California ballot propositions living loud on YouTube

From Jerod Gunsberg's homemade Prop 6 ad.

We already know this is the year of the first “YouTube election,” where the most reliable place to find the latest footage everyone was talking about was no longer CNN, Fox News or the broadcast networks but rather from one of 10 dozen websites that undoubtedly already had the clip parsed, posted and ready for inhalation. The Web has become a political junkie’s cornucopia, overflowing with excerpts of every kind. If you’re like me, you yearn for the good old days, when October meant being bombarded with a small number of expensive political advertisements — the ones that just told us what to believe already, so we didn’t have to waste time figuring it out.

But all is not lost. Paid political ads, it turns out, have joined the swelling ranks of their unpaid video brethren and found a new home online. Only, just like everything else on YouTube, the word “paid” no longer really applies. None of the hundreds of Web-only ads for California’s 12 ballot propositions cost a cent to upload, enabling proponents and opponents across the state a low-cost way to spread their message to a potentially vast audience.

“Potentially” being the key word. Unlike paying for a slice of prime TV airtime, when millions of captive viewers will see your message, every video uploaded to the Web starts off with zero viewers — and a whole lot of them end there too. Weighing against the freeness of online distribution, then, is the serious problem of getting anyone to notice your new video among the 10 thousand that were uploaded the very same second.

Still, the haystack problem hasn’t dissuaded California activists from generating a wave of political ads, many of which are home brewed — a kind of creative alternative to the standard campaign contribution. Jerod Gunsberg, 36, of the South Bay, decided to use his home computer to make an ad against Proposition 6 — the “Safe Neighborhoods Act,” which allocates about 1% of the state’s budget to anti-crime programs. “It seemed like a lot more fun to make a campaign video about ballot propositions than to write blog posts about them,” said Gunsberg, who blogs frequently about state issues but is not associated with the No on 6 campaign.

Gunsberg’s snappy, tongue-in-cheek spot warns voters not to fall for the measure’s claim that it will decrease crime. “Prop. 6 will make your neighborhood more dangerous and lead California to financial ruin!” the voice-over warns. A moment later, an image of Disneyland’s main marquee pops up: “Closed forever,” it reads. “Everyone is broke.”

The video ad has netted only 275 views since it was posted on Monday, but Gunsberg is OK with that. “It’s not like one video on these things breaks through,” he said. “There’s a bunch of campaign videos out there, especially on the ballot props. If they all generate a few hundred views each, maybe it aggregates into this building awareness.”

Modest awareness building is probably the best-case scenario this time around, given that the state has more than 16 million registered voters, and even the most successful Web video ads are still hovering around 100,000 views — a little more than one-half of 1% of the electorate, assuming (wrongly) that the ads have had no repeat viewers.

Even Proposition 8, the highly visible measure that seeks to outlaw same-sex marriage, has had trouble attracting the kind of viewing stats that go along with so-called viral success. The No on 8 campaign’s video of Ellen DeGeneres asking viewers to reject the measure has become one of the most-watched online ads of any ballot prop campaign, scoring 103,000 views in two weeks.

For comparison, a 40-second video showing a bolt of lightning striking behind Sen. Barack Obama as he gave a speech Tuesday had 250,000 views by Wednesday morning.

But Chris Maliwat, the head of the No on Prop 8 Web effort, noted that the campaign’s 40 online videos, including a number from sources independent of the campaign, have millions of views in aggregate. And that the true power of a YouTube campaign is that the issue can be approached from many angles, rather than just the lowest common denominator that expensive mass media ads require.

“With a normal campaign, within a month or two, you might have six or 12 total spots that run about 30 seconds and play the same kind of dreary music,” Maliwat said. “But when you’ve got a wide variety of voices showing their points of view, the authenticity of it resonates with people in different ways.” No on 8 covers the rhetorical bases by variously featuring celebrities, politicians, lawyers, religious leaders, comedians and even real people. (Notably absent, as Jonathan Rauch noted in a Times editorial this week, are gays themselves.)

Several of the Yes on 8 campaign’s videos have scored well too, but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints declined a request to discuss its Web approach.

More than one of the proposition campaigns have sought to engage users by encouraging them to create ads. Both sides of Proposition 4 have held contests to find the best user-generated ads. (Proposition 4 would require physicians to notify a minor’s parents before performing an abortion.)

“Video storytelling at its heart is about drama,” said Miriam Gerace, a spokeswoman for the No on 4 campaign. “And one of the more difficult and truly life-altering decisions that a woman of any age can make has to do with what she’s going to do with an unplanned pregnancy.”

The campaign received 24 submissions to its contest.

Spokesman Albin Rohmberg of Yes on 4 said his campaign actually ended up taking several of the videos it had received “over the transom” and paying to broadcast them in television markets around California. Those videos also focus on narrative strains that the campaign has formulated, like one 10,000-view video’s premise that without the notification law, child predators are more likely to impregnate young girls without consequence.

