The Uncool, Undeniable Appeal Of 'America's Got Talent'

We probably weren’t using the word “viral” to describe the skyrocket success of odd, mesmerizing one-off moments from television in 2003, but it’s safe to say that the most-watched clips from reality competition shows looked significantly different from the ones widely shared on social networks today. That was the year William Hung, a civil engineering student at UC Berkeley, carved out his legacy in pop culture with an off-key, humorless rendition of Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs” for the...