About

"I Called And They Actually Answered" refers to a series of YouTube videos where individuals call somebody, often fictional characters. The videos have often been parodied due their clickbait titles.

Origin

Originally, most successful "I called" videos were those centered around the devil.^[1] They generally did not have the "and he answered" part and were popular as far back as 2014. On October 28th, 2014, YouTuber "lillians_ kinda comedy" posted "1-666-666-6666 some one acually picked up" (shown below) which to date has over 2 million views.

Spread

The earliest of these videos to contain the part "and they answered" comes from YouTuber Tyler Fischer who posted "I called (666)-666-6666 and they answered!!!!" (shown below) on April 14th, 2016. The video went on to receive over 1 million views and over 9,000 comments. "And they answered" would go on to become a staple of this video genre.

The video would go on to receive multiple imitators, who in themselves would use "and they answered" in their own titles.

Durv

One of the most successful YouTubers to use this formula was the British YouTuber Durv (shown below), who posted his own "calling the Devil" video on August 29th, 2016 (shown below). The video went on to receive 1 million views.

Durv would go on to make this a regular series on his channel with later videos revolving around Santa Claus (below, top left), Boss Baby (below, top right), Donald Trump (below, bottom left), and the Chucky Doll (below, bottom right).

Durv's viral success with these videos would lead to other YouTubers attempting their own "I called" videos.

Durv Gets Banned

On May 31st, 2017 Durv's channel was officially terminated for breaking YouTube's terms of service. Durv posted a tweet that day stating that his school was responsible for the ban.(he would later clarify that this was a joke)^[2]

Many on Twitter celebrated the ban, leading Durv to respond stating that laughing at his ban "is like laughing at someone at there funeral"

GTA VI Calls

Around November 2016, various Grand Theft Auto YouTubers uploaded videos in which they claim to have called Rockstar regarding the release of Grand Theft Auto 6. The most notable of these YouTubers were LispyJimmy, NoughtPointFourLive (who since deleted his videos) and Sernandoe, who each gained hundreds of thousands of views on their respective videos (examples shown below).

On November 18, 2016 YouTuber Pyrocynical uploaded a video criticizing the three for their obvious clickbait and lazy attempts at getting ad-revenue(shown below).

Calling Donald Trump

On November 12, 2016, YouTuber I'm Gibbster uploaded 'CALLING DONALD TRUMP!! GONE WRONG HE CAME TO MY HOUSE!!'(shown below). The video went on to receive 2 million views.

The next day Durv uploaded "CALLING DONALD TRUMP!!! HE ACTUALLY ANSWERED OMG!!!"(shown below) which also went on to receive 2 million views, and went on to start a trend of "calling Donald Trump" videos.

Calling The Boss Baby

In the film Boss Baby, the title character gives out his phone number in a scene. The film's marketing team made that phone number a real number one could call and talk to The Boss Baby. On April 17th, 2017, YouTuber Durv called the number in a video and spoke to a voice actor playing The Boss Baby on speakerphone, gaining over 1.6 million views (shown below).

This was the first of dozens of YouTube clickbait videos in which various YouTubers called The Boss Baby. The popularity of these videos soon inspired parodies in which the YouTubers reported that The Boss Baby would come to their house. YouTuber Eliscray uploaded a popular parody in which The Boss Baby came to his house and haunted it after he called it (shown below, top left). On April 30th, 2017, eminthrv posted an inquiry about the sudden surge of these videos to /r/OutOfTheLoop.^[4]

Some image macros have also been made parodying these videos by photoshopping the character into other popular YouTube clickbait tropes.

Search Interest

External References