KEN’S CAT LOG
▤Today's Viral Videos

Daily Viral Video — 2026-09-15

On YouTube, new BlizzCon trailers and music videos from M!LK and LISA reached millions of views within one to two days of release. Meanwhile, X, Reddit, Bluesky, and Lemmy showed almost no viral videos themselves; news, trending terms, and obituaries spread in their place.

Daily Viral Video — 2026-09-15

Today, I checked Reddit, X, YouTube, Bluesky, and Lemmy for “videos that are going viral right now.” Frankly, YouTube was the only platform where actual videos were genuinely going viral. On YouTube, new BlizzCon 2026 trailers and music videos from M!LK and LISA reached millions of views within one or two days—exactly what you would expect from viral video content. On X, searches focused on trending terms (Lando, Dario, LMEOW, and so on), yielding zero videos; Reddit mostly had discussion threads about videos with the original clips unavailable; Lemmy effectively waved the white flag by showing that it is not a social network for following viral videos; and Bluesky did have posts with videos, but they centered on obituaries and political scandals. There were almost no standalone, lighthearted viral clips. In short, today clearly divided platforms into those where videos themselves are the main attraction and those where videos are merely supporting material for the real story—news, trending terms, and obituaries.

Across platforms

  • YouTube is the only place where the videos themselves are going viral; elsewhere, it is the conversation around videos that is spreading. On Reddit, X, Bluesky, and Lemmy, cases of short videos spreading directly were nearly nonexistent. Instead, news articles about videos, discussions about videos, and text-led posts that happened to include videos gained traction.
  • There was almost no Japanese-language viral-video information to collect. Reddit returned no Japanese-language content even when searching for terms such as “viral videos” and “trending videos,” while Bluesky’s search API was unavailable, making it impossible to assess the Japanese-language sphere. YouTube was the only platform where today’s Japanese viral videos could be properly identified (M!LK, Botan Shishiro, and Eiko Kano).
  • Event-driven virality stood out this week. BlizzCon 2026 on YouTube, F1 race week and the drivers’ parade on X, and the Emmy Awards on Bluesky all generated momentum across platforms. Mass releases of footage immediately after announcements and events appear to be the main trigger for virality.
  • Obituaries and incidents are becoming entry points for “viral video” attention. On Bluesky, obituary clips for costume designer Bob Mackie spread widely; on Reddit, incident-related videos from India—broken engagements and murder cases—were the practical form that “viral video” took. Newsworthy clips outperformed entertainment-focused content today.
  • TikTok and Instagram, likely the main destinations for viral video, were outside this survey’s scope—but their presence was noticeable. Reddit’s deleted Instagram clip and Lemmy’s article about the TikTok “Cat in the Hat” trend suggest that the real viral-video activity may be happening on platforms excluded from this review.

Platform by platform

Reddit — Twelve threads were collected, but almost all were discussions about videos rather than the videos themselves. India-related incidents—broken engagements, murder, and honor killings—accounted for five threads, meaning the focus was more on newsworthy topics than video content. The central “video that caused a wedding to be called off” had been removed along with the original Instagram account, leaving no one able to share a working link.

X — All 40 collected posts were images or text; none could be confirmed as video. The worker searched Explore trending terms (“Dario,” “LMEOW,” “Lando,” and others), rather than searching specifically for videos, so the brief’s goal of finding ten viral videos could not be met. The content actually gaining traction consisted of F1-related posts about Lando Norris, consistently collecting hundreds to thousands of likes during race week.

YouTube — The only one of the five platforms that could almost fully meet the brief’s criteria: more than ten videos with links, posters, view counts, and publication dates. BlizzCon 2026 trailers—WoW’s “Forever,” the first Diablo V teaser, and Overwatch’s “Doctrine”—all reached hundreds of thousands to over a million views. M!LK’s music video concluding its trilogy reached 3.52 million views in a day, while LISA’s new dance video reached 4.6 million. Announcements and new music that surge immediately after release were the main story.

Bluesky — Twelve embedded-video posts were collected, but rather than individually viral, edited short-form clips, they were largely obituaries for Bob Mackie, political scandals involving Spain’s Feijóo, Macklemore’s removal from a tour, and news footage. The official video feed, “Video (thevids),” returned 502 errors throughout, and the search API returned 403 errors, leaving the collection limited to material discoverable through the Discover feed and trending topics. View counts could not be collected; only likes and reposts were available.

Lemmy — This was a social network with almost no culture of videos themselves going viral. The top 20 posts on the TopDay front page contained zero video links, and only eight video-related topics could be found in total. The biggest topic was a news article covering the unsettling TikTok-originated “Cat in the Hat” trend. Lemmy users were positioned more as detached commentators on phenomena from other social networks than as viewers spreading the videos themselves.

What to watch

Recommendations

  • For the next X survey, switch from Explore trending terms to keyword searches such as “went viral” and “viral video” in order to find actual videos.
  • Establish reliable access to Bluesky’s dedicated “Video (thevids)” feed, such as API retries or rate adjustments, to avoid 502 errors.
  • Add a verification step using the Internet Archive or similar sources when original videos have been removed or made private on Reddit and Lemmy.
  • Consider adding TikTok and Instagram to the monitored platforms in order to capture more viral videos from the Japanese-language sphere.
  • Develop a method for collecting YouTube Trending data that avoids consent-page redirects, such as cookie settings or alternative routes, reducing dependence on aggregation sites.
  • Treat cases where a video is discussed as a trigger for violence or an incident—such as the India-related viral clips—separately from simple viral-pattern analysis.

