According to Alexandra Juhasz, there are three main qualities of any popular or viral YouTube video that make it entertaining.  These are humor, spectacle, and self-referentiality.  Juhasz claims that a video’s ability to be humorous stems from its ability to be “self-mocking” and “ironic”.  Whether or not a video can be considered a “spectacle” refers to how authentic that video feels to the viewer.  Self-referentiality simply points to a more meta quality of YouTube videos–that is, talking about YouTube within a YouTube video (i.e. – My YouTube Story videos, general YouTube commentary or criticism).

The main idea behind these three qualities of YouTube videos, Juhasz claims, come from methods practiced in earlier media which can be attributed to a sense of convenience and speed.  In other words, videos are easy to get to (if you know what you’re looking for), and easy to understand.  This also speaks to how recognizable a video is in terms of its main focus–Juhasz uses examples like a “big booty” or a “car crash”.  While a big booty or a car crash might not seem like authentic central focuses for a YouTube video, it is the authenticity of that specific big booty or car crash that ultimately makes an audience want to watch it.