My favorite panel at the 2010 SXSW Interactive Conference was “How to Create a Viral Video“, which featured Damian Kulash, frontman of OK Go, Margaret Gould Stewart of YouTube and Jason Wishnow, director of film and video at TED. The panelists introduced the secret ingredients (boobies and kitties) and took it a step further by creating an homage to the popular “Surprised Kitty” video. The video starred Damian Kulash of OK Go tickling the 700 panel attendees and was filmed by Jason Wishnow of TED. After creating the video, they announced the SurprisedSXSW video contest, in which audience members were challenged to create more homages to “Surprised Kitty”.
Parker Higgins, my buddy and co-worker at the time, and I decided to up the ante by creating three videos, chronicling the big elephants in the room of SxSW: hangovers, the need for energy and celebrities. The original “Surprised Kitty” video, the homage filmed during the panel, and our three entries are below. It all paid off! We won!