That a user-generated clip with an audience that small could hurtle its way up the media pyramid in and onto the airwaves is a nice encapsulation of this inchoate area of online activism. It shows that it’s possible for a very small number of passionate citizens to affect the political process more than we would have dreamed of, even in 2004. But it’s also a reminder that the Web is far from the panacea for democracy that many of its boosters have predicted. Democracy is a numbers game, and when it comes to a giant state like California, a few thousand people is not representative.

Thanks to YouTube, the below video of Batman's televised mayoral debate with the Penguin, from the "Dizzoner the Penguin" episode of Adam West's 1966  "Batman," is gaining new currency.

The clip, first uploaded in early 2007, has been picked up by several political commentators and compared to recent debates between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama. 

Besides being an amusing clip on its own -- the great Burgess Meredith turns in a virtuoso performance as  the Bilious Bird -- viewers have noted some chuckle-worthy parallels between this fictional debate and the real thing. 

In last week's face-off, moderator Bob Schieffer asked the candidates about the smears and personal attacks that have become a significant part of the discourse as the campaign winds up. 

"I think the tone of this campaign could've been very different," said McCain at the time. "And the fact is it's gotten pretty tough, and I regret some of the negative aspects of both campaigns."

Likewise, the Penguin starts out humbly enough: "Friends and fellow citizens, I want to give you my solemn word that there will be no mudslinging in this campaign. ... I intend to stick to the issues." 

But with that disclaimer out of the way, the Penguin wastes no time in getting to his point. "Now what are the issues? There's only one issue: Batman!"

"I suggest that behind that mask, Batman is, in reality, a dangerous criminal. Why else does he wear a mask? Why else does he conceal his past? Would you think about that a moment, my friends? Whenever you've seen Batman, who's he with? Criminals, that's who!"

McCain makes a similar pivot, this time to the controversial subjects of Obama's association with former radical Bill Ayers, a founder of Weather Underground who McCain called a "washed up terrorist."

"Senator Obama chose to associate with a guy who in 2001 said he wished he'd bombed more." McCain then draws links between Obama and the community organization ACORN, which, he says, is "maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."

It's probably a comment on the predictability of this presidential campaign that it was anticipated by a 40-year-old TV show populated by wacky caricatures. Same hack script, same hack channel.

Unfortunately, Penguin's brilliant plan hits a snag. Afraid that his lead in the polls is shrinking, he kidnaps the Board of Elections so the vote cannot be certified. This scheme backfires, and Batman turns up to rescue the hostages ("Pengy, you said we associated with criminals.  So ... here we are." BOOM! POW! WHAMM!). 

Batman is elected but resigns to allow the current mayor to keep his position. But not before one of the major parties calls to offer him the presidential candidacy for 1968 -- exactly 40 Novembers ago. 

Exclaims Robin: "Bulging ballot boxes, Batman, that was some offer!"   

-- David Sarno

Rihanna at the 2008 VMAs. (Photo: WireImage)

Those who watched the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday might have done a double take when a figure rose from the stage floor, singing a familiar "mai ai hee" harmony — the same used in the wildly popular "Numa Numa" Internet video.

But the sunglasses-wearing musician belting out the tune amidst bright lights, smoke and applause wasn't the pudgy star of the popular YouTube video or the frontman who penned the Romanian pop song. It was someone with a video that trumps the popularity of even "Numa Numa" itself, with the No. 5 all-time most-viewed spot on YouTube: pop superstar Rihanna.

The "Umbrella" singer collaborated with rapper T.I. on "Live Your Life," the second single from his album "Paper Trail," which hits stores at the end of the month. The track opens and closes with a sample from the original 2004 European chart-topper "Dragostea din tei," the catchy tune many in the United States call the "Numa Numa" song.

For Dan Bălan, songwriter and O-Zone lead singer, hearing a cover of the song is nothing new. Since the song first hit the charts in 2004, Bălan has greenlighted numerous other bands' takes on "Dragostea din tei" — meaning "love of the lime tree" — in about a dozen languages. "There were five versions of the same song in the top 20" on the French music charts concurrently, Bălan said. "Never in the history of music has something like that happened."

Yet the single never made a successful transition stateside, seeing very limited radio play and lukewarm sales. Bălan blames Ultra Records, the independent electronic dance label O-Zone signed to for U.S. distribution. "The record label didn't do anything," he said. "They couldn't really push it."

Gary Brolsma, the "Numa Numa" guy. (Photo: Mark Milian / Los Angeles Times)

But the song found its American audience in December 2004 when Gary Brolsma, a suburban kid just out of high school, posted a video of him dancing to the song on Newgrounds. The clip has since received more than 12 million hits on the user-submitted videos and games site. And another 19 million on YouTube. "The success of my song is because of Gary," Bălan said.

