See the Boys From the "Charlie Bit My Finger" Video Now as Teens
The 14-year-old viral hit will be taken off YouTube after racking up nearly 900 million views.
Viral videos may come and go from the cultural consciousness, but few have been as ingrained in pop culture as "Charlie Bit My Finger." The 55-second clip of then-one-year-old Charlie Davies-Carr and his then-three-year-old brother Harry Davies-Carr has racked up nearly 900 million views and spawned countless parodies since their father first posted it in 2007. Now, the boys who starred in the video are in their teens, and the video that helped make them internet icons is slated to come down from YouTube forever. Read on to see what the boys from the "Charlie Bit My Finger" video look like now and what their plans are for their famous footage.
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The brothers from the viral video are selling their famous clips as an NFT.
During an interview with CNBC on May 20, the viral video brothers explained that they planned to auction the video off as a non-fungible token (NFT). Charlie, who is now 15 and has since outgrown biting his older brother, explained why the family has decided to sell the small piece of internet history and remove it from YouTube.
"I think when it was first put up on YouTube, it was… what, 14 years ago?—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 decided to put it up for sale and auction, so we've got it on the blockchain," he explained.
The famous video sold for $760,999 to an anonymous buyer at auction.
The video clip's popularity has helped Harry and Charlie's family net some serious money over the years. Thanks to advertising deals, merchandise sales, and other business dealings, the Davies-Carr family has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars, even helping them move to a larger home, The Wall Street Journal reports.
But the biggest cash drop came on May 23, when the family sold the video for $760,999 during its slated online auction. While the clip can still be viewed and downloaded for now, the original will soon be deleted from YouTube. The anonymous owner also now has the right to produce more content around the video, including "the opportunity to create their own parody of the video featuring the original stars, Harry and Charlie."
So, what does the family plan to do with the funds? "It means that Harry goes to university and has a nice place to stay and doesn't have to have a bar job," Howard Davies-Carr, the boys' father and cameraman behind the video clip, told CBS News' Ian Lee.
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The boys recreated the video during COVID lockdown in 2020.
Harry, now 17, admits that the clip didn't exactly make them A-listers in class. When asked by CNBC if the viral moment had made the brothers the talk of their town, he admitted, "I wouldn't say [we're] famous celebrities amongst school friends. It's more—it's exciting for a few weeks, and then it's kind of in the background."
But the boys haven't strayed too far from embracing their viral fame: During COVID-19 lockdowns in the U.K. in 2020, Harry and Charlie agreed to team up to recreate their viral moment for LadBible. In the clip, Harry explains that the two recently traded in biting for martial arts training, which they've been practicing together.
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Charlie now hosts his own Twitch gaming channel.
Besides their 55 seconds of viral fame, the Davies-Carr boys have found other ways to stay active online as they grow older. During quarantine, Charlie told LadBible that he'd gotten into video games and streaming. He now hosts his own channel on Twitch, which has nearly 2,000 followers.
But fortunately, while they occasionally embrace the clip that made them famous, the teenagers don't seem to be wallowing in their stardom. According to their father, this was always part of the plan, telling ABC News in a 2012 interview: "When the boys get to 18, I'd like them to think back and think, 'O.K., I've got something in my life which is more than just what I was when I did the 'Charlie Bit Me' video.'"