Data quality

YouTube yielded eleven videos with links, posters, view counts, and publication dates, nearly meeting the brief’s standard. Bluesky yielded twelve posts with videos, but view counts could not be retrieved—only likes and reposts—and neither the search API nor the dedicated video feed could be accessed. Reddit yielded twelve threads, but they were primarily discussions about videos; many lacked video links and view counts, or involved videos that had already been removed. X yielded 40 posts, but none could be confirmed as video, so it did not meet the brief’s requirement of ten viral videos; instead, it summarized the realities behind trending terms. Lemmy produced only eight video-related topics in total, far short of the ten-video benchmark, because Lemmy itself has little culture of tracking viral videos.

Platform-by-platform summary

Reddit

Reddit — Daily Viral Video

Where

12 threads collected from 12 subreddits, one thread each:

Subreddit Members Threads collected
r/india 3,486,267 1
r/youtube 3,456,431 1
r/rnb 1,567,231 1
r/fireemblem 559,323 1
r/InstagramMarketing 383,005 1
r/DCU_ 125,176 1
r/HelpMeFindThis 108,271 1
r/biggboss 221,896 1
r/MechanicalPandey 46,728 1
r/TwentiesofIndia 43,848 1
r/IndiaVibes 13,900 1
r/20sIndiaReal 9,894 1

No single subreddit is a hub for this theme today — the collection is spread thin across one India-news cluster (r/india, r/TwentiesofIndia, r/IndiaVibes, r/20sIndiaReal, r/MechanicalPandey), one fandom cluster (r/fireemblem, r/DCU_, r/rnb), and three unrelated singles (r/youtube, r/InstagramMarketing, r/biggboss, r/HelpMeFindThis).

What people say
  • The same story — "this video reached the groom, and he called off the marriage" — was cross-posted to r/MechanicalPandey (3,861 pts, 1,379 comments, 2026-09-09, https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalPandey/comments/1wbhe4i/) and r/IndiaVibes (577 pts, 173 comments, 2026-09-09, https://www.reddit.com/r/IndiaVibes/comments/1wbheeh/). The original Instagram video is gone ("Even account is not present now"), so Reddit is discussing a video none of them can rewatch. Top comment on the bigger post: u/PrizeTale9816 (105 pts) — "W groom."
  • A viral clip is directly tied to a murder in r/TwentiesofIndia: "22 year old gets murdered just because she talked to a stranger in a viral video" (325 pts, 17 comments, 2026-09-13, https://www.reddit.com/r/TwentiesofIndia/comments/1wexzav/).
  • A second, harsher-worded honor-killing story runs in r/india: "'Smashed head with hammer': Woman killed by father, brother over 'honour' after video with male friend goes viral" (1,206 pts, 103 comments, 2026-09-09, https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/1wbecbd/). Top comment, u/ExaminationFail25 (159 pts): "We live in a Patriarchal world... We are a failed Nation."
  • A viral video of a woman confronting people over vegetarianism is spreading in r/20sIndiaReal under a hostile title, "More video of Hindutva Aunty viral. She is pathetic." (897 pts, 545 comments, 2026-09-11, https://www.reddit.com/r/20sIndiaReal/comments/1wdoleh/). Top comment, u/PookieHoneyBee (72 pts): "She called the Police and herself got arrested."
  • Nintendo's official Fire Emblem combat-showcase video for the character Jester is being discussed as viral within the fandom, r/fireemblem (224 pts, 68 comments, 2026-09-08, https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/1wan0wm/). Top comment, u/Every_Operation_9638 (127 pts), is about the in-game mechanic shown, not the marketing angle.
  • A comedic Beyoncé-impersonation clip is called out in r/rnb: "This Beyoncé impersonation video is definitely top 10 videos of all time" (1,389 pts, 83 comments, 2026-09-11, https://www.reddit.com/r/rnb/comments/1wd4s9o/). Top comment, u/DeliciousMinute1966 (126 pts): "'To the left to the left' 🤣🤣🤣🤣."
  • The "Thoughts on..." meme-image trend (DC-character reaction template) is the top-scoring thread of the batch, r/DCU_ (2,337 pts, 98 comments, 2026-09-09, https://www.reddit.com/r/DCU_/comments/1wbu3zf/) — this is a template/format going viral, not a single video.
  • r/youtube's top thread isn't about today's virality at all — it's nostalgia for a "YouTube Hall of Fame" (1,207 pts, 480 comments, 2026-09-12, https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1wemfcv/), with commenters naming decade-old classics (Chocolate Rain, Charlie Bit My Finger, Gangnam Style) instead of anything current.
  • r/InstagramMarketing has the opposite complaint: a creator's Reels "used to go viral (sometimes). Now they barely reach 5k" (11 pts, 38 comments, 2026-09-12, https://www.reddit.com/r/InstagramMarketing/comments/1we9v00/). u/MathiasSybarit (7 pts) blames an Instagram algorithm shift against "faceless content."
  • r/biggboss debates a reality-show clip that the show itself chose not to air: "Why this clip was not played today!!" (15 pts, 12 comments, 2026-09-14, https://www.reddit.com/r/biggboss/comments/1wgbjl8/) — virality here is about suppression, not spread.
  • r/HelpMeFindThis has an unidentified clip of a man doing something to a car with a "saxophone" sound overlay, source-unknown (51 pts, 5 comments, 2026-09-09, https://www.reddit.com/r/HelpMeFindThis/comments/1wbz1fb/). Nobody in the thread names the original source.
Signals
  • Rising: India-linked crime-and-controversy stories dominate the collection — 5 of 12 threads (r/india, r/TwentiesofIndia, r/IndiaVibes, r/MechanicalPandey, r/20sIndiaReal) turn a "viral video" into a news story about violence, arrest, or public shaming, not entertainment.
  • Disagreement: r/TwentiesofIndia (2026-09-13) and r/india (2026-09-09) both describe a woman killed after a viral video exposed contact with a man — different dates and different subreddits, but similar framing. Either two separate honor-killing cases surfaced by "viral video" searches four days apart, or the same story recirculating — the collected text doesn't say enough to tell, which is itself notable: Reddit is repeatedly linking video virality to violence in India without a single thread tracking it as a pattern.
  • Dismissed: the r/DCU_ "Thoughts on" meme trend, despite being the highest-scoring thread (2,337 pts), draws direct pushback in its own comments — u/Arelious2019 (184 pts): "Trend is dumb... details matter" — right next to praise from u/baghead_22 (111 pts) calling it "pretty hilarious."
  • Surprise: searching バズってる動画 and 話題の動画 (Japanese terms) surfaced no Japanese-language Reddit content at all — both returned unrelated English threads (r/fireemblem, r/rnb, r/DCU_) that happened to rank for those queries. Japanese "what's trending" conversation is effectively absent from what this collection could reach.
  • Structural, not daily: the r/InstagramMarketing thread reframes "going viral" as an algorithm-access problem rather than a content problem — a signal that at least part of Reddit's virality discussion today is about the platforms' distribution rules, not about any specific clip.
Limits
  • The brief's completion bar (10 videos per platform with link, poster, view/like counts, post date) does not fit what Reddit's own data provides: these are discussion posts about viral videos, not the videos themselves, and Reddit gives post score/comment count, not the video's own view or like count. Only 12 threads total were collected, not 10+ distinct videos with verifiable per-video metrics — several threads (the two India crime stories, the "Thoughts on" meme, the YouTube nostalgia thread) don't name or link a single specific video at all.
  • The video at the center of threads #1 and #12 (the "groom called off the marriage" Instagram clip) has been deleted at the source — no working link exists to the video itself, only to the Reddit posts discussing it.
  • Both Japanese search terms (バズってる動画, 話題の動画) returned no genuinely Japanese-language results.
  • Per the playbook, this stage could not browse Reddit directly (Reddit refuses WebFetch) — everything above is limited to what the worker's headless-browser pass already collected in output/reddit.threads.md; no further search or verification was possible this run.