Still, Bălan sees it more as a missed opportunity than a triumph. "The moment when Gary came with this phenomenon on the Internet, there was a time to break" into the American mainstream, he said. "Now everyone is thinking about viral marketing."

Of course, "marketing" was the last thing on Brolsma's mind when he plugged in his Web-cam and began filming himself pumping fists to the track — one he, himself, happened upon thanks to another online video. "I was just fooling around in my room," he said. "It was just a random song I found, and I thought it would be really funny."

In the four years when many of his Saddle Brook, N.J., classmates were away at college, Brolsma, 22, has been making cameos on music videos for Weezer and the Barenaked Ladies and on TV shows like the War at Home and South Park.

Brolsma, a big fan of the foul-mouthed cartoon, was shocked when he saw himself caricatured on an episode of South Park, and his avatar subsequently mauled by Sneezing Panda's mother. Despite the writers not approaching him beforehand about the characteristically offensive portrayal, Brolsma loved the episode. "That was awesome," he said.

He occasionally gets recognized at movie theaters, but despite all the exposure, Brolsma isn't hounded when he walks down the street. "A lot of people still don't think I'm American," he said. "They think I'm actually singing it."

So, no, he isn't singing in the "Numa" video, but he is the lead vocalist for a solo project and a young rock band, called Nonetheless, which is preparing to record a studio record. "I am in a band, and ironically I am the singer," Brolsma said.

Bălan and his now defunct European pop band have never toured in the United States, but he's working on an album in New York, so maybe we'll see him onstage soon. Perhaps Brolsma and his garage rockers will join him. "Maybe we would do something for fun," Bălan said.

— Mark Milian

Bryan Levi, creator of the "Jesus shot" video. (Photo credit: Korina Schlieper)

Video game publishers generally don't get excited when a customer publicizes a programming glitch in a software release because "it exposes a problem," said EA Sports president Peter Moore. But Bryan Levi got paid for it.

Levi, who goes by the handle Levinator25 on YouTube, recorded the video we wrote about Friday, showing a glitch in the Tiger Woods '08 game.

Since he posted the "Jesus shot" clip last year, it received only a few comments and about 50,000 views -- not very popular by YouTube standards. It wasn't even Levi's most watched video -- that honor goes to a clip of his friend chugging bottles of Ipecac.

But since the EA Sports parody video went viral, now with more than a million hits, it has sent a flurry of viewers to Levi's original video, leaving comments of congratulations and claims that he got "owned" by the game publisher's rebuttal.

"A lot of people are saying that I got owned by them, but I kind of laugh at that because I think it's pretty cool," Levi said.

Neither party took offense to the mutual jabs. In fact, both Levi and EA's Moore could agree on one thing: They think the whole situation is very funny.

"I thought other people would find it humorous, so why not?" Levi said. "And now they got me back. They told me they loved my video."

Levi was really excited to see the golf pro acknowledge and act out his video. Tiger Woods "is always very willing to do something like this," Moore said. "He realizes that marketing is changing."

Woods didn't stop at walking on water either. On Saturday the EA Sports YouTube channel was updated with another video, this one showing the golfer playing with a Rubik's cube and then putting the toy into a hole a few yards away. "Square Peg, Round Hole" has yet to feel the viral buzz, however, with just shy of 2,000 hits since it hit the Web.

Levi, a 21-year-old film and video student at Penn State, wouldn't disclose the amount of money he was paid for giving Wieden+Kennedy, EA's ad agency, the rights to worldwide use of his video, but the video gamer did say he hopes to score a free copy of the new Tiger Woods game in stores Tuesday.

He also plans to continue shooting and posting videos to his YouTube channel once he's able to buy a new video camera -- his old one is broken.

But Levi shouldn't have to wait long. His check should be on the way.

-- Mark Milian

It's been a busy week for viral marketing on YouTube.

On Monday Samsung hit us with a clever short disguised as an "unboxing" video (a trend where fans and bloggers record themselves opening their new gadgets for the first time). The spin on the often anticlimactic genre was the parade of a miniature marching band and baton-twirling ladies that sprang forth from the high-tech box. It led to a pyrotechnic-laden unveiling of Samsung's new Omni i900 cellphone, which looks and acts a lot like Apple's wildly popular iPhone.

To produce and market the video, Samsung employed the U.K.-based Viral Factory. The two have partnered regularly in the last 18 months, and the Samsung Omnia (i900) Unboxing video was the ninth since the companies first hooked up, according to an e-mail from Toni Smith, managing director for the Viral Factory.

When Samsung asks the marketing firm to promote a product, the guidelines are few. "They give us a product (in this case the i900) and a task (in this case create buzz around the launch of the i900)," Smith wrote. "We then write, produce and seed the campaign."

