5. Freshmen orientation time lapse captures ‘Y’ formation | 28,000+ views
The 2012 freshmen class made its mark in social media with this time lapse of nearly 4,000 students forming the “Y” as part of New Student Orientation. The video, shot at Lavell Edwards Stadium, got a ton of views on Facebook and a lot of traffic directly from BYU.edu. Check out the wave.
4. New commercial focuses on experiencing BYU | 34,000+ views
This music video, featuring BYU student Mallory Everton, isn’t your typical higher education commercial. A variety of slow-motion shots around the BYU campus displays the different ways to experience what BYU has to offer. The video was viewed by thousands online, but also served as BYU’s advertisement on all of the university’s nationally-televised football games on ESPN, reaching possibly millions more. Read more about the video here.
3. BYU engineers replicate Batman grappling hook | 66,000+
When the Air Force was looking for a grappling hook gun, BYU engineering students jumped at the chance to develop one. Where did they look for inspiration? Batman, of course. The video was picked up by dozens of tech blogs. Two users found the video by searching YouTube for “how to be like Batman.” Read more about the project here.
2. Never have ‘Mathletes’ been so cool | 78,000+ views
When thinking about the top college math students in the country (as one often does), you don’t often tie that to rap music and a raucous following of fans. The novelty of that pairing seemed to appeal to the general public, as well as to a variety of blogs and websites who talked about the video. The Washington Post, CBS News, Huffington Post and Wired were just some of outlets pointing people to the video. Read more about the mathletes here.
1. Crazy steeplechase crash goes viral | 394,000+ views
You can’t plan this sort of thing. Amazingly, the camera was rolling as BYU steeplechase runner Katy Andrews got tripped up in this spring race and went head over heels into the water barrier. Viewers of the video loved that Katy got right back up and started running again with a smile on her face. Our photographer, Jaren Wilkey, wrote a blog post about some of the circumstances surrounding the video, and included some interesting still photos of the crash.
Make sure you subscribe to BYU, BYU News and BYU Photo on YouTube to view more videos like these in 2013.