Being Mocked And Making Money: 5 Thriving YouTube Videos
5. Tay Zonday: The Odd Duckling
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA&fs=1&hl=en_US]
The thing about Tay Zonday’s “Chocolate Rain” is that, three years later, it’s just as perplexing as it was the first time I saw it. What exactly is chocolate rain?! In retrospect, the strangeness of it all is probably part of why it’s been viewed nearly 58 million times. Zonday’s bizarrely deep voice (even though he looks about 13) and the seriousness with which he belts out the song’s weird lyrics are pretty enchanting. Or funny? Or creepy. Or just plain kooky? I’m not sure what exactly it is. But, as Australia’s Daily Telegraph put it in 2007, “Tay Zonday has written perhaps the most listened to song in the world right now.”
And, to that effect, there’ve been hundreds of parodies of the song posted to YouTube–including covers by John Mayer and Tré Cool of Green Day. Among his long list of accolades, Zonday has appeared on a zillion daytime and late-night talk shows; recorded a special version of the song for a Dr. Pepper commercial; voiced a character on Adult Swim’s Robot Chicken; was featured in Weezer’s video for “Pork and Beans”; performed an acoustic version of “Chocolate Rain” with Brian Bell. Brian-freaking-Bell. The list really does go on: Zonday milked that chocolate rain for everything it was worth.