The day after the Samsung video went online, Electronic Arts Inc.'s EA Sports posted a video response to a fan who had poked fun at a programming glitch in one of its games. About a year ago, YouTube user Levinator25 posted a video highlighting an error in the EA Sports game Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08 that showed the Tiger Woods character standing on water, then slicing a golf ball into the hole. Levinator25 dubbed it "the Jesus shot."

EA Sports' response, recorded in a style similar to its Tiger Woods TV commercials, shows the actual golf pro walking onto a pond and performing the feat. The message that closes the video: "It's not a glitch. He's just that good."

The Portland, Ore.-based Wieden+Kennedy ad agency manages the viral efforts for Electronic Arts, one of the world's largest video game publishers. "We've done a lot of viral videos," said EA Sports President Peter Moore. "We believe we're reaching a younger audience than with network television."

And because there's not much involved in viral campaigns — beyond getting the OK from Tiger and then shooting and uploading the video — companies can score with successful advertisements without the costs of broadcasting them on primetime TV. Such campaigns aren't "something you can manufacture," Moore said. "You can't actually push it, because [savvy Web surfers] reject that."

So how do you create a successful viral promotion? "By making it good, and by making it relevant to the target audience," Smith said in an e-mail. "This is very hard, as they're a tough bunch to please and the competition is huge."

The free exposure from high-profile blogs, such as Engadget for the Samsung video and golf blogs for the Tiger Woods clip, certainly can't hurt. "We didn't pay to place the clip on these blogs (you can't), but they posted it because it's right for their audiences," Smith wrote.

The two videos also hit the front page of the popular social news website Digg a couple hours apart Wednesday — both submitted by the same user, badwithcomputer, who says he isn't getting any kickbacks either.

"Unfortunately, I won't be receiving a new Samsung phone or a copy of an EA game any time soon," he wrote in an instant messenger conversation. "That Samsung video had 3K views when I submitted it yesterday and now has over 200K and climbing. I feel like a huge Digg story really pushed that thing into going viral (getting a lot of views from Digg and getting picked up by other blogs)."

In three days the Tiger Woods video on YouTube has gotten 706,000 hits; Samsung has had 658,000 in four days.

"People pass it on," Moore said. "It's like pond scum."

Or like a virus.

— Mark Milian

Correction: The story originally stated that Electronic Arts does all of its viral marketing in-house. Wieden+Kennedy, the ad agency EA uses for its TV commercials, actually organized, and hired Los Angeles-based Motion Theory to shoot the Tiger Woods video.

Timothy Tackett before a music performance. (Photo credit: Maci Godiva)

My college professors always warned us to be careful what we publish on the Internet. As it turns out, Timothy Tackett never got that piece of advice.

If he had, he may have thought twice before posting a video to his MySpace page, showing him bathing in his employer's kitchen sink.

In the nearly four-minute video, Tackett, 25, who more famously goes by the alias Mr. Unstable, is seen basking in a sudsy utility sink in the back of the Xenia, Ohio, Burger King where he works. That is, used to work.

Just days after the video was posted, the company fired Tackett and four to five other employees working the graveyard shift, when the unsanitary hijinks was filmed, Tackett said.

Some say it's not unreasonable to assume someone at Burger King might search the Web for clips relating to the restaurant franchise and happen upon Tackett's posting.

Now increase those odds by 868,000 -- about the number of hits so far to the various versions on YouTube. Yes, the footage lives on even after MySpace removed it without Tackett's consent and has even spurred a few parodies, ranging from funny to confusing.

Burger King's reaction to seeing a seemingly nude employee -- even though he was wearing a Speedo, he assures -- bathing in the restaurant's sink, the same one used for washing dishes and utensils, isn't surprising. But Tackett argues the other employees on duty were punished unjustly. "None of these people had anything to do with the situation," he said. "I don't see what anybody could have done." Sadly, all is fair in YouTube and fast food.

Tackett stressed that the utility sink was thoroughly cleaned after his bath and is just as sanitary as most fast food joints -- which may not be saying much. The whole ordeal could have been avoided had the water at his apartment not been shut off that day, leaving him without a place to shower. But what's a guy to do when he needs to get ready for a music performance on his birthday?

Maybe it was fate. Tackett had been incubating a rap career for years, performing under pseudonyms like Ork-0, Dr. Orkgazm and currently Mr. Unstable. This incident provided the 15 minutes of fame he needed to get his name off the ground, and Tackett is hoping to ride the wave to stardom. "I'm trying not to be 'the Burger King guy that bathed in the sink,' " he said.

Tackett was incredibly difficult to reach for this interview, due to a relentless media blitz. In between performing, recording his new album and being interviewed on his local TV news and "radio stations from Florida to Canada," he lost his voice. "If I was a normal person, this would be horrible," he said. "But I do music, and I'm an extravagant guy anyway."