X

X — No Viral Videos Found, Only Noisy Trending Terms

Accounts
  • This time, there were zero accounts gaining traction through high-volume posting. The notable accounts were all the “one post that hit” type.
    • @Daicaramel_ (dai, #24): 3,139 likes from one post (a Lando Norris Coke meme)
    • @heyhihellomay (#23): 2,816 likes from one post (a backstage photo of Lando and Kimi)
    • @NFLHateMemes (#28): 2,698 likes and roughly 117,000 views from one post (an Aaron Donald NFL meme)
    • @ctgptlb (AGI Lab, #2): 1,357 likes and roughly 691,000 views from one post. A Japanese-language thread covering breaking news related to Anthropic CEO Dario
    • @WUTangKids (#18): 1,256 likes from one post (Trump Jr. wedding gossip piggybacking on the Putin trend)
  • Accounts that posted multiple times were instead all weak to mid-tier performers: @implayingbro69 (#5, #7, 5 likes total, repeated $LMEOW posts), @OneMargaretx (#19, #20, 2 likes total, repeated Putin criticism), @ItsSoSoSimple (#15, #16, 20 likes total), and @SueOC_NBCBoston (#34, #35, 123 likes total but over 300 replies).
  • In other words, today’s X growth pattern was not sustained posts from influential accounts, but one-off hits from unknown to mid-sized accounts.
Posts

  1. #2 @ctgptlb (AGI Lab) — 1,357 likes, 384 reposts, roughly 691,000 views, 2026-09-12
    https://x.com/ctgptlb/status/2098917214741254175
    A breaking-news thread claiming that Sam, Elon, and Dario were unusually aligned on slowing the pace of AI development. Anthropic CEO Dario’s name itself has become a trending term.

  2. #24 @Daicaramel_ (dai) — 3,139 likes, 252 reposts, roughly 32,000 views, 2026-09-13
    https://x.com/Daicaramel_/status/2099169847749890344
    An F1-driver meme post: “Lando defending the inalienable and non-negotiable right to grab a cold little Coke.” The most-liked post in this collection.

  3. #23 @heyhihellomay — 2,816 likes, 300 reposts, roughly 38,000 views, 2026-09-13
    https://x.com/heyhihellomay/status/2099097003464483150
    “lando and kimi before drivers parade they getting a bit inseparable.” A pre-parade two-shot that clearly landed with viewers.

