This year saw an epic catalogue of YouTube hits. From twerking to shaking to cute kids, 2013 had hundreds of viral trends to remember— some with reverence, others with disgust and others still with sheer confusion.
It was the year of late night comedians with Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and even Jay Leno churning out viral hits. Parodies reigned supreme, and when things got slow, there was always a sweet proposal or odd celebrity interview to pick things up.
See also: Everything That Happened in 2013 in Just 6 Minutes
Sadly though, 2013 also proved to be the year of the hoax, with several viral videos turning up as staged after reaching Internet fame. (Let's hope 2014 can fix that.)
According to YouTube data, 2013's most viral video was Norwegian band Ylvis' wacky song "What Does the Fox Say?," which made its debut on Sept. 3. The video currently has more than 301 million views on YouTube.
The second most viral video of the year, the Harlem Shake, danced its way onto YouTube in February when five Australian guys decided to go a little crazy to a song by American DJ Baauer. While the original video racked up more than 26 million views, it's the parodies and copies of the clip that turned it into a smash meme of 2013.
We've compiled a mage-list of 40 viral videos (in no particular order) that summarize life on the Internet in 2013. And even though some of the year's most watched YouTube videos were ads (Dove, WestJet, Kmart and Volvo) or music videos like Miley Cyrus' Wrecking Ball, we left those off to make room for some classics from the everyday man.
Even Grumpy Cat had to get in on the Harlem Shake action
This video was later revealed to be staged by talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.
Kai was later arrested on murder charges.
This video was later found to have been staged by Jay Leno's late night show.
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