I think this might be one of the most interesting outcomes of the internet in it's current state.



(alt. link) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_CSo1gOd48

I don't know if you've already seen this video. I came across it when I checked YouTube's most viewed videos. As of press time, almost seven million people have viewed this video.

There are many, many questions that come to mind when I think of this video and the fact that almost seven million people have clicked on the link to watch this video. A few of these questions I think I know the answer to. There are certainly more questions I have no idea what the answer is.

I suppose the central question is what made millions of people watch a video featuring two unfamous, above-average-but-not-quite-model-type-hot-girls lip sync a song by the Pixies, who, while having a quite rabid and loyal fan base, aren't exactly the Rolling Stones.

The next part of the equation is how many people actually watched the whole thing. If one click on the video equals a view, certainly a portion of the audience shifted their attention to other videos once the video started. Maybe they didn't think it was funny or entertaining or maybe they were misled.

Which leads me to the next part of the equation. How many people clicked on the link simply because a relatively attractive girl was in a near Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct position. There is no porn on YouTube and I think most people know this by now. But how many people clicked on the link to see just how far YouTube would go? Um, no me neither. - Garth

I have to think that this was a large portion of the views. I could see if it said The Pixies in the video description, that would draw the rabid Pixie fan base in. But it just says "Hey Clip", that's it. Who goes searching on YouTube for clips with "Hey" in the title? I can't imagine many. On this assumption, I am to believe the hint of a quick beav shot shot the viewership up.

Another thing I don't quite get is that over 54,000 people, its top referrer, clicked on the video from this website...http://www.witze-welt.de/videos/showvideo.php?id=64

There is almost nothing about this fact that I understand. Why did people who read this website and speak this language find this video entertaining? What is the purpose of this site? Do people that read this site know what is going on? Does it even matter? This is just a small percentage of the things I don't understand.

As I write this I clicked on more of Tasha's videos, the user who uploaded the video. None of her other 16 videos are even remotely as popular as this one, she has one called Mad World which about 75,000 people saw, nothing to sneeze at. However, in a couple of the other videos she explains the Hey video in various interviews on various television talk shows. Unfortunately I don't speak and cannot understand Hebrew so any explanation that the ladies may have given doesn't help me at all.

I'm even more puzzled and amazed than when I started.

Even more puzzled and amazed than when I started part two: Kevin Smith paid the Hey clip an homage in one of his Clerks 2 promos.

This doesn't happen everyday. This doesn't happen in any other sort of entertainment. This has to be one of the most unique situations I've ever seen.

Other things I wonder:

Are these girls related?

What other songs did they consider, why this one?

Will Pitchfork ever interview these girls, or name drop them snarkily in a review?

Can they really play the guitar at all?

How long did this take to do?

How popular did they actually think this would be? They couldn't have possibly thought more than their friends would watch this, let alone millions.

Has any member of the Pixies seen this video? What do they think?

Of the nearly seven million people that watched this clip, how many was this the first time hearing the song "Hey" by the Pixies? I knew of a few other Pixies songs but it was my first time hearing this one. I have the Pixies greatest hits and listening to it after watching the video. I skipped to Hey to listen to it. I couldn't get the video out of my head while listening to the song. I know this happens a lot. But usually it's a fuckin music video that MTV aired that the band was a willing participant in, not two girls lip-synching to in a bedroom. For millions of people, the song Hey by the Pixies will be the image of the those two girls dancing around and absolutely nothing to do with Pixies who wrote, composed, performed the song and released it on Doolittle in 1989.

I don't know many people that are HUGE Pixies fans, I know they are out there though and I'm pretty sure they are probably freaking out at the above sentiment.

Back to more on why this particular clip is so damn popular. I've watched it a couple of times and it is well done. It's not sloppily put together. It looks like they have definitely edited and cut videos before. If this was amateur hour, kids just goofing around, I'm sure there friends would think it would be funny but I doubt millions of people would like it so much. So part of the reason I think it's so popular is that it is a well-executed video.

Another thing is that this video is oddly endearing. If you asked me would I ever call a lip synced video by two people I don't know to a song I had never heard before endearing, I'd probably think you were a fool. In this video it's just two people having fun. Not in a hipster, ironic way. It looks like they legitimately care about the song and video. It looks like the did it because the genuinely liked the song and had fun with it simply because they liked the song so much as opposed to some hipsters who might do the same thing with a REO Speedwagon song, doing it for some ironic, 'aren't we so in on the joke' type of reasoning.

I want to know what is going to happen as a result of this video. Will these two girls get a great entry point in the entertainment industry in some capacity as a result of the clip? Will other bands co-opt this strategy and release videos like this officially, putting girls like this on the payroll? Will there ever be a more successful lip synced video in the history of YouTube? Or is the video like the Little Richard / Chuck Berry of lip synced videos and there is an Elvis and Beatles around the corner? Will I ever be a part of a poorly executed knock off of this, here in the apartment?

That's about all I got for now.