  4. #28 @NFLHateMemes — 2,698 likes, 190 reposts, roughly 117,000 views, 2026-09-13
    https://x.com/NFLHateMemes/status/2099161475885482184
    An Aaron Donald meme supporting the NFL-context “Donald” trend—not the political Donald trend.

  5. #18 @WUTangKids — 1,256 likes, 548 reposts, roughly 62,000 views, 2026-09-14
    https://x.com/WUTangKids/status/2099572836301975993
    The reality behind the “Vladimir Putin” trend was not Putin himself, but wedding gossip about Don Jr. and claims that Umar Kremlev paid for it.

  6. #9 @VirBritannicus — 177 likes but 348 replies, roughly 113,000 views, 2026-09-13
    https://x.com/VirBritannicus/status/2099263668164927953
    A politically contentious post about England’s fiscal burden. It had relatively few likes, but the highest reply count in the collection.

  7. #6 @The__Solstice — 381 likes but 147 replies, roughly 17,000 views, 2026-09-14
    https://x.com/The__Solstice/status/2099416064845283834
    “Give us more 100 million dollar memes Then the billion dollar ones.” A hype post from the $LMEOW memecoin community.

  8. #5 and #7 @implayingbro69 — 5 likes total, roughly 200 views, 2026-09-14
    https://x.com/implayingbro69/status/2099576595484680581 / https://x.com/implayingbro69/status/2099416741415719220
    “$LMEOW is coming for $DOGE.” Despite “LMEOW” ranking eighth among trends, the actual posts received very little engagement.

  9. #37–#40 Four Solbiscuit-related posts (@accuney, @TendersAlt, @_Shadow36, @king_hekker) — 0–32 likes, 17–5,500 views, 2026-09-13–14
    https://x.com/TendersAlt/status/2099098012819841107 and others
    “Solbiscuit” also ranked tenth in Croatia’s trending list, but every collected post was a small-scale memecoin promotion with little indication of genuine buzz.

  10. #29, #30, and #32 “company os” and “Slack” trend-related posts (@SingHem, @8clerk8, @joinmatrixos) — around 0 likes, 36–88 views
    https://x.com/joinmatrixos/status/2099519796710666359 and others
    Despite “Slack” being a trending term, the posts were unrelated to Slack the chat tool—covering AI-agent pitches and Mac-vs.-Windows anecdotes. It feels like the trend arose from word matching alone.

Signals
  • Growing: F1 posts related to Lando Norris were consistently strong, earning 541 to 3,139 likes across five posts. Posts tied to race week on September 13–14, including the drivers’ parade, all performed well. This was the most organically growing cluster in the collection.
  • Growing, but questionable: “Dario,” referring to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, trended as a claim spread that Sam, Elon, and Dario agreed on slowing AI development (#2, about 691,000 views). However, the poster also wrote that they would clarify in replies what they had actually agreed with, suggesting speculation spread ahead of confirmed information.
  • Ignored / missed: “LMEOW” and “Solbiscuit” ranked second and tenth on Croatia’s trend list, yet the actual posts were only small memecoin promotions with 0–33 likes. Trend ranking and real engagement did not align at all.
  • Surprise: Searching trending terms “company os” and “Slack” found not a single post actually about Slack the chat tool. The terms were trending at the word level, without any cohesive underlying topic.
  • Zero video content: Of the 40 collected posts, none could be confirmed as video. The collection consisted only of image posts and text-only posts; neither short nor long-form video was found.
Limits
  • This collection did not target videos: The worker searched X Explore trends—"Dario," "LMEOW," "England," "Bosnia," "Vladimir Putin," "Lando," "Donald," "company os," "Slack," and "Solbiscuit"—rather than conducting video-focused searches using terms such as “went viral.” All 40 collected posts were images or text, with zero confirmed videos. X therefore could not provide the ten viral videos required by the brief; instead, it summarizes the words being discussed on X today.
  • The Explore trend list was geolocated to Croatia, the location connected during this session. Eight of ten items (Dario, LMEOW, England, Bosnia, company os, Slack, Solbiscuit) were labeled “Trending in Croatia,” while only “Vladimir Putin” and “Lando” had no location, appearing in the “Politics” and “Motorsport” categories. This is therefore a Croatia-oriented trend list, not one that can be presented as global.
  • Three image-only posts had no text (#3 @elinel2010, #31 @akira_papa_IT, #37 @accuney); their contents are unknown because the images themselves were not reviewed.
  • At least one post was retrieved for each of all ten search terms; no search term returned zero results.

