There are plenty of successful compilations on YouTube showing mankind failing and being awesome, but it was only with the Harlem Shake meme explosion that I noticed how a lot of people make money with other people’s creativity.
The HS compilations appeared about a week after the original video was uploaded. Soon, replications of the meme reached the level that even the keyword “compilation” became a meme by itself – with variations like “compilation (best videos)”, “best/funniest”, “top 10″, “ultimate” and so on…
It’s all about maths and magic: if 3 minutes is the ideal length for a video and there are plenty of 10-second videos, why not compile around 18 videos and get more views than all the originals combined?
After the meteorite fell in Russia, I started the Unimpressed Driver meme with 5 different versions and one compilation video.
After more than a month, the results clearly support my theory:
The compilation had more views than all the other videos in total.
In a world that is more connected than ever, it seems the famous formula to “divide and conquer” became outdated.
