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2006·Early YouTube·cute

Sneezing Baby Panda

Sixteen seconds of an animal being startled, and one of the small handful of clips that taught the early internet what it wanted.

You might remember it as Sneezing Panda

An early online video

See where it was on YouTube.

The story

What this was

A mother panda eats bamboo at the Wolong breeding centre in China while her cub sleeps at her feet. The cub sneezes. The mother jumps, and goes back to the bamboo.

It first appeared in 2006, during early YouTube.

The whole thing is one beat of surprise, and it survives being watched again because the timing does not change. It was named one of the hundred most iconic internet videos in 2009 and one of YouTube’s fifty best by Time.

The footage is an excerpt from a 1999 documentary shot at Wolong by the Australian filmmakers Lesley Hammond and Jenny Walsh, uploaded seven years later. A 2014 feature-length documentary was built around trying to find it.

You were there

More from 2006

The same internet

Early YouTube

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Grouped by explicit relationships where evidence exists, and by shared theme otherwise.

Behind the record

Where it came from

Original source uncertain. This is the earliest copy currently known.

No original upload has been established for this record. The index is showing the earliest copy it currently knows about, and says so rather than guessing.

Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.

What happens
A mother panda eats bamboo at the Wolong breeding centre in China while her cub sleeps at her feet. The cub sneezes. The mother jumps, and goes back to the bamboo.
When
Originally published November 2006.
Where
Known on YouTube.

Other copies the index knows about. None is claimed to be the original.

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