This paper examines the videos The Numa Numa Dance - a 2004 amateur video uploaded by Gary Brolsma and taken as a precursor of viral musical videoclips, and Gangnam Style, by Dj Psy - the official music video of a k-pop song and the most frequently watched videoclip in the history of YouTube, and discusses the mediation process whereby these videos circulate on YouTube from a comparative perspective. The core premise is that The Numa Numa Dance is the precursor of a category of music videos that later help us understand the success of Gangnam Style, and that they both fall within the same socio-technical network that links amateur and professional people, cultural industry and common users. Once they are mapped, these networks reveal important aspects of contemporary musical culture circulating through digital media.
actor-network theory; YouTube; musical videoclips