Over 400 online videos and memes over 30 years of Internet history have been preserved in the British Film Institute (BFI)’s National Collection.
The BFI said it sought to preserve “UK produced online moving image works” because they are “today’s most dynamic, influential screen form”.
Fifty of the works are available on BFI’s free online streaming service, BFI Replay, along with British film clips dating back to the end of the Victorian era.
The collection includes the video ‘Charlie Bit My Finger – Again!’ The 55-second video shows three-year-old Harry Davies-Carr putting his finger in his one-year-old brother Charlie’s mouth, only to be bitten. Harry goes from laughter to anger to laughter again while exclaiming, “Charlie bit me.”
The clip was uploaded onto YouTube on 22 May 2007 by the boys’ father Howard, who wanted to show it to relatives. It became the platform’s most-viewed video.
In an accompanying video from the BFI, Howard Davies-Carr says, “Would I change anything now, knowing what I now know about the Internet? For me, the whole experience has been incredibly positive.” He says he’s received “great, positive comments” about the video from people around the world, including the Dalai Lama.
The collection also features 12 hours of the Daily Star newspaper’s notorious 2022 livestream, ‘Will Liz Truss Outlast This Lettuce?’, comparing the then British prime minister to a decaying salad vegetable. As the BFI explained: “The UK’s shortest reigning Prime Minister became subject of the longest moving image held in the BFI National Archive.”
The collection reflects other major current events of recent decades, with videos including the 2012 video ‘The Nick Clegg Apology Song: I’m Sorry’, a 2019 news report from an Extinction Rebellion climate change protest; and the 2020 film ‘Olive and Mabel, Episode 1’, in which BBC sports commentator Andrew Cotter, stuck at home during the covid-19 lockdown, resorted to commentating on a competition between his labradors, Olive and Mabel, to see which one could clear their bowl first.
It covers online video genres including Twitch streams, TikToks, and ASMR and unboxing videos.
The oldest work in the collection is the 1997 film ‘Eschaton: Darkening Twilight’ by Hugh Hancock and the most recent is the British Museum’s 2025 film ‘How to Make a Roman Gladiator Helmet, from Scratch’.
There are also hit web video series that later became mainstream television shows, such as Dreaming Whilst Black by Adjani Salmon and Natasha Jatania and Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared by Becky Sloan and Joseph Pelling.
Other films preserved include Jonti Picking’s Adobe Flash animation ‘Badgers’, a 2014 video by vlogger Zoella, the first of comedian Selina Mosinski’s ‘Charity Shop Sue’ videos, and a 2015 video of marine biologists removing a plastic fork from a sea turtle’s nose in Costa Rica.
There are also educational films by figures including disability rights activist Lucy Edwards, historian Catherine Warr and sex educator Hannah Witton.
This project is part of a major two-year heritage project, supported by the BFI Screen Heritage Fund awarding National Lottery funding.