Charlie Bit My Finger: What Happened to the Famous Clip

Charlie Bit My Finger, what happened in short: a British father, Howard Davies-Carr, uploaded a 56-second home video of his two young sons to YouTube on May 22, 2007, so a relative overseas could watch it. According to Wikipedia's record table, it became the most-viewed video on YouTube on October 25, 2009. It went on to earn the family advertising revenue, and in May 2021 it was auctioned as an NFT, with a top bid of $760,999. The buyer chose to keep it on YouTube, and after a spell offline it was publicly available again by January 2024.

That is what happened. The more useful question is why this clip, out of every home video uploaded in 2007, ended up on top, and what its path tells us about how YouTube itself changed from a place to park a family video into a place where an accident could become an income.

One note on scope. This article is about the video and the platform. The brothers were small children when it was filmed and are private individuals, so we do not cover their personal lives.

What was in the video

The plot takes less than a minute. The older brother, Harry, puts his finger in baby brother Charlie's mouth. Charlie bites. Harry's reaction, a mix of pain, disbelief and a slightly theatrical sense of betrayal, gave the clip its catchphrase and its title: "Charlie bit my finger, again!" Then both boys are smiling again.

Nothing was staged, edited or scored. Wikipedia's article on the clip quotes the father explaining why it went online at all: "The clip only went up as I wanted to share it with the boys' grandfather. I was naive about the whole YouTube thing." The same article says the file was too large to send by email, which is why a public video site was the easy option in 2007.

Timeline: from family upload to NFT

Every date and view count below names its source. Where two sources disagree, we say so in the text.

Why that video, out of everything?

There is no single reason, but several features stacked in its favor, and each one maps onto how video spread in the late 2000s.

It needed no context. Two small brothers, one finger, one bite. Viewers anywhere could follow it without knowing who the family was, what country they lived in, or what came before.

It was short and quotable. At 56 seconds it was easy to watch twice, and the catchphrase traveled without the video. Saying "Charlie bit me" to someone who had seen it was enough to get a laugh.

It was authentic at the right moment. Cheap pocket cameras were putting video recording in ordinary hands, the same wave that made the Flip Video camera a hit. Audiences were discovering that unplanned family moments could be more watchable than polished clips.

It suited the link economy. In 2007 and 2008, videos spread mostly through email links, forum posts and blog embeds rather than algorithmic feeds. A clip that made someone laugh in under a minute was the ideal thing to forward.

It kept compounding. Wikipedia's view counts show steady growth rather than one spike: 2.6 million in February 2008, 65 million by December 2008 and 92 million by April 2009. That is the pattern of a video people kept returning to and resharing for well over a year.

Charlie Bit My Finger: What Happened When YouTube Started Paying

This is where the clip starts to explain YouTube, not just ride it.

When Charlie Bit My Finger went up, YouTube had no general way to pay an ordinary person for a single popular video. The YouTube Official Blog post of December 10, 2007 (we read it on September 24, 2026) describes a Partner Program that had begun earlier that year as a pilot for "some of the most popular and prolific original content creators." The December expansion let anyone in the United States or Canada apply, but it was aimed at "dedicated community members: those who are regularly uploading original content." A family in England with one accidental hit fit none of that.

That changed in 2009. TechCrunch reported on August 25, 2009 (we read it on September 24, 2026) that YouTube would monitor for "videos that quickly go viral" and email the uploader an invitation to "Enable Revenue Sharing" on that video. YouTube's Tom Pickett told TechCrunch the company expected partners to grow "up into the tens of thousands of partners (up from 'thousands')."

Wikipedia reports that in 2011 the family made over £100,000 in advertising revenue, and that T-shirts, mugs and limited-edition calendars were produced in response to viewer requests. We could not find a primary source confirming exactly which program route the family used first, or a verified lifetime earnings total, so we do not give one.

The larger point stands without those details. Between 2007 and 2009, YouTube moved from paying a vetted group of regular creators to paying people whose single upload took off. That shift helped turn "going viral" from luck into something closer to a business model, and Charlie Bit My Finger is a textbook example of the kind of video the 2009 change was aimed at.

How music videos took the record

Charlie Bit My Finger's time at the very top was real but brief. According to Wikipedia's list of the most-viewed YouTube videos, it took the record on October 25, 2009, at about 128.9 million views. Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" passed it on April 14, 2010, at about 178.4 million, and Justin Bieber's "Baby" took over on July 15, 2010.

Here the sources disagree. The lead of Wikipedia's own article on the clip calls it "the most-viewed YouTube video from 2009 to 2012," while the record table on the list page ends its reign in April 2010. The table is more specific and gives exact dates, so we follow it.

The handover itself tells a story. After 2010, the record belonged to professionally produced music videos, and it later passed to PSY's "Gangnam Style", which Wikipedia's list shows taking the top spot on November 24, 2012. By that table, Charlie Bit My Finger held the record for a little under six months.

The NFT sale and the promise to delete

In May 2021, the family tried something new. TIME reported that the clip would be sold as an NFT in an auction on May 22, 2021, on the Origin Protocol platform, starting at $1,000, and that the video would leave YouTube on May 23, following the auction. At the time, TIME said, it had more than 880 million views, and advertising revenue from it had dwindled.

Wikipedia reports that the winner, with a top bid of $760,999, was 3F Music. TIME's later update says the buyer, Dubai-based Farzin Fardin Fard and 3F Music, decided to keep the video on YouTube in recognition of its cultural importance. Even so, Wikipedia reports that the video stayed unavailable to the public until January 2024.

The episode captured a 2021 idea: that a famous piece of internet culture could be made scarce and owned. The outcome pulled the other way. The video's value had always come from being free to watch and pass around, and the buyer ended up putting it back.

Where it stands now

The clip is back on YouTube. Wikipedia records 888 million views and more than 2.3 million likes as of December 2025.

Its afterlife in pop culture is well documented. Wikipedia lists a 2014 Jimmy Kimmel Live! parody, "Bitman Begins," featuring Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep and the Hemsworth brothers; a sound clip in Jme's 2015 track "Pulse 8"; and a reference in The Office episode "Todd Packer."

For readers who remember it from the first time around, the honest summary is this. Charlie Bit My Finger did not change YouTube by itself. It happened to sit exactly where the platform was heading: from a place to store a family clip, to a place where that clip could earn money, to a place where professional music owned the top of the charts.

FAQ

When was Charlie Bit My Finger uploaded?

On May 22, 2007, by the boys' father, Howard Davies-Carr, according to Wikipedia. He said he posted it so the boys' grandfather, who lived in the United States, could watch it.

Was Charlie Bit My Finger removed from YouTube?

It was due to be removed on May 23, 2021, after its NFT auction, according to TIME. The buyer, 3F Music, later decided to keep it up, and Wikipedia reports it was publicly available again by January 2024.

How much did the Charlie Bit My Finger NFT sell for?

The top bid was $760,999, from 3F Music, in May 2021, according to Wikipedia.

Was it ever the most-viewed video on YouTube?

Yes. Wikipedia's list of record holders shows it taking the top spot on October 25, 2009, and losing it to Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" on April 14, 2010. The lead of Wikipedia's article on the clip gives a longer range, 2009 to 2012, which conflicts with that table.

How much money did the family make from the video?

Wikipedia reports more than £100,000 in advertising revenue in 2011 alone. We could not verify a lifetime total from a primary source.