YouTube

YouTube — Videos That Went Viral on September 14–15, 2026

Channels
  • M!LK OFFICIAL — The official channel of J-pop group M!LK. Its new music video exceeded 3.5 million views in 24 hours.
  • skibidi — The official channel for Alexey Gerasimov’s “Skibidi Toilet” series. Each new episode immediately reaches millions of views.
  • Avatar Legends / Paramount+ — Official promotion for Avatar: Seven Havens, the sequel animated series to Avatar: The Last Airbender.
  • Asmongold TV — One of the world’s largest WoW/MMO streamers. Its BlizzCon reaction videos routinely gain millions of views.
  • World of Warcraft (official Blizzard channel) — Released the gameplay trailer for Forever, the new BlizzCon 2026 expansion.
  • Diablo (official Blizzard channel) — Unexpectedly revealed the first teaser for Diablo V: The Return at BlizzCon 2026.
  • PlayOverwatch — The official Overwatch channel. Released “Breakout,” the hero trailer for the new support hero Doctrine.
  • Genshin Impact (official HoYoverse channel) — Announced new characters and the new Snezhnaya area in its Version 7.1 special program.
  • Botan Ch. Shishiro Botan (hololive) — A hololive VTuber. Hosted the self-produced team competition “#ししドリ杯,” which exceeded one million views.
  • Eiko Kano [Official Channel] — A comedian. His serious playthrough of the remastered Torneko’s Great Adventure roughly 30 years later became a talking point.
  • LLOUD Official — The official solo-label channel for BLACKPINK’s LISA. Released the dance performance video for her new song “SaWaDiKa.”
Videos

  1. M!LK - 時空超えてユニバース (Official Music Video) — M!LK OFFICIAL — 2026/09/14 — approximately 3.52 million views — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpIw7rSLRqc
    The concluding music video in the “Love” trilogy. Just one day after release, it had achieved one of the group’s biggest-ever growth rates and ranked No. 1 on Japan’s YouTube Trending list (according to digitalcreators.jp, as of 09/15 08:00).

  2. skibidi toilet 81 (full episode) — skibidi — released roughly one day ago — approximately 2.9 million views / 161,000 likes — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVAlciXCPXQ
    The latest episode of the popular meme series Skibidi Toilet. It is an established format that goes viral with every episode, entering the trending charts in 49 countries one day after release (according to lenostube). ※ There are multiple reuploads with the same title, so the official ID needs reconfirmation.

  3. Avatar: Seven Havens | Official Trailer | Paramount+ — Avatar Legends — 2026/09/10 (third day trending) — approximately 4 million views / 98,000 likes — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhdh962_ee0
    The first full trailer for the sequel series to Avatar: The Last Airbender. Coverage focused on its new protagonist, Pavi, and her twin sister as successors to Korra (reported by Deadline).

  4. I Didn't See This Coming.. — Asmongold TV — released roughly two days ago (BlizzCon reaction) — approximately 1.6 million views / 48,000 likes — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67Mln_OqFGM
    A streamer’s rapid-fire reaction to BlizzCon 2026 announcements for StarCraft, Overwatch, Diablo V, Hearthstone, and WoW.

  5. World of Warcraft: Forever | Gameplay Trailer — World of Warcraft (official Blizzard channel) — released roughly one day ago — approximately 1.1 million views / 19,800 likes — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQuKE0KDgiM
    A gameplay trailer for the new Forever expansion, with the first footage of a newly playable race and new areas.

  6. Diablo V: The Return - Official Teaser Trailer | BlizzCon 2026 — Diablo (official Blizzard channel) — 2026/09/12 — approximately 546,000 views / 13,300 likes — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_znylGcP_0
    A surprise 48-second teaser announcing the series’ newest entry. It closes with the narration, “The Lord of Terror has returned,” and also spread across social media.

  7. Breakout | Doctrine Hero Trailer | Overwatch | BlizzCon 2026 — PlayOverwatch — released at BlizzCon 2026 — approximately 1.3 million views / 49,400 likes — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5dwH7nx9do
    A hero trailer depicting a recovery operation involving the new support hero Doctrine. It gained attention alongside a limited-time trial held September 12–14.

  8. Genshin Impact Version 7.1 Special Program — Genshin Impact (official HoYoverse channel) — 2026/09/12 — approximately 2 million views / 78,600 likes — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSwBYIeAieo
    The Version 7.1 special program, announcing the new Snezhnaya area and new characters including Vesna and Vodyanitsa.

  9. 【#ししドリ杯】hololive Dreams Team Competition: Rhythm & Chase!【獅白ぼたん/ホロライブ】 — Botan Ch. Shishiro Botan — 2026/09/14 — approximately 1.05 million views — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjbOkB_3KXs
    A self-produced competition hosted by Shishiro Botan, dividing 27 hololive members into nine teams. The teams competed for points in minigames from the mobile game “HoloDori.”

  10. Eiko Kano Regains His Memories in a Reawakened Playthrough of “Torneko’s Great Adventure: Mysterious Dungeon, a Slightly Wonderful Remaster,” His First in 30 Years!【Critical Kano Hit】 — Eiko Kano [Official Channel] — 2026/09/15 — approximately 651,000 views — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpz8t-4kIpQ
    A playthrough of Torneko’s Great Adventure nearly 30 years later, in which his memories of the original return. Game roundup blogs also highlighted how seriously experienced he seemed to be (an official SQUARE ENIX streaming project).

  11. LISA - SaWaDiKa (Dance Performance Video) — LLOUD Official — 2026/09/12 (second day trending) — approximately 4.6 million views / 345,000 likes — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J77i-E_0JWg
    BLACKPINK’s LISA released a dance performance video for her solo song “SaWaDiKa.” Its choreography and formations spread among international fans (reported by Soompi/Billboard).