Though Tackett said he regrets the results of his actions and has advised people be careful what they record and post to the Internet, all the attention has provided "a little bit" of a boost to his music career, attracting new MySpace fans from places like Australia and Korea. Plus, he won't have to disassemble fryers at 3 a.m. anymore.

Now his Mr. Unstable music identity has become a sole source of income. "I was paying my bills already with CD money," he said. "But the Burger King money was my spending money, my spare change. It has just put me down where I have nothing extra." He is hoping his unusual style, topped off with a mohawk and rubber-banded hairdo his mother calls a "dreadhawk," and even more unusual music keep his career rolling.

Though Tackett says the bath wasn't a planned publicity stunt -- though it did turn out that way, he admits -- it wasn't completely spur of the moment either. He made sure to hose down the sink before jumping in a potentially unsanitary environment. "I worked on that for like an hour with boiling water," he said. "We cleaned the nasty Burger King stuff."

-- Mark Milian

More on the theme of kids taking over the Internet:  16-year-old Jordan Parrot wrote and directed an episode of real-live television. Parrot is an actor on the kid sketch show called "Say What?," which just signed a deal with the national cable network G4. Parrot's episode is a "Miami Vice" spoof called "Schoolyard Vice" (trailer below), wherein a detective duo busts an illicit (or rather, against-school-rules) candy ring. 

The trailer, which is infused with the requisite kiddie silliness you might see on a real playground, is pretty funny. And when you consider that a person this young was behind the shot selection and pacing (there's a great behind-the-scenes clip), it's all the more impressive. Parrot has been climbing through the ranks at Be, a kind of talent agency incubator and production studio aimed exclusively at kids. 

I'm liking this kids-take-over-the-world thing. Imagine if war were suddenly conducted only with squirt guns and water balloons; bikes and skateboards replaced cars and motorcycles; and video games became government-subsidized. In fact, I see no reason not to hand over the reins to the tween set right now.  It may be our last good chance.

On Tuesday, a judge in the Viacom vs. Google/YouTube copyright case ordered Google to give up detailed logs of users' search behavior.

As Wired's Threat Level puts it: "Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users' names and IP addresses." 

Viacom's hope is to show that users watch so many infringing videos that YouTube can be seen as nothing more than a hive of copyright violations and piracy. One question, however, is why Viacom needs access to the identities of YouTube users, many of whom are young people and even children. When they know peoples' private viewing habits, what will they do with the information?  Remember this?

I know I don't want anyone seeing what I watch on YouTube -- any more than I want people to know what I'm searching on Google, watching on TV, or listening to on the radio.  YouTube users are simply using a video system that's available free online. 

Suddenly that transgression has landed their private information in the hands of a sue-happy multinational media company.  That doesn't seem right.  And according to the EFF, it may not even be legal:  As Congress recognized [in the Video Privacy Protections Act], your selection of videos to watch is deeply personal and deserves the strongest protection.

Viacom is not going to be making a lot of friends with this, nor is it presenting a friendly image to the  young people who are, increasingly, its target demographic.  The company is so locked into this crusade that it can't even see what it's doing to itself.

image courtesy loan samelli

For people interested in early details of YouTube history and some insight and color from its co-founder, Chad Hurley, check out this video from Liz Gannes at NewTeeVee.  Hurley gave a speech at the Startup2Startup dinner last week, and talked about the founding of the site, how it initially had 8 people working on it for free out of a room at Sequoia, and how baby YouTube quickly started getting and serving more videos than it had ever expected to.   Nice job, Liz.

Last week, someone in the online video business gave me a simple tip.

"Fred," the guy said.

"Fred?" I said.

"Yes," he said. "Kids love Fred."

I had not heard of Fred, much less known that kids loved him. But that would swiftly end. As soon as I could, I searched for Fred on YouTube and found his video channel. There were plenty of videos, and I hunkered down to watch.

A warning before I continue: Fred is for immature audiences only. The following article may contain themes and language that are unsuitable for anyone over 16.

The first thing about Fred is that he brings new meaning to the word hyper. The fictional 6-year-old, invented and played by 14-year-old Nebraskan Lucas Cruikshank, is a fast-talking tyke with "temper problems," an absentee father and a propensity to screech if things don't go his way. If those traits aren't enough to dissuade you, Fred's voice is 'chipmunked,' raising it several octaves above Cruikshank's own to achieve, if not maximum verisimilitude, then certainly maximum annoyingness. Try to imagine a shrill, halting super-soprano bleating these lines from an episode called "Fred Goes Swimming":

"I'm ready to go inside the pool! Oh my God, it's cold. I love swimming. I love swimming! This pool is small. On TV I saw a pool that was really big . . . oh my God, there's a shark! I'm scared. Just kidding, it's just a toy shark. I got you!"

