The Top Ten Viral Videos Of 2009 (Are Mostly Music Videos)

In an age of user-generated content, the most viral videos are not made by the users, just passed around by them. Below you will find a list of the top ten viral videos of 2009, as tracked by Visible Measures, which counts not only plays on YouTube but also video shared across social networks like MySpace as well as MTV networks and Viacom. The list of the most watched internet videos 2009 below are nearly all music videos, with the exception of the No. 1 viral video, which is the trailer for the movie Twilight Saga: New Moon.  Visible Measures estimates that trailer has been watched more than 592 million times.

All the other videos in the top ten are music videos such as the one for Beyonce’s song “Single Ladies” (No. 2), and thus are also essentially advertisements for mainstream media content.  Even the two Michael Jackson music videos on this year’s list (“Thriller” and “Beat It”) no doubt helped sales of the deceased singer’s albums.  The one “amateur” video is Susan Boyle’s heartwarming American Idol performance, but the whole point of that show is to elevate amateur singers to mainstream status so I am not sure that counts.

Visible Measures list is determined by data from viewership of both officially syndicated video clips and viewer-driven social video placements. The data is compiled using its database analysis on more than 200 million Internet videos across 150 video-sharing platforms. Here is the full list.