Signals
  • Gaming trailers were the stars of this round of Trending. BlizzCon 2026 announcements—WoW Forever, Diablo V, and Overwatch Breakout—each reached hundreds of thousands to millions of views within one to four days, with the mass release of announcement footage immediately after the event driving the buzz.
  • In music, the key growth trigger was the timing of a trilogy finale or first presentation of a new song. Both M!LK’s trilogy finale and LISA’s solo-song choreography video recorded view counts far above normal within one to two days.
  • In Japan, individual projects and one-off streams had a strong festival-like appeal: hololive’s self-run “ShishiDori Cup” and Eiko Kano’s nostalgic game stream. This survey did not verify how far these numbers exceeded the channels’ normal view counts.
  • Formats such as Skibidi Toilet, where simply being the latest episode brings immediate millions of views, remain strong.
Limits
  • YouTube’s official Trending page redirected to the consent screen (consent.youtube.com) and could not be collected directly. Lenostube.com for global data and digitalcreators.jp for Japanese data were therefore used as primary sources. Their collection times were 2026/09/13 and 2026/09/15 08:00, respectively, so the figures may differ slightly from real-time numbers as of the afternoon of the request date, September 15.
  • This session did not individually check each channel’s typical view counts, so it has not been verified how exceptional the current numbers are.
  • There are multiple reuploads with the same title for “skibidi toilet 81,” and it is unconfirmed whether the listed link exactly matches the video used by the aggregation source.
  • FlameFrags’ “Searching for a Vault that Doesn't Exist” (Minecraft SMP, approximately 3.8 million views and trending) had confirmed metrics, but was excluded because the official video link could not be identified.
  • Japanese searches such as “viral videos” returned many older clips and how-to articles, making it difficult to pinpoint newly viral videos from that specific day. This collection cross-checked figures from Japanese and global trend aggregation sites against official video pages and news coverage.

Bluesky

Bluesky — More Obituaries, Politics, and Reality-TV Moments Than Videos Going Viral on Their Own

Accounts

Bluesky has almost no dedicated accounts that grow through video posts alone. Instead, posters from separate genres happen to gain traction when they share videos.

Posts

  1. Amy Winehouse birthday tribute video — @carolekingofficial.bsky.social (official Carole King account) — 4,278 likes, 647 reposts, 2026-09-14 14:12 UTC
    https://bsky.app/profile/carolekingofficial.bsky.social/post/3mvic5ldyys2d
    A video posted with the message “Remembering Amy Winehouse on her birthday.” It gained traction partly because it came from the account of a legendary singer.

  2. A clip of costume designer Bob Mackie’s signature work (obituary) — @goldengateblond.bsky.social — 3,843 likes, 670 reposts, 2026-09-14 18:16 UTC
    https://bsky.app/profile/goldengateblond.bsky.social/post/3mvipriiors2f
    A tribute to Bob Mackie, who died at age 87. The video featured “his most famous costume,” and multiple people gained traction from the same topic that day (#3 below also concerns his death).

  3. Cher costume-change video (The Cher Show, 1975) — @michaelwarburton.bsky.social — 2,876 likes, 645 reposts, 2026-09-14 19:43 UTC
    https://bsky.app/profile/michaelwarburton.bsky.social/post/3mviunl7olc2w
    Also in the Bob Mackie tribute context. A legendary 1975 television clip of Cher changing costumes quickly spread again.

  4. A child’s lunch-making video — @thedailyshow.com (official The Daily Show account) — 1,585 likes, 456 reposts, 2026-09-14 17:59 UTC
    https://bsky.app/profile/thedailyshow.com/post/3mviosguibc2f
    A comedy-adjacent everyday video about a “Supermom” happily making a lunch that could explode. One of the few posts that felt like a purely viral-video-style hit.

  5. ISS commander “dance pants” video — @planet4589.bsky.social — 1,104 likes, 275 reposts, 2026-09-14 21:48 UTC
    https://bsky.app/profile/planet4589.bsky.social/post/3mvj3mdmjy22m
    A video about an ISS commander bringing dancing pants into space. It spread from a niche space community to a broader audience.

  6. 1990 Spanish TVE news footage (allegations involving former Prime Minister Feijóo) — @hannibal.bsky.social — 903 likes, 640 reposts, 2026-09-14 19:32 UTC
    https://bsky.app/profile/hannibal.bsky.social/post/3mvityy35nc2q
    A resurfacing of 1990 news footage regarding allegations that Spain’s Feijóo associated with drug smuggler Marcial Dorado. Political-scandal videos are easy to spread.

  7. Macklemore’s Free Palestine remarks clip (the Ed Sheeran tour-removal controversy) — @eldiario.es — 682 likes, 392 reposts, 2026-09-14 17:47 UTC
    https://bsky.app/profile/eldiario.es/post/3mvio5xd3vk22
    Footage of Macklemore speaking in support of Palestine onstage, which led to his removal from Ed Sheeran’s tour. Trend-topic data also showed “Macklemore dropped from Sheeran tour” surging to around 4,505 posts (marked cooling, meaning its peak was already beginning to pass).

  8. Video reporting on radioactive-waste concerns at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station — @latimes.com — 557 likes, 265 reposts, 2026-09-14 18:40 UTC
    https://bsky.app/profile/latimes.com/post/3mvir4rkbsc2w
    A news video reporting that 3.6 million pounds of radioactive waste remain at the decommissioned San Onofre plant, with erosion from high waves bringing the danger back into focus.

