- Judson Laipply, 48, a Cleveland-based keynote speaker and “inspirational comedian” uploaded a video to YouTube in 2006 featuring him performing a variety of dances to popular songs
- At the time, his “Evolution of Dance” clip became one of the first viral videos on YouTube
- “You are never going to replicate that lightning in a bottle that you get that one time,” he tells PEOPLE
These days, it’s not uncommon to go viral on social media, with popular videos boasting billions of views. In comparison, a video with 500,000 views may not seem like a big deal — but back in 2006, months after YouTube launched, it was a very big thing for Judson Laipply, who became one of YouTube’s first viral stars.
“I think LeBron James said it once before, ‘Records will be broken over time, but nobody can ever take away the first,’ ” Laipply, 48, a Cleveland-based keynote speaker and “inspirational comedian,” tells PEOPLE in honor of last month’s 20th anniversary of the online video sharing platform.
“My video is not the most-watched video anymore. It’s not even in the top 100, but it was still the first one to really truly illustrate the power of virality in those early days,” he adds.
Filmed in 2005 in front of a live audience during a showcase in Oklahoma City, Laipply’s six-minute clip titled “Evolution of Dance,” featured him performing different yet popular dance moves to snippets of 30 songs. Among the tunes he danced in almost rapid-fire fashion included Chubby Checker’s “The Twist”; the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive“; Los Del Rio’s “Macarena”; the Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian”; and Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.”
The origins of “Evolution of Dance” can be traced back to around 2000 when Laipply started his public speaking career that blended comedy with more serious content. He recalls watching a comedian on stage in Wisconsin who talked about being invited to a wedding where the guests performed specific dances each time a song is played.
“He’s like, ‘Who taught you these? Am I supposed to know these?’ ” Laipply recalls.
And then Laipply remembers thinking, ‘”That’d be really funny to see some of those as a medley.’ ” That thought was followed by another: putting them in order could be even funnier.
“And the term ‘evolution of dance’ came to my head,” he continues.
Laipply wrote down the first 12 songs that he felt would make up a medley. He later mixed the music, and danced to it. “It went over really, really well,” Laipply says. “That was 2001. Then I continued to perform and tweak and add and grow and get better.”
Over time, he perfected the routine that would later be immortalized on video years later. Laipply says that while he wasn’t a trained dancer, he was athletic with a good sense of rhythm. “I truly never once was scared about doing it,” he says about performing on stage. “I was so excited because I thought it was going to be so good, and I thought people would love it.”
YouTube officially launched on Dec. 19, 2005; almost four months later, on April 6, 2006, Laipply uploaded the “Evolution of Dance” video to that platform because it automatically generated a code that could be put onto MySpace.
“In 2006, we’re still in the early days of using the internet as a marketing tool or a community tool,” says Laipply. “MySpace was this great place to connect and market.”
But since the platform didn’t have its own video host, he explains that in order to embed videos, you had to get creative — and “that was the only reason I used YouTube.”
It took about four weeks before Laipply realized his video was taking off.
“I remember going and looking and it’s got 30,000 views, and I’m like, ‘No way. This is amazing. Holy cow, who are these random 30,000 people that found it?’ ” he says. “A couple days later, it went from 30,000 to 90,000. And then a couple days later it jumped to half a million.”
The popularity of “Evolution of Dance,” which went hand-in-hand with YouTube’s rising star, led to Laipply making appearances on the Today show, Madison Square Garden and the NBA Finals.
Its runaway success also prompted two sequels to the clip in 2008 and 2016.
While Laipply acknowledges that the original video — which has accumulated over 300 million views as of Feb. 18 — changed his life, he didn’t let viral success go to his head.
“Had I not been a little bit older, I think I would’ve chased after some things that sound really good at the time, but maybe I didn’t have the foundation for,” he says.
It also helped that he already “knew what I wanted to do for a living,” which allowed the success of the video to be a “huge boost to my career,” rather than a potential fork in the road.
“It made a difference,” he adds.
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These days, he still performs the dance, which has expanded to eight minutes, at the end of his shows. “It’s fun when somebody comes up and says, ‘I remember seeing your video back in 2006 when it first came out’ or ‘I remember somebody sending that to me,’” he recalls. “One of my favorite ones was, ‘My grandma, my mom, my daughter and me were watching your video and laughing and giggling along.’ ”
“You are never going to replicate that lightning in a bottle that you get that one time,” he adds. “Now we talk about virality in terms of days, sometimes even hours before the next thing comes out. And my video — I had years of people talking about it.”
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