The Greatest Video On YouTube

Considering that YouTube is stuffed full of videos of people's cats, fat kids falling off things and clips from Godfrey Ho movies, naming one single video as "The Greatest on YouTube" is a pretty bold statement. There is however one video that is always guaranteed to put a smile on my face.



At first, this may appear to just be a video of Joy Division performing their 1979 track Transmission. Whilst Joy Division are a great band, and Transmission is certainly an incredible song, this alone doesn't really qualify it as the greatest video on YouTube. After all, there's a wealth of great music available on the site.

At 2.36 however, something truly magical happens.

Midway through the song, out of nowhere, Bono pops up.


Now, I dislike Bono as much as the next person. The man is incredibly wealthy and successful, which is reason enough to feel animosity to someone, but this enmity is compounded by his hypocritical preachiness. To have his smug face invade the middle of a Joy Division track is like being smashed in the head with a trout and your immediate response is to yell, "FUCK OFF BONO". His intrusion is not just an annoyance, but a total insult.

And then you read the comments beneath the video.

Traditionally, venturing below the line on a YouTube video is a terrible idea. The majority of user submitted commentary on these things is either people repeating what's in the video or arguing with each other in barely legible English. Even a clip of Fireman Sam will probably have idiots underneath it arguing about whether or not Obama is a Nazi.

But the Transmission video is different. The YouTube commentariat are united in their hatred of Bono, and the 3000+ comments read as a vicious, bile-filled diatribe against the man. From the simple "fuck of bono" to the more in depth death threats, browsing this never-ending cascade of rage and vitriol always cheers me up.

Perhaps the best thing about the video is, it's actually a snippet of a documentary about Factory Records rather than a straight up music video, and Bono's reason for being there is to express his love of Joy Division and Ian Curtis, rather than to deliberately ruin the track as many of those commenting appear to believe, but his sudden appearance creates such a hilariously savage response in viewers that one must conclude it really is the greatest video on YouTube.

Although I've embedded it above, I urge you to visit the video's YouTube page so as to enjoy the malevolence for yourself.

I'll leave you with the simple words of Mr WARSHIPSATIN999: