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United Breaks Guitars

You might remember it as Dave Carroll United Breaks Guitars

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2009·Early YouTube

The complaint song that made customer service a public-relations risk.

At a glanceThe facts

Remembered as
Dave Carroll United Breaks Guitars
Spread in
2009
Format
Video
Era
Early YouTube
Made by
Dave Carroll, with his band Sons of Maxwell
Who or what it shows
A Taylor guitar worth 3,500 dollars, damaged on a United Airlines flight in 2008
Origin
Origin not yet established
Available
Playable from the source

Why it matteredWhat changed

A musician who spent nine months failing to get compensation for a broken guitar wrote a song about it instead. It was watched 150,000 times in a day, and the airline telephoned to apologise.

TimelineIn order

  1. Made

    Carroll’s guitar is damaged in the airline’s care on a journey from Halifax to Omaha by way of Chicago.1

  2. Posted

    The song is posted to YouTube.1

  3. Took off

    It has been watched more than half a million times.1

  4. Remixed

    A second song follows. A third is released in March 2010.1

  5. Mainstream

    Carroll publishes a book about it.1

What people misrememberSet straight

Commonly remembered asThe video wiped 180 million dollars off United’s share price.

ActuallyThe source calls that difficult to substantiate. The shares hit a low four days after the upload and had risen by four-fifths a month later.1

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Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later

This is the copy ViralWorld can show you. Whether it is the first is not established.

Where it came fromWhat we know

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

View this upload on YouTube

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.

Where
Known on YouTube.

SourcesWhat was read

  1. Wikipedia — United Breaks Guitars

Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things

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