We Just Couldn't Look Away: The Viral Videos of '08

Western Spaghetti

No one gets injured, no one gets embarrassed, no two girls do something with one cup (you don't wanna know). This whimsical stop-motion video by artist collective PES is "Sesame Street" for grown-ups: pin cushions become tomato sauce, candy corns are flickering candles. Revel in the strangely satisfying knowledge that the Internet can still be G-rated, and that G-rated can still be mesmerizing, and that mesmerizing doesn't have to mean "puppycam."

YouTube Divorce

Rule: We, the American public, want to know every private, tabloidy detail of the lives of the rich and powerful.

Exception: Tricia Walsh Smith.

Congrats, Park Avenue Princess, for showing us the line between "Ooooh!" and "Ewww." (FYI, it occurs somewhere between giving us a Web tour of your luxe pad and using that tour to tell us about your 74-year-old estranged husband's alleged porn stash. By the time you have the husband's secretary on the phone and you are asking her what to do with the condoms, you are way past the line.)

Literal Videos

It's kind of hard to explain why "Sketchy aaaaarm" and "Band montaaaage" are hilarious phrases. You pretty much just have to watch Dustin McLean's collection of "literal music videos" in which he changes the lyrics of songs to describe exactly what is happening in the video. His take on "Take on Me" is especially wondrous, and not only because of the prolonged duet about pipe wrenches.

Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog

From the content wasteland caused by the Writers Guild strike of early 2008, a beacon of hope: Joss Whedon's made-for-Internet musical, starring Neil Patrick Harris as super-villain with a doctorate in "horribleness."

Aiming simply to give viewers something to watch while the WGA got its business together, "Dr. Horrible" ended up raising the webisode bar with a surprisingly twisty plot and a hefty 43-minute running time. Plus, songs inspired by Sondheim! By the time "Dr. Horrible" was released in July, the strike was long over. Still, the video was enough to make us consider the types of things we might all be watching when we're no longer watching TV.

Drunk History

Guy gets smashed, guy slurringly recounts American history. The first installment stars Michael Cera as Alexander Hamilton, resplendent in powdered wig. By the fourth and latest, Drunk Guy is telling us all about President Harrison, who died after 19th-century doctors "were like, 'Hey William Henry Harrison, here are some leeches and [stuff]' " to help him get better.

Like much of online content, it's juvenile, it's simplistic, yet somehow we sense (hope?) we're learning something about something.