Doesn't sound like your cup of tea? That makes two of us. Let us say we are outnumbered; with nearly 250,000 subscribers, Fred's YouTube channel is the fourth most subscribed in the site's history. Meaning every time he posts a new video, nearly a quarter of a million people get notified.

Since he created his channel less than two months ago, Fred has racked up more subscribers than almost all of YouTube's old guard, passing up lonelygirl15, LisaNova, kevjumba, and sxephil. He's also got more subscribers than the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Soulja Boy, and oh yeah, CBS.
   

Prescient "Batman" episode nails the Obama-McCain race

Thanks to YouTube, the below video of Batman's televised mayoral debate with the Penguin, from the "Dizzoner the Penguin" episode of Adam West's 1966  "Batman," is gaining new currency.

The clip, first uploaded in early 2007, has been picked up by several political commentators and compared to recent debates between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama. 

Besides being an amusing clip on its own -- the great Burgess Meredith turns in a virtuoso performance as  the Bilious Bird -- viewers have noted some chuckle-worthy parallels between this fictional debate and the real thing. 

In last week's face-off, moderator Bob Schieffer asked the candidates about the smears and personal attacks that have become a significant part of the discourse as the campaign winds up. 

"I think the tone of this campaign could've been very different," said McCain at the time. "And the fact is it's gotten pretty tough, and I regret some of the negative aspects of both campaigns."

Likewise, the Penguin starts out humbly enough: "Friends and fellow citizens, I want to give you my solemn word that there will be no mudslinging in this campaign. ... I intend to stick to the issues." 

But with that disclaimer out of the way, the Penguin wastes no time in getting to his point. "Now what are the issues? There's only one issue: Batman!"

"I suggest that behind that mask, Batman is, in reality, a dangerous criminal. Why else does he wear a mask? Why else does he conceal his past? Would you think about that a moment, my friends? Whenever you've seen Batman, who's he with? Criminals, that's who!"

McCain makes a similar pivot, this time to the controversial subjects of Obama's association with former radical Bill Ayers, a founder of Weather Underground who McCain called a "washed up terrorist."

"Senator Obama chose to associate with a guy who in 2001 said he wished he'd bombed more." McCain then draws links between Obama and the community organization ACORN, which, he says, is "maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."

It's probably a comment on the predictability of this presidential campaign that it was anticipated by a 40-year-old TV show populated by wacky caricatures. Same hack script, same hack channel.

Unfortunately, Penguin's brilliant plan hits a snag. Afraid that his lead in the polls is shrinking, he kidnaps the Board of Elections so the vote cannot be certified. This scheme backfires, and Batman turns up to rescue the hostages ("Pengy, you said we associated with criminals.  So ... here we are." BOOM! POW! WHAMM!). 

Batman is elected but resigns to allow the current mayor to keep his position. But not before one of the major parties calls to offer him the presidential candidacy for 1968 -- exactly 40 Novembers ago. 

Exclaims Robin: "Bulging ballot boxes, Batman, that was some offer!"   

-- David Sarno

Rihanna at the 2008 VMAs. (Photo: WireImage)

Those who watched the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday might have done a double take when a figure rose from the stage floor, singing a familiar "mai ai hee" harmony — the same used in the wildly popular "Numa Numa" Internet video.

But the sunglasses-wearing musician belting out the tune amidst bright lights, smoke and applause wasn't the pudgy star of the popular YouTube video or the frontman who penned the Romanian pop song. It was someone with a video that trumps the popularity of even "Numa Numa" itself, with the No. 5 all-time most-viewed spot on YouTube: pop superstar Rihanna.

The "Umbrella" singer collaborated with rapper T.I. on "Live Your Life," the second single from his album "Paper Trail," which hits stores at the end of the month. The track opens and closes with a sample from the original 2004 European chart-topper "Dragostea din tei," the catchy tune many in the United States call the "Numa Numa" song.

For Dan Bălan, songwriter and O-Zone lead singer, hearing a cover of the song is nothing new. Since the song first hit the charts in 2004, Bălan has greenlighted numerous other bands' takes on "Dragostea din tei" — meaning "love of the lime tree" — in about a dozen languages. "There were five versions of the same song in the top 20" on the French music charts concurrently, Bălan said. "Never in the history of music has something like that happened."

Yet the single never made a successful transition stateside, seeing very limited radio play and lukewarm sales. Bălan blames Ultra Records, the independent electronic dance label O-Zone signed to for U.S. distribution. "The record label didn't do anything," he said. "They couldn't really push it."

Gary Brolsma, the "Numa Numa" guy. (Photo: Mark Milian / Los Angeles Times)

But the song found its American audience in December 2004 when Gary Brolsma, a suburban kid just out of high school, posted a video of him dancing to the song on Newgrounds. The clip has since received more than 12 million hits on the user-submitted videos and games site. And another 19 million on YouTube. "The success of my song is because of Gary," Bălan said.

Still, Bălan sees it more as a missed opportunity than a triumph. "The moment when Gary came with this phenomenon on the Internet, there was a time to break" into the American mainstream, he said. "Now everyone is thinking about viral marketing."

Of course, "marketing" was the last thing on Brolsma's mind when he plugged in his Web-cam and began filming himself pumping fists to the track — one he, himself, happened upon thanks to another online video. "I was just fooling around in my room," he said. "It was just a random song I found, and I thought it would be really funny."

In the four years when many of his Saddle Brook, N.J., classmates were away at college, Brolsma, 22, has been making cameos on music videos for Weezer and the Barenaked Ladies and on TV shows like the War at Home and South Park.

Brolsma, a big fan of the foul-mouthed cartoon, was shocked when he saw himself caricatured on an episode of South Park, and his avatar subsequently mauled by Sneezing Panda's mother. Despite the writers not approaching him beforehand about the characteristically offensive portrayal, Brolsma loved the episode. "That was awesome," he said.

He occasionally gets recognized at movie theaters, but despite all the exposure, Brolsma isn't hounded when he walks down the street. "A lot of people still don't think I'm American," he said. "They think I'm actually singing it."

So, no, he isn't singing in the "Numa" video, but he is the lead vocalist for a solo project and a young rock band, called Nonetheless, which is preparing to record a studio record. "I am in a band, and ironically I am the singer," Brolsma said.

Bălan and his now defunct European pop band have never toured in the United States, but he's working on an album in New York, so maybe we'll see him onstage soon. Perhaps Brolsma and his garage rockers will join him. "Maybe we would do something for fun," Bălan said.

— Mark Milian

Bryan Levi, creator of the "Jesus shot" video. (Photo credit: Korina Schlieper)

Video game publishers generally don't get excited when a customer publicizes a programming glitch in a software release because "it exposes a problem," said EA Sports president Peter Moore. But Bryan Levi got paid for it.

Levi, who goes by the handle Levinator25 on YouTube, recorded the video we wrote about Friday, showing a glitch in the Tiger Woods '08 game.

Since he posted the "Jesus shot" clip last year, it received only a few comments and about 50,000 views -- not very popular by YouTube standards. It wasn't even Levi's most watched video -- that honor goes to a clip of his friend chugging bottles of Ipecac.

But since the EA Sports parody video went viral, now with more than a million hits, it has sent a flurry of viewers to Levi's original video, leaving comments of congratulations and claims that he got "owned" by the game publisher's rebuttal.

"A lot of people are saying that I got owned by them, but I kind of laugh at that because I think it's pretty cool," Levi said.

Neither party took offense to the mutual jabs. In fact, both Levi and EA's Moore could agree on one thing: They think the whole situation is very funny.

"I thought other people would find it humorous, so why not?" Levi said. "And now they got me back. They told me they loved my video."

Levi was really excited to see the golf pro acknowledge and act out his video. Tiger Woods "is always very willing to do something like this," Moore said. "He realizes that marketing is changing."

Woods didn't stop at walking on water either. On Saturday the EA Sports YouTube channel was updated with another video, this one showing the golfer playing with a Rubik's cube and then putting the toy into a hole a few yards away. "Square Peg, Round Hole" has yet to feel the viral buzz, however, with just shy of 2,000 hits since it hit the Web.

Levi, a 21-year-old film and video student at Penn State, wouldn't disclose the amount of money he was paid for giving Wieden+Kennedy, EA's ad agency, the rights to worldwide use of his video, but the video gamer did say he hopes to score a free copy of the new Tiger Woods game in stores Tuesday.

He also plans to continue shooting and posting videos to his YouTube channel once he's able to buy a new video camera -- his old one is broken.

But Levi shouldn't have to wait long. His check should be on the way.

-- Mark Milian

It's been a busy week for viral marketing on YouTube.

On Monday Samsung hit us with a clever short disguised as an "unboxing" video (a trend where fans and bloggers record themselves opening their new gadgets for the first time). The spin on the often anticlimactic genre was the parade of a miniature marching band and baton-twirling ladies that sprang forth from the high-tech box. It led to a pyrotechnic-laden unveiling of Samsung's new Omni i900 cellphone, which looks and acts a lot like Apple's wildly popular iPhone.

To produce and market the video, Samsung employed the U.K.-based Viral Factory. The two have partnered regularly in the last 18 months, and the Samsung Omnia (i900) Unboxing video was the ninth since the companies first hooked up, according to an e-mail from Toni Smith, managing director for the Viral Factory.

When Samsung asks the marketing firm to promote a product, the guidelines are few. "They give us a product (in this case the i900) and a task (in this case create buzz around the launch of the i900)," Smith wrote. "We then write, produce and seed the campaign."

