Today in viral videos: That Auckland plumber

This video is a travelogue of sorts by Auckland-born Plumber Logan Dodds showing scenes from his three months backpacking around Europe with his Go Pro camera. The video has been quite popular, leading to all sorts of breathless mentions on the Web.

Posted late last week, the video has been viewed on Facebook more than 1,140,000 times so far, and 285,000 on YouTube (the version above). Much of the appeal has been Dodds himself: “This Hot Tradie’s Travel Video Is Going Viral Because People Are Thirsty AF”, BuzzFeed headlined their post. Closer to home, The Edge radio station headlined their post, “This hot Kiwi tradie has officially broken the Internet”

To be sure, the video features some very attractive menz (and probably some attractive women, too…), and in many of the shots Dodds himself is a bit of alright, I think. Clearly many other people quite like the look of him.

All that aside, I liked the palm “slap” as the marker for transitions; I don’t think I’ve seen anyone do it quite like that before. His pacing and structure are also very well done, including both the opening and closing shots. And, the Go Pro does take nice action videos—which figures, since that’s what it was intended for.

Mostly, this is just a bit if fun, and a bit of Internet fame for a Kiwi lad. Reason enough to share it.