Prepare to say farewell to a YouTube OG.
According to a new report by CBS News, the family behind the iconic “Charlie Bit My Finger” video have sold the iconic 2000s viral video as an NFT — and now the clip might be taken offline for good.
Of course, anyone who was around back in the early days of YouTube (hi, fellow geriatric millennials!) remembers the video: one second baby Charlie Davies-Carr is sitting adorably on his brother Harry’s lap, the next he’s chomping down on his big brother’s finger. Harry’s wails of “Charlie bit my finger!” and “Charlie bit me!” echo in the minds of every early adopter of the platform.
Since it was uploaded in 2007, the famous clip was viewed on the streaming platform more than 880 million times, but the Davies-Carr family couldn’t resist selling it as a non-fungible token worth a whopping $760,000+.
As for why they decided to sell now, the Davies-Carr family had a perfectly reasonable explanation. “I think when it was first put up on YouTube it was, what, 14 years ago?” a now-teenaged Charlie told CNBC in an interview ahead of the sale. “And YouTube was the new thing. But now, the internet’s evolved and NFT has now become the new thing. So I think that’s why we’ve decided to put it up for sale on auction so we’ve got the blockchain.”
The funds will reportedly go to the boys’ education.