‘Charlie Bit My Finger’ YouTube Video Sells for Over $760,000 USD as an NFT
The viral video will soon be permanently taken down from YouTube.
“Charlie Bit My Finger,” one of YouTube’s original viral videos that has amassed over 880 million views, was sold as an NFT for approximately $760,999 USD on Sunday.
The famous 56-second clip featuring baby Charlie Davies-Carr biting his older brother Harry’s finger first hit the internet in 2007. Howard Davies-Carr, the father of the two boys, initially posted the video on YouTube for friends and family to see and could not have anticipated its global success.
The “Charlie Bit My Finger” NFT was sold to a user named “3fmusic” on NFT platform Origin Protocol. Later that day, a Twitter account with the same name — whose bio describes 3F Music as “one of the best and well equipped music studios in [the] Middle East” — tweeted “CHARLIE BIT ME!,” though it is not confirmed that the account is associated with the same user who won the auction.
The NFT buyer will be “the sole owner of this lovable piece of internet history,” according to the family’s site for the auction, as the video is set to be removed from YouTube. On top of owning the clip, the winner will also “have the opportunity to create their own parody of the video featuring the original stars Harry and Charlie.”
Origin co-founder Josh Fraser told HYPEBEAST that removing the video from YouTube adds to the rarity of the NFT meme. “While videos are deleted from YouTube every day, no one has ever had the audacity to delete a video with over 880 million views before,” he said. ” The family agreed this would be a novel way to show how serious they are about this sale and also give more value to the one lucky bidder who wins this historic auction.”
Howard told CBS that the NFT’s sale “means that Harry goes to university and has a nice place to stay and doesn’t have to have a bar job.”
The Davies-Carr family has unlisted the original video, but at the time of writing, the viral clip is still viewable.
In other NFT news, artist Daniel Arsham announced the release of his first digital sculpture NFT in collaboration with Six N. Five.
