embedded.

This video is relevant because it shows the kind of humor that could only evolve on the internet. Even though the video did not become viral until months after it was posted, the free access and publishing on YouTube and link sharing by celebrities and friends brought a lot of attention to a video that, aside from being funny, is an unproductive use of time. The internet can make something arbitrary a legend if enough people view it, whereas something like this would not have a medium to become popular before the internet. The Double Rainbow meme became popular during the beginning of Twitter’s prime, so the rise and decline of the Double Rainbow video's popularity is an example of how rapidly the internet can turn something into an internet sensation (within a few days), and how easily internet phenomenon are forgotten as people move on to the next meme trends.