  9. Emmy acceptance-moment video (Ernest Harding Jr.) — @apnews.com — 203 likes, 14 reposts, 2026-09-14 22:40 UTC
    https://bsky.app/profile/apnews.com/post/3mvj6jtdoj62y
    A video of Ernest Harding Jr., receiving his first Emmy for “The Pitt,” holding his trophy while walking the blue carpet. It was the most-liked Emmy-related post that evening.

  10. Big Brother US (#BB28) live-feed clip — @i-am-not-on.bsky.social — 117 likes, 24 reposts, 2026-09-14 16:27 UTC
    https://bsky.app/profile/i-am-not-on.bsky.social/post/3mvijpdp4js2p
    A clip accompanied by “oh taran gagged the live this morning!!” It is a typical example of a small account with 812 followers gaining traction within a fandom.

  11. Interview video with President Lula and Juliana Brizola — @suzanaleao.bsky.social — 126 likes, 53 reposts, 2026-09-14 19:26 UTC
    https://bsky.app/profile/suzanaleao.bsky.social/post/3mvitpgu5p22n
    A political clip aimed at Brazil’s domestic left-wing support base.

  12. Meg Stalter Emmy-style costume video — @apnews.com — 85 likes, 11 reposts, 2026-09-14 23:47 UTC
    https://bsky.app/profile/apnews.com/post/3mvjcarv5u32c
    A video of Hacks actor Meg Stalter arriving on the blue carpet dressed as an Emmy statuette itself.

Signals
  • Bluesky’s version of “viral video” differs from the TikTok/X model of a standalone edited short clip exploding. It is centered on obituaries, political scandals, news, and reality-TV commentary clips. Almost no standalone, playful viral videos were found.
  • The strongest topic today was the death of Bob Mackie (costume designer, died at 87). Separate accounts—@goldengateblond, @michaelwarburton, @mrsbettybowers.bsky.social, @ditzkoff.bsky.social, and others—each independently posted clips of his defining work or recollections, with engagement broadly ranging from 2,000 to 8,000 likes. Rather than a single video going viral, multiple accounts joined the same obituary topic and each gained traction.
  • In politics, “Macklemore dropped from Sheeran tour” was observed as a rapidly rising topic with around 4,505 posts, but its status was already “cooling.” Text-based argument was quantitatively more prevalent than the video’s own spread.
  • Bluesky’s official “Video” trending feed (thevids) returned 502 errors throughout API access, so embedded-video posts were instead extracted from the Discover (“whats-hot”) feed and feeds for individual trending topics such as the NFL season opener, the Emmy Awards, and BB28.
Limits
  • Bluesky’s public search API (app.bsky.feed.searchPosts) consistently returned 403 Forbidden for both English and Japanese keywords, preventing keyword search entirely. Terms such as “viral video” and “バズってる動画” all failed in the same way. The playbook’s intended approach of finding viral videos via keyword search could not be executed, so the method switched to collecting embedded-video posts from the public getFeed endpoint, including Discover and trend-topic feeds.
  • Bluesky’s official video-specialized “Video” feed (thevids, an official feed with 7,057 followers) was confirmed to exist, but every getFeed call returned 502 Bad Gateway. The inability to examine the location Bluesky itself promotes most directly for video is a major gap.
  • Viral videos in Japanese Bluesky communities could not be checked because the search API was unavailable. Whether Japanese-language viral videos were circulating on Bluesky could not be determined in this round.
  • For these reasons, the twelve collected videos were merely embedded-video posts discovered incidentally through Discover and trend-topic feeds, not a comprehensive ranking of the day’s viral videos across Bluesky. They should be read with the assumption that important items may have been missed.
  • View counts could not be retrieved through Bluesky’s public API; only likes and reposts are shown.

Lemmy

Lemmy — What Happened When We Looked for Today’s Viral Videos

To put the conclusion first: Lemmy is not a social network for following viral videos. Even looking at the TopDay front page as of 2026-09-15, zero of the top 20 posts were video links. It was dominated by meme images and news-article links, with almost no equivalent to TikTok or YouTube Shorts-style phenomena where videos themselves suddenly take off that day. Still, some video-oriented communities and posts reporting on viral-video trends from other social platforms could be found.

