Blue Helm

Ah, it’s that glorious time of year when grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize. I absolutely love Halloween, so I decided today is the perfect day to post nine clips from some of my favorite spooky movies and TV shows. Enjoy!

Ghostbusters is one of my favorite comedies, and Halloween is a great time of year to watch it. Here’s the classic scene when our phantasm-fighting threesome get their very first call to action.

I love, love, love this Steven Spielberg horror classic. Spielberg takes adventure elements from Indiana Jones and the “ordinary family under extraordinary circumstances” narrative from E.T. to create Poltergeist, a ghoulishly fun ghost story set in the scariest of all nightmares: Suburbia.

Disney’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow tells the favorite tale of Ichabod Crane and his fateful encounter with the Headless Horseman.

Nickelodeon’s Are You Afraid of the Dark? used to terrify me back in the 90s, but I watched it anyway. I even made my little brother, who was probably more terrified than I was, watch it with me. The clip below features some of the spookiest villains in the series.

Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall provide us with truly Oscar-worthy performances in The Shining, the horror movie of all horror movies. It comes on TV all the time, so I would highly recommend watching this excellent film.

A woman cheated out of trick-or-treating is a dangerous prospect, as Linus learns the hard way in It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

No commentary is needed for this next video clip. A Halloween classic, pure and simple.

Homer Simpson gives demonic minions more trouble than they bargained for in this “Treehouse of Horror” clip.

And finally, my favorite Halloween movie of all. Before it became over-commercialized and popular with emo-goth teenagers who like to pretend they’re dark and depressed, The Nightmare Before Christmas was an obscure, light-hearted holiday treasure to me and my family. Without fail, the song “This is Halloween” is stuck in my head throughout October. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Well I hope I scared you silly with my chilling clips. Happy Halloween to all!

For some reason I have recently been watching a lot of “Wheel of Fortune.” In light of my recent TV viewing I started looking up clips of funny game show contestants. I hope you enjoy these:

I love Pat’s face at the 44 second mark.

This is probably my favorite one

I’m sure by now you’ve either seen or heard of the BYU “New Spice” video. If you haven’t, here it is:

When I first saw this video it had only 350 views. 12 hours later there were over 350,000 views. Within a few days the video had been viewed over a million times and is now at about 1.9 million.  Not only have millions of people viewed the video, but it was covered on CNN, Time Magazine, in all of the local Utah media, huge blogs, and even the Huffington Post. Great PR.

The question is, why? Why did this video go viral? Why does any video go viral?

Timing – The BYU Harold B. Lee Library couldn’t have posted this video at a better time. Old Spice was right in the middle of its big YouTube campaign and millions of people were already searching for things that would pull up the BYU video.

Quality – Obviously the quality of this video was very high. If this had just been a home movie it probably would not have had the same impact. You can see the effort and professionalism put into it by watching the video’s Behind the Scenes update. The quality is what really galvanized not only BYU students, but other audiences as well. Mainstream media outlets and websites saw the video as more legitimate due to its high production value, thus increasing its viral spread.

BYU Audience – The BYU audience is pretty big. There are around 32,000 students and millions of alumni. These dedicated BYU fans pounced on the video, posting it on their Facebook Walls, Twitter feeds and blogs without hesitation.

So what can we take away from this? First, be aware of what’s happening in the social media world. If you’re on top of things you may be able to capitalize on the latest fad. Second, people appreciate quality. YouTube viewers are so used to seeing poorly executed knock-offs that when they see something of true quality they’re more likely to share it. Third, even if you’ve created an awesome piece of content, it will still need a boost. That boost can come from an existing base of people or even from using the powerful YouTube promoted videos feature. Lastly, you’ll need a little luck.

What are your thoughts on what makes a video viral?

“It’s that time again!” It’s time for another installment of “YouTube Gems.” To see other installments click here.

Earlier this week my sister reminded me of the genius show Animaniacs. When I was growing up this was one of my favorite cartoons to watch. I still crack up watching these hilarious clips.

I hope you enjoys these, have a great weekend!

Have you ever heard of National History Day? It turns out there is a pretty cool organization that encourages children to take more interest in “the discovery of the historic, cultural and social experiences of the past.” Classrooms across the nation participate in a contest that encourages students to submit a presentation on a topic of historical significance. Think of it as a science fair for history.

My 12-year-old sister participated in this year’s National History Day contest. Her project won first place in her region! Unfortunately, she was sick the weekend of the state competition and wasn’t able to go. Otherwise she probably would have won at the state level (there’s no bias in that statement at all). The topic of her project is “Getting Information to the People: From Gutenberg to Twitter”, a topic that is extremely relevant and very interesting. The best part is that there is an interview at the end with a very attractive young man (that would be me for any who are confused). So without further ado, here is her final project. Enjoy: