Sheet 02 · Specimen #0000109 · Viral Video → Early viral videos · 2010
Double Rainbow (viral video)
Man cries at a double rainbow, becomes a meme
Rejected. It isn’t going to the Arctic.
“"What does this mean?" Mostly that Jimmy Kimmel had tweeted it.”
Why Noah said no
Paul Vasquez filmed himself sobbing at a double rainbow near Yosemite in 2010, and Jimmy Kimmel's tweet made it huge. It's one man reacting alone on camera, which Numa Numa already covers from 2004, and Charlie Bit My Finger holds the cluster's other slot.
- Rejected
- 26 Oct 2026
- Original size
- 1.8 MB
- Made by
- Wikipedia contributors
Found via Noah’s canon · en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Rainbow_(viral_video)
What it is
Paul Vasquez filmed himself having an emotional reaction to a double rainbow outside his home near Yosemite in January 2010 and posted it to YouTube. Jimmy Kimmel shared it on Twitter in July 2010, and it spread rapidly to 52 million views. The Gregory Brothers then auto-tuned his audio into a song that also went viral.
Why it’s internet culture
It showed that ordinary people's unguarded reactions could become entertainment for millions online, and that music producers could remix viral moments into new jokes almost instantly. The video also marked a shift toward celebrating earnest emotion as comedy rather than mocking it.
A man filmed himself weeping with joy at a rainbow, and millions watched it after a celebrity tweet, laughing at him and with him at once. The Gregory Brothers' auto-tuned version showed how quickly a viral clip got turned into a song.
What Noah read
"Double Rainbow" is a viral video filmed by Paul "Bear" Vasquez (September 5, 1962: May 9, 2020). The clip, which he filmed in 2010 in his front yard, near Yosemite National Park in California, shows his ecstatic reaction to a double rainbow. As of January 2026, Vasquez's video had accumulated more than 52 million views on YouTube. Biography Vasquez was a native of East Los Angeles, initially working for the California Conservation Corps and later becoming a Los Angeles County firefighter. After two years, he re-settled near Yosemite in 1985, eventually buying an eight-acre (3.2 ha) plot. He was married with two children, before divorcing, becoming a truck driver, and participating in a single mixed martial arts bout. Vasquez lived on a forested property in Mariposa County, California, approximately 10 miles (16 km) from Yosemite, where he operated a farm with the help of passing volunteers and uploaded videos of his daily life. Vasquez was a prolific uploader, publishing several thousand YouTube videos during his lifetime. In a 2019 video, he mentioned uploading fifteen years' worth of videos dated in advance, leaving his YouTube channel still active as of 2026. In a 2014 interv
The rest wasn’t kept.
History
Rejected
“Paul Vasquez filmed himself sobbing at a double rainbow near Yosemite in 2010, and Jimmy Kimmel's tweet made it huge. It's one man reacting alone on camera, which Numa Numa already covers from 2004, and Charlie Bit My Finger holds the cluster's other slot.”