A lion for YouTube

The lion has always been a king of shows, not only in circuses, zoo but also in cinemas. The Lion King, a Walt Disney production, won some awards and became even a musical that has been going for some years. This animal arrived again on the big screen with Madagascar and all its series, a DreamWork production.

YouTube needed its lion too. In the Seventies two young men, Ace and John, bought at Harrods a lion cub – whom they named Christian - and raised him in London for a year. Then they figured it out that they could not keep him much longer and started the process of returning him to Africa. George Adamson, a famous wildlife conservationist know as "Baba ya Simba" ("Father of Lions" in Swahili) took care of rehabilitation of Christian to the wild.

Almost forty years later the clip, featuring the reunion in Africa between Christian and his previous human caretakers after one year of not seeing each other, was posted on YouTube.

The video became so popular that a new updated edition of the book, A lion called Christian, was published with the story of the lion. A lot of people saw the footage on YouTube and commented the clip on the web, even some incorrect detailed were published as always happens in the unregulated space of internet. Many people read the book and Christian became a world news since a lot of international television broadcasted it and even Hollywood turned out to be interested in the story. Someone decided to create a Facebook profile for the lion and he has now around 20,000 friends.

I would like to consider the video power, how it got all this popularity and success.

First of all the clip is very emotional and moving. The song “I will always love you” by Whitney Houston added to it, makes it even more touching. People like happy-end and a joyful reunion is always a good topic. On the Italian television there are shows dedicated only to reunions where people can meet friends or relatives that have not seen for many years.

Moreover, there is the theme of love and friendship between man and animals that targeted everybody but especially the people who support animal rights, as they can show that even a lion, the king of the savanna, can demonstrate some good emotions similar to the human. The video also brings with it the topic of captivity, the importance of rehabilitation and the conservation for protected species that are great themes to talk about and easy to spread out.

People can project their feelings in the reaction of Christian at the view of his caretakers and can also identify themselves with Ace and John, who are meeting their “grown cub” after such a long time.

In my opinion the clip demonstrate one more time the power of Internet and of the new social media that are even able to bring old stories alive again. Everything started from the posting on YouTube by a Californian student, now all around the world everybody knows a real story of a captive lion who was able to got rehabilitated to the wild but he is still grateful to his human caretakers for what they did for him.

The video will never be out-dated since it basically shows good human feelings and that there is a possibility of interrelationship of all living creatures in a peaceful way. I would like to conclude with consideration made by Ace and John in their last edition of the book “If all of us touched by Christian’s story came together to address some of the issue faced by the global community, what could we achieve together in the spirit of Christian’s love and love for life?”