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The strangest video trend of 2011 is the captivating lost art of the 10-hour YouTube loop

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The strangest video trend of 2011 is the captivating lost art of the 10-hour YouTube loop

This article is a part of a sporadic series that examines the key Internet trends of particular years.

If you delve far enough down any YouTube rabbit hole, you might discover a popular video that someone helpful looped endlessly such that it lasts for ten hours. I like to loop youtube with animated cats. Some people could favor this or video game themes.

By 2016, 10-hour videos were on the verge of becoming outdated due to a slight decline in popularity: At this point, making a video that loops endlessly with sound is simply too simple.

But for the majority of YouTube users, who had previously been restricted to submitting just shorter movies, they became a startlingly new possibility in 2011, when it appears that the first 10-hour video was published.

In 2005, YouTube was created, enabling users to post and distribute videos up to 100 MB in size. After concluding that the majority of videos lasting longer than that — a negligible percentage of YouTube videos at the time — were unlicensed postings of copyrighted content, such as movies and TV series, YouTube likewise put a 10 minute limit on videos for the majority of users in 2006.

The maximum duration for most users was increased to 15 minutes in 2010, and then YouTube gradually began allowing a lot more users to upload films longer than that.

Every time, the Internet reacted to these new restrictions with jokes and light teasing, as it always does. The 10- and 15-minute loops, which were often quaintly referred to as ”insanity loops,” came before the 10-hour loops.

Nyan Cat, which had just recently made its Internet debut as a three and a half minute video, was uploaded for ten hours in 2011 by user Teh1ppe in celebration of YouTube’s duration limit for their account having been discreetly and significantly extended. That Nyan Cat loop, according to Know Your Meme, is the first 10-hour video. After it went viral, there were more 10-hour loops, imitation 10-hour loopers, and challenges where participants had to record themselves watching something for 10 hours and post the entire clip.

The ”10 hour challenge” also gave rise to a cottage industry of fabricated ”evidence” videos, which also seem to loop and employ other artistic lengthening techniques.

Tim Highfield, an academic researcher who specializes in social media and digital culture, said that some of this is about the excess of the loop. ”A one-hour version of a 30-second clip is a lot to begin with, but why go with that when you could use the 10-hour version?,” he asked. ”And then it’s a demonstration of endurance and personal clout.”

The 10-hour videos that repeat flawlessly, making it impossible to identify where the clip starts and stops, are his personal favorites. Specifically, a loop of the song ”Empire State of Mind” mixed with the Adventure Time episode ”Bacon Pancakes.”

This wonderful thing is essentially a remix of an already-popular video on the Internet, like many 10-hour videos. A clip from ”Adventure Time” served as the basis for ”Bacon Pancakes” before it was repeated. But it’s also combined with ”Empire State of Mind,” according to Highfield. This mashup is then prolonged to 10 hours and looped to 10 minutes, while the original song also has 10-minute and 10-hour versions.

I watched this movie while working the remainder of the day after Highfield and I had an email conversation. The repeating sound was all I needed; I wasn’t even viewing the film.

According to Highfield, it ”creates a captivating soundtrack,” which is essentially the digital culture equivalent of ambient music. When the loop is set up, there is no actual sense of time passing because the same footage is played repeatedly.

Although the 10-hour video may be nearing the end of its Internet life, endlessly looping the absurd flourished before the form (remember ”Hamster Dance”? ), and will continue to flourish even if the 10-hour loop is no longer available.

The original 10-hour video has since been outdone, making it only the second-best Nyan Cat-specific endurance test: Nyan Cat Forever, which turns suffering Nyan Cat into a game that seems to never stop, came out shortly after Nyan Cat 10 Hours.