Thought of this after watching Alex Trebek rap Fresh Prince on Jeopardy…
Can you remember things you saw live and knew that it was going to go viral and then it did?
The only ones I can think of right now:[ul]
[li]“It’s the perfect texture for running!”[/li][li]Bearded guy makes weird staring face during NFL game[/li][/ul]
Yours?
No, but I’ve seen the opposite of this, on a YouTube clip of Family Feud where a contestant makes an outrageous answer and Steve Harvey says something like “Yeah, I bet that’ll be Number One – Number One on YouTube.”
I saw the “naked grandma” answer on Family Feud on tv before I ever saw it online. Never saw a live thing though.
The only one I remember is the Ashley Simpson lip-sync screw up on SNL. When it happened live and they immediately cut to commercial I remember thinking “Well, I know what everybody’s going to be talking about tomorrow.”
Does the Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction count?
I forgot about the wardrobe malfunction but yeah, I was thinking the same thing “that’s gonna go down in history”. The comments during the next half didn’t harm either “what we’re seeing here is raw naked football”.
Pre-social media, but there were two things that I saw live that I knew were going to be big news the next day:
Al Campanis making racist comments on Nightline, and Ted Koppel asking him if he knew what he was saying was garbage. Two days later Campanis had to resign his position as general manager of the Dodgers in response to protests.
Madonna cursing repeatedly on The Late Show. I started saying, “Oh my God, oh my God,” and my Mom came in from the other room to see what was going on. When I explained that Madonna had completely gone off, my Mom said that I was just too sensitive, and that these kind of things happened all the time on talk shows. I felt vindicated when Madonna’s behavior was a huge news story the next day, and it’s still considered one of the most memorable moments in the history of the show, at least according to numerous recent lists.
The Howard Dean “yeehaw”.