Top 10 Commencement Videos of 2012

Each year, YouTube gets an influx of commencement ceremony addresses from universities across the United States as well as other videos from many graduates' big days. Last year, we reviewed some of the all-time most-popular speeches and took note of a rising trend for commencement day time-lapse videos.

Ellen DeGeneres' mock graduation ceremony for singer Justin Bieber has, naturally, drawn some of the most attention (with 2.5 million views), but right up there with the popstar is another most-watched video from the commencement season: an unexpected proposal on stage at American University.



Actors and politicians dominate the list of most-popular speeches so far from this year's ceremonies, with SNL's Andy Samberg and Glee's Jane Lynch atop our chart:

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Moog: Another Crop of Musical Doodle Videos

Today, Google shared a tribute to Robert "Bob" Moog, inventor of the synthesizer, with a playable, interactive homepage doodle that actually allowed you to create and record tunes.

Much like Les Paul's birthday doodle, music fans globally have begun editing and posting video versions of their creations. Nearly 1,000 "Moog" videos were posted to YouTube by early Wednesday evening.

Perhaps the most elaborate comes from musician Brett Domino who took on Daft Punk's "Aerodynamic"



A Japanese musician took on the overture from "Dragon Quest" in this video that's been very popular on Twitter:



Some took it slow and soulful:



While others have gone for pure speed:



(A group pals from Italy even took on Van Halen's "Jump.")

And it wouldn't be a musical trend on YouTube at this point if SOMEONE didn't make this cover:



Moog's chief engineer created a clip discussing the doodle, which you can check out here.

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How Many 'Happy Birthday' Videos Are Posted Each Day?

Today we celebrate YouTube's 7th Birthday, and in honor of this occasion, we dug into the data to see what we could find about how people celebrate birthdays via web video.

In the average week, nearly 10,000 "happy birthday" (English) videos are posted to YouTube.When you include the terms for "happy birthday" in Spanish, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, French, and a few other languages, that number jumps to just over 15,000, meaning that there are over 2,000 posted each day.

Many these videos have been seen over 100,000 times. Here's just one of them:



Birthday searches are consistent throughout the year, with "wishes," "song," and "quote" being popular related terms. People & Blogs is the most-common category for "happy birthday" videos followed by Entertainment and then Music.

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'Call Me Maybe' is Your College Roadtrip Theme Song

Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" might be the inescapable song of the summer. The official video has over 68 million views in the past two months or so and, both globally and in the United States, the song has become one of YouTube's top rising searches of 2012 thus far.

But it's the thousands of covers and fan videos that have perhaps been most notable about this hit. On February 28th, just before the official video was released, a silly, home-made, lip-sync video was posted by Carlos PenaCarlos Pena, Jr. from the Nickelodeon series "Big Time Rush." The clip featured Ashley Tisdale, Justin Bieber, and Selena Gomez and itself has nearly 40 million views and went on to inspire hundreds of similar videos by random fans and even some celebrities.

But now a new trend has sprouted up thanks to some Ivy League ball players.

Last week, some members of the Harvard baseball team posted this video, which was heavily shared and picked up over 7 million views.



The video has inspired a crop of new videos by athletes from all over the country, looking to kill some time time traveling on the road. They playlist below contains videos by teams ranging from baseball to softball to... women's rowing.

(Use the arrows to navigate between videos or watch them all here.)

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Political Videos of the Week: Gingrich Out and More

A number of U.S. political videos are spreading quickly this week.

Today, candidate Newt Gingrich gave advance notice to his supporters via a YouTube video that he will be dropping out of the presidential race this week. It's quickly seeing pick up on political blogs and news sites:



Meanwhile, President Obama revealed his campaign slogan for the 2012 election in this top trending video and 7-minute documentary.



The President also has had two other very popular videos/appearances hit our trending feeds this week: his "duet" with Jimmy Fallon "Slow Jamming the News" and his remarks at this past weekend's White House Correspondent's Dinner.

For his part, GOP candidate Mitt Romney also has a video on our most-shared list right now: a critical spot called "Broken Promises."

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