When Bob and Margaret Nelson sent their grandson birthday greetings last year, they didn’t expect millions of people to share those greetings.
The Colwood couple wrote 18 Year Old Birthday Blues for their grandson, Josh Robertson, last February. They donned cool sunglasses, sat down in their small studio and recorded a video of the song.
Bob plays the keyboard and does most of the singing, but Margaret chimes in and then starts making her moves in the background.
“I put it up on my YouTube channel and emailed Josh a link,” said Bob. “A little later, we went to to have a look to see how many times it had been shared around — 304 times. Wow!
“We came home a few hours later and it was 1,500 views.”
Cyberspace can be a dreary, hateful realm, where warped egos are nurtured with posturing, and personas are manufactured from thin air. But in making their video, the Nelsons were just being themselves, real people, regular people, having a little fun.
People liked it and shared it. Within a few days, viewership of the 18 Year Old Birthday Blues video exploded, helped by the attention it got from mainstream media. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper showed it with the comment: “Can you imagine how mortified this grandchild must be?”
“Our grandson did not even know who Anderson Cooper was,” said Bob.
But he wasn’t mortified. “Oh, I just laughed so much,” said Josh after the video garnered international attention. “It was so funny.”
Far from being embarrassed by his grandmother’s ungrandmotherly dance moves, he was delighted.
“I’m surprised she didn’t pop out her hip,” he said.
The video got mentioned by news website The Huffington Post and Good Morning America. The Nelsons were interviewed on local television. It was viewed all over the world.
With the views came comments, a few snide or nasty, but the vast majority positive.
“The grandma in the background is crackin me up!!”
“Coolest grandparents eva.”
“Wish my grandparents were like that.”
“Grandma really needs to quit crack.”
“I want those grandparents, where can I get them?”
The number of YouTube views stood at about 85,000, but jumped after YouTube celebrity Ray William Johnson reviewed it, and it has now topped 365,000. The traffic has slowed, but it still gets watched and the Nelsons still get comments.
“I’ll go into the 7-Eleven and people will say, ‘;You’re Grandpa Nelson!’” said Bob.
Musically, Bob is no neophyte.
“My dad, Ken, was a founding member of the navy band at Esquimalt,” he said. “We ran a music store — Nelson’s Music — together for nearly 20 years. He repaired band instruments, I ran the front end.”
Bob has a smooth, deep voice and performs at local functions, solo or with other musicians. He plays a variety of instruments, including keyboards, guitar and saxophone.
He often uploads videos to YouTube, but was totally surprised by response to the birthday video.
He has his theory on its success: “Musically, it’s not bad, but the reason it went viral was because of Marg dancing in the background.”
“The big takeaway from all this is all the people who had a laugh,” said Margaret. “To make people laugh, to put a little sunshine in their days, well, that’s nice to know.”
Several Vancouver Island videos captured YouTube attention in 2012. The Nelsons’ creation lags far behind the 1.6 million views racked up by the video posted in April of the 299-km/h motorcycle ride on the Trans-Canada Highway, but it outstripped — figuratively speaking, of course — Victoria’s World Naked Bicycle Ride in June, which attracted 107,000 YouTube viewers. Looks like birthday songs trump birthday suits.
Josh has another birthday coming up soon, but the Nelsons plan to be a bit more conventional this year.
“He gets good old-fashioned money, which is what he wants,” said Margaret. “We’re not going to try to outdo ourselves.”
To see the Nelsons’ video, go to YouTube, search “18 Year Old Birthday Blues.”
You can find a lot of misery and spite on the Internet these days. But a couple of Colwood grandparents prove it can also be a source of smiles.