Communities
  • !«メールアドレス» (18,710 subscribers) — A place to share interesting videos from the web. Its rules prohibit political videos and clickbait.
  • !«メールアドレス» (22,473 subscribers) — For unbelievable but real news. It primarily contains article links rather than videos themselves.
  • !«メールアドレス» (United States | News & Politics, 9,469 subscribers) — News about TikTok-originated trends flows into this community.
  • !«メールアドレス» / !«メールアドレス» — Collections of world-news links, where articles with videos occasionally appear.
  • !«メールアドレス» — TopDay is almost entirely images and GIFs, with no video posts found.
Posts
  1. “Cat in the Hat” TikTok trend leads to an incident in Canada where a girl was chased — !«メールアドレス» (federated from lemmy.world), posted by MadeInDex 📰🌎@lemmy.world, 19 upvotes / 3 downvotes, 6 comments, 12 hours ago (posted 2026-09-15). The source is an IBTimes UK article, “Teen Girl Chased by 'Cat in the Hat' Figure Amid Sinister TikTok Trend Sweeping North America.” The trend originated with a real incident on August 24, when a teenage girl in West Kelowna, Canada, was chased by someone dressed as the Cat in the Hat. Unsettling, apparently AI-generated “Cat in the Hat” images and videos tied to schools and neighborhoods then spread through TikTok and Snapchat across the United States, leading to arrests in multiple states.
    https://lemmy.ml/post/52715651
    In comments, Dr_Vindaloo (12 upvotes) called it “the same pattern as the 2016 clown panic,” while TacoButtPlug (3 upvotes) speculated that it might be stealth marketing for a new film.
  2. A repost of the same article in another community — !«メールアドレス», with a score around 30 and more than ten comments. It was also reposted to a !DeTikTok-type community, where it received negative feedback (-1) amid a sense of “another TikTok-bashing article.”
  3. “Sheriff warns of 'Cat in the Hat' school threats circulating on TikTok” — !«メールアドレス», posted by time2lose, 39 upvotes, 1 comment. However, it was posted 12 days earlier and is an early-stage article on the trend above. It is useful for tracing the chronology of the current viral phenomenon.
    https://lemmy.world/post/51465793
  4. HYROX Beijing: video of an Australian athlete finishing after soiling herself sparks controversy — !«メールアドレス», posted by «メールアドレス», 4 upvotes, 0 comments, posted 2026-09-14. According to an ABC News article, Australian athlete Joanna Wietzcek continued competing after urinating during a Beijing fitness event. The footage and photos spread online, prompting criticism of the event’s hygiene management. The reaction on Lemmy was limited, but the video itself appears to have spread substantially on other platforms.
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-14/hyrox-beijing-backlash-after-athlete-soils-herself/107151004
  5. Female boxer criticizes Sydney Sweeney’s “viral” sports ad — A U.S. news community, linking to an essentiallysports.com article; 6 upvotes, 1 comment, 2026-09-14. It follows an ad video that drew debate elsewhere for sexualizing women in sport.
    https://www.essentiallysports.com/boxing-news-stop-sexualising-women-in-sport-jake-pauls-mvp-boxer-calls-out-sydney-sweeneys-viral-sports-ad/
  6. “I Killed A Business Model (Getty Images)” — !«メールアドレス», posted by «メールアドレス», 62 upvotes, 3 comments, about one day ago. A direct link to a YouTube video. It was the highest-scoring video post on Lemmy at that time, but no external signal indicated that it was trending on other social networks.
  7. “Your Monthly Dose of Good News | September” — !«メールアドレス», posted by xylogx, 36 upvotes, 5 comments, about one day ago (YouTube video).
  8. “POV: You're an AI Born 9 Seconds Ago” — !«メールアドレス», posted by HiroK, 20 upvotes, 2 comments, about one day ago (YouTube video).
Signals
  • Lemmy has little culture of surfacing “videos going viral right this moment.” Its TopDay front page is dominated by image memes and political or tech-news links, with video posts largely isolated inside communities such as !videos.
  • The most active video-related topic was not native video content, but a news article following an unsettling trend spreading on TikTok: the “Cat in the Hat” trend. Lemmy users appear more inclined to comment skeptically on TikTok/social-media phenomena than to view the video itself (“same as the 2016 clown panic,” “maybe it is film promotion”).
  • Even the better-performing posts in !«メールアドレス», with roughly 20–60 upvotes, did not exhibit growth rapid enough to call viral by Reddit standards. Comment counts remained in the single digits to a few comments, with no indication of explosive growth over 24–48 hours.
Limits
  • The brief’s target of ten videos per social network, with links, posters, and view counts, could not be met. Only eight video or video-related topics were found in total: three direct posts in !«メールアドレス», with the remainder being follow-up news posts about trends from other social networks.
  • Lemmy is decentralized, and even popular communities have only thousands to tens of thousands of subscribers. It does not display view counts like “number of plays,” since videos are external links and Lemmy has no view data for them. Lemmy scores were therefore used in place of likes and publication dates, but video view counts are unknown unless provided by the source article or YouTube.
  • Searches on lemmy.ml and lemmy.ee using the same keywords found no independent topics beyond federated cross-posts of material already found on lemmy.world.
  • No Japanese-language communities comparable to !newsjp were found on Lemmy, and there were zero discussions of viral videos in Japanese.

Recommended actions

  • For the next X survey, switch from Explore trending terms to keyword searches such as “went viral.”
  • Secure stable access to Bluesky’s dedicated video feed (thevids) and avoid 502 errors.
  • Verify cases where original videos have been deleted or made private on Reddit and Lemmy through the Internet Archive or similar sources.
  • Consider adding TikTok and Instagram to the monitored platforms to capture more viral videos from Japanese-language communities.
  • Develop a method for avoiding consent-screen redirects on YouTube Trending and reduce dependence on aggregation sites.

Data-quality note

Only YouTube nearly met the brief’s standard of ten videos with links, posters, view counts, and publication dates. X (zero videos, trending terms only) and Lemmy (only eight video-related topics) fell short; Reddit (primarily discussion threads, many original videos deleted) and Bluesky (videos available but no view counts, search API 403) were only partially complete.