'Spider dog' viral video prank tops YouTube chart

A video featuring a dog wearing a tarantula costume was the ‘biggest trending video’ on YouTube in 2014.

16:52 10 December 2014

Google has announced that the biggest trending video on YouTube in 2014 is a short spoof horror film featuring a dog wearing a tarantula costume scaring people. The video, which was created by a Polish amateur film maker, was viewed more than 113 million times since it was published in September.

Meanwhile, Katy Perry’s Dark Horse music video was the most popular with 715million views. On the other hand, Brazil World Cup was “the most talked about event” on Facebook since the firm began measuring event-based chat.

"It's reassuring that the likes of YouTube and Facebook can reconnect us with both the lowest and highest forms of cultural content," said Simon Collister, senior lecturer in social media and communications at the London College of Communication.

"Despite that we need caution about relying too much on these platforms," he added.

"There's a whole debate about algorithms - particularly with news consumption - we have to be careful that we don't let the platforms themselves dictate too much to us what we should and shouldn't be watching."