It’s not exactly breaking news that humour is subjective, so any list that claims to have ranked the 100 greatest YouTube videos of all time is always going to be hotly contested.

We’re won’t argue with Thrillist about how they came to reach their decision, but we will present some of their methodologies.

The best content is on Twitter these days, and Facebook is an embarrassing cesspit of ‘Women with these names will fall pregnant in 2019’ content, but we still have time for YouTube.

Anyway, their methodologies:

…we traveled [sic] back to the dawn of YouTube (2005!) and worked our way forward, amassing a daunting trove of links and whittling them down to the absolute best, funniest, most subversively “online” 100 videos. We largely avoided music videos, web series, tutorials, and sketch comedy, wells so deep they deserve separate rankings of their own…

Not every viral video is great, and not every great video goes super-viral. We’ve almost certainly left off your personal favorite. At the end of the day, what makes a YouTube video great? Like most treasures online, you know it when you see it.

Right. Number 100. On second thought, do you mind if I skip ahead to my favourite picks from the top 20?

18. “Boom Goes the Dynamite”

In the pre-internet era, stumbling on a mistake in a live broadcast was like spotting an asteroid screaming across the sky. Luckily, streaming video helped resurface these flubs — and few are as exquisitely painful as “boom goes the dynamite,” a train wreck of a sports segment that aired on Ball State University’s TV station in 2005.

He worked at ANN7, too.

16. “JESUS CHRIST IN RICHMOND PARK”

Take Fenton, the uncontrollable British dog with the perfect name for an uncontrollable British dog, whose owner, Max Findlay, futilely chases him through Richmond Park, screaming, “Jesus christ, FENTON!” over and over as Fenton ignores him and spooks a herd of deer into a veritable stampede.

11. “I like turtles”

Little did this Portland reporter know that when she asked young Jonathan Ware about his zombie face paint, she was going to be presented with the LeBron James of non-sequiturs. A true tossed-off-the-backboard, posterizing slam dunk of randomness. Forever a classic.

The kid likes turtles – what more do you want?

6. “Have you ever had a dream like this?”

Like many great YouTube videos, this one arises as though from a dream itself, originating from the 1999 TV special Goodnight Moon and Other Sleepytime Tales. How this made it to air, and to YouTube, should probably be left to the purview of Child Protective Services, but the kicker this confused kid lands on is an all-time classic punchline most professional comedians would trade Netflix specials for. Yes, we have ALL had dreams like that.

He’s so chuffed with himself at the end there. It’s hard not to love this chap.

4. “Best Street Party Ever – Parents Yet To Find Out”

In 2008, Corey Worthington threw an epic party in Australia, one in which the police were called after attendees damaged neighbors’ property and, eventually, police cars themselves, all while Corey’s parents were out of town. When a local newscaster interviews him for a story, Corey does virtually everything right to cement his legacy as a folk hero.

You’ve probably seen that one already, but no harm in revisiting it.

I do have a soft spot for number two…

2. “Nintendo Sixty-FOOOOOOOOOOUR”

Matching pajamas-wearing siblings Brandon and Rachel Kuzma, aka the Nintendo 64 kids, single-handedly invented unboxing videos, setting genre’s unbeatable standard, in 2006 when Brandon himself uploaded this 1998 home video that captured the essence of pure 9- and 6-year-old joy on Christmas day.

I remember the sheer joy of opening a present you didn’t buy for yourself.

By the way, if you’re tired of prezzies and want to do some good on your birthday (or Mandela Day), you could always get your friends to donate to a worthy cause.

Drumroll mother truckers – NUMBER ONE!

1. “I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This”

Bit of an anti-climax, but we said we weren’t going to argue.

You can find the full list, primed to help you waste the rest of your Friday, here.

Can’t believe this beaut from Scotland never made the cut:

[source:thrillist]