About

Reunion Videos (sometimes known as Homecoming Videos) are amateur footage of people meeting their loved ones after being separated for an extended period time, such as estranged family members, pets and soldiers returning home from deployment.

Origin

The earliest known reunion video to spread online is a video clip a man hugging a lion named Christian from the 1971 Australian documentary Christian, The Lion at World's End (shown below), which was first posted on a fan web site in 2002.^[1]

Spread

On April 11th, 2008, YouTuber itschmidt02 uploaded a video featuring an American soldier seeing his dog Gracie after returning from a tour of duty in Afghanistan (shown below, left), which received more than 17.4 million views and 34,200 comments in the next six years. On March 25th, 2009, YouTuber RascalsPlace uploaded a news report titled “Soldier reunited with dog,” which shows U.S. Army Specialist Gwen Beberg’s reunion with her border collie after returning from Iraq (shown below, right). Within five years, the video accumulated upwards of 790,000 views and 100 comments.

On April 21st, 2010, the AquaVitaFilms YouTube channel uploaded a video featuring conservationist Damian Aspinall's reunion with a African lowland gorilla he hadn't seen in five years (shown below, left), garnering over 3.04 million views and 1,200 comments in the first four years. On May 17th, YouTuber Gard Ole Waerum submitted footage of a woman seeing a pack of wolves she had been separated from for two months after socializing them at the Polar Zoo in Salalangsdalen, Norway (shown below, right). In the next three years, the video gained more than 3.3 million views and 7,500 comments.

On November 14th, 2011, YouTuber grabagething uploaded a video of a soldier reuniting with her crying dog after returning home from Afghanistan (shown below, left), which received upwards of 5.74 million views and 9,900 comments in the following two years. On July 17th, 2012, The Huffington Post^[2] published an article highlighting 13 reunion videos between animals and people. On May 17th, 2013, the Fox Sports YouTube channel uploaded footage of a military father surprising his 9-year-old daughter at a baseball game (shown below, right).

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References