HAMPTON ROADS, Va. — In 2024, viral videos on social media inform so much about what we learn about our communities and beyond. They can also, in many cases, inform how news outlets choose to cover stories.
Using an audience-based approach, WTKR News 3 assesses user viewership data to understand what people are watching, and hope to learn why.
This year, we saw several videos explode on social media into the tens of millions of views. Here's our top 5 videos of 2024.
5. Photographer escorted off school campus for comments made to student: 8 million views
After a school photographer with Lifetouch made inappropriate comments to a student at Chittum Elementary in Chesapeake, calling herself a demon and suggesting she would eat the young boy's soul, his mom posted the story to Facebook. The post was widely shared before mom Rachel Fjeld made it private.
Eventually, Fjeld agreed to speak with News 3's Erika Craven about what happened to her son.
The post was simple: Fjeld talking about the experience and how the school handled the aftermath. The video garnered more than 5 million views on YouTube and 3 million on Instagram.
4. HII shares new footage of aircraft carrier launch system: 10 million views
HII, the owner of Newport News Shipbuilding, released in February new footage of its electromagnetic aircraft launch system.
The video, and the engineering marvel it showcases, is indeed impressive. But our hunch about why this video was viewed 10 million times has to do with another viral video on the list.
Published a few weeks after a man drove his car off the Virginia Beach Fishing Pier, many users believed this video was in some way connected to that video, prompting many comments to that effect.
3. Collapse of third Rodanthe house inside of a week: 18 million views
The encroaching waves and beach erosion has been an issue for Outer Banks residents for years. But this summer and fall, things seemed to escalate.
Three houses were torn down by the ocean along G A Kohler Court in Rodanthe inside of a week in September — the third of which was captured by News 3 Outer Banks reporter Will Thomas, who had camped out on site that day.
News 3 broke the news of this collapse with our exclusive video, which earned 10.7 million views on Facebook, 6.6 million on YouTube, and hundreds of thousands on Instagram and TikTok.
2. Tango the horse rescued by Suffolk & Hampton crews: 27 million views
This was a bit of an odd one, admittedly. News 3 received a video in early November that showed Suffolk and Hampton fire & rescue crews pulling a limp horse named Tango out of the mud after being stuck for several hours.
This video did not initially go viral — in fact, it was about three weeks after publishing to the @wtkr3 Instagram that it was picked up and served to millions of users.
This prompted us to follow up on how Tango was doing, and thankfully, she is doing great. Back to her normal self, according to her caretakers.
1. Car drives off Virginia Beach Fishing Pier: 30 million views
At the end of January, the region was rapt by a sad story out of Virginia Beach. Early in the morning of Saturday, Jan. 27, a man — who police have not identified — intentionally drove his car off the end of the Virginia Beach Fishing Pier.
The video of the car went viral shortly after, but still drew in views for weeks after the car was recovered.
On the @wtkr3 Instagram account, the video amassed 29 million views, and other platforms added to the total.
In the week that followed before the car was recovered, any piece of content we shared to social media would pull in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of views.
