The short video entitled "First Kiss," directed by Tatia Pilieva, shows 20 strangers paired up and kissing each other for the first time. Posted on March 10, the video has already received more than 50 million views and spawned a series of parodies and follow-ups.
The strangers awkwardly make small talk - introducing themselves to one another only to forget each other's names or nervously ramble - and look to Pilieva for some direction.
Screenwriter Robby O'Connor, who is one of these participants, even says to his partner: "Since you're an actress, you've done this before, and ... I'll follow your lead then." Then, laughing: "Maybe that isn't the best way to kiss someone!"
After some giggling and nervous smiling, the couples commit to the kiss and things actually start to steam up.
"It's cute to see the strangers be all hesitant at first (as most sane and sober people would be!) but once they go for it, it's like watching fireworks, man (as barf-fully cheesy as that sounds)," Gizmodo's Casey Chan wrote. "It's unexpectedly touching, like watching a documentary turn into a romantic comedy that doesn't suck."
The video, filed under the tag "beautiful," is actually an advertisement for clothes, and most of the people in the video are professional performers who are used to acting out love, sex and intimacy for crowds.
The cast includes models Natalia Bonifacci, Ingrid Schram, and Langley Fox (daughter of actress Mariel Hemingway and sister of model Dree). Also musicians Z Berg of The Like, Damian Kulash of OK Go, Justin Kennedy of Army Navy, singer Nicole Simone and singer-actress Soko (who also performed the music that accompanies the short film). Actors Karim Saleh, Matthew Carey, Jill Larson, Corby Griesenbeck, Elisabetta Tedla, Luke Cook and Marianna Palka also make an appearance.