The day after the Samsung video went online, Electronic Arts Inc.'s EA Sports posted a video response to a fan who had poked fun at a programming glitch in one of its games. About a year ago, YouTube user Levinator25 posted a video highlighting an error in the EA Sports game Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08 that showed the Tiger Woods character standing on water, then slicing a golf ball into the hole. Levinator25 dubbed it "the Jesus shot."

EA Sports' response, recorded in a style similar to its Tiger Woods TV commercials, shows the actual golf pro walking onto a pond and performing the feat. The message that closes the video: "It's not a glitch. He's just that good."

The Portland, Ore.-based Wieden+Kennedy ad agency manages the viral efforts for Electronic Arts, one of the world's largest video game publishers. "We've done a lot of viral videos," said EA Sports President Peter Moore. "We believe we're reaching a younger audience than with network television."

And because there's not much involved in viral campaigns — beyond getting the OK from Tiger and then shooting and uploading the video — companies can score with successful advertisements without the costs of broadcasting them on primetime TV. Such campaigns aren't "something you can manufacture," Moore said. "You can't actually push it, because [savvy Web surfers] reject that."

So how do you create a successful viral promotion? "By making it good, and by making it relevant to the target audience," Smith said in an e-mail. "This is very hard, as they're a tough bunch to please and the competition is huge."

The free exposure from high-profile blogs, such as Engadget for the Samsung video and golf blogs for the Tiger Woods clip, certainly can't hurt. "We didn't pay to place the clip on these blogs (you can't), but they posted it because it's right for their audiences," Smith wrote.

The two videos also hit the front page of the popular social news website Digg a couple hours apart Wednesday — both submitted by the same user, badwithcomputer, who says he isn't getting any kickbacks either.

"Unfortunately, I won't be receiving a new Samsung phone or a copy of an EA game any time soon," he wrote in an instant messenger conversation. "That Samsung video had 3K views when I submitted it yesterday and now has over 200K and climbing. I feel like a huge Digg story really pushed that thing into going viral (getting a lot of views from Digg and getting picked up by other blogs)."

In three days the Tiger Woods video on YouTube has gotten 706,000 hits; Samsung has had 658,000 in four days.

"People pass it on," Moore said. "It's like pond scum."

Or like a virus.

— Mark Milian

Correction: The story originally stated that Electronic Arts does all of its viral marketing in-house. Wieden+Kennedy, the ad agency EA uses for its TV commercials, actually organized, and hired Los Angeles-based Motion Theory to shoot the Tiger Woods video.

Timothy Tackett before a music performance. (Photo credit: Maci Godiva)

My college professors always warned us to be careful what we publish on the Internet. As it turns out, Timothy Tackett never got that piece of advice.

If he had, he may have thought twice before posting a video to his MySpace page, showing him bathing in his employer's kitchen sink.

In the nearly four-minute video, Tackett, 25, who more famously goes by the alias Mr. Unstable, is seen basking in a sudsy utility sink in the back of the Xenia, Ohio, Burger King where he works. That is, used to work.

Just days after the video was posted, the company fired Tackett and four to five other employees working the graveyard shift, when the unsanitary hijinks was filmed, Tackett said.

Some say it's not unreasonable to assume someone at Burger King might search the Web for clips relating to the restaurant franchise and happen upon Tackett's posting.

Now increase those odds by 868,000 -- about the number of hits so far to the various versions on YouTube. Yes, the footage lives on even after MySpace removed it without Tackett's consent and has even spurred a few parodies, ranging from funny to confusing.

Burger King's reaction to seeing a seemingly nude employee -- even though he was wearing a Speedo, he assures -- bathing in the restaurant's sink, the same one used for washing dishes and utensils, isn't surprising. But Tackett argues the other employees on duty were punished unjustly. "None of these people had anything to do with the situation," he said. "I don't see what anybody could have done." Sadly, all is fair in YouTube and fast food.

Tackett stressed that the utility sink was thoroughly cleaned after his bath and is just as sanitary as most fast food joints -- which may not be saying much. The whole ordeal could have been avoided had the water at his apartment not been shut off that day, leaving him without a place to shower. But what's a guy to do when he needs to get ready for a music performance on his birthday?

Maybe it was fate. Tackett had been incubating a rap career for years, performing under pseudonyms like Ork-0, Dr. Orkgazm and currently Mr. Unstable. This incident provided the 15 minutes of fame he needed to get his name off the ground, and Tackett is hoping to ride the wave to stardom. "I'm trying not to be 'the Burger King guy that bathed in the sink,' " he said.

Tackett was incredibly difficult to reach for this interview, due to a relentless media blitz. In between performing, recording his new album and being interviewed on his local TV news and "radio stations from Florida to Canada," he lost his voice. "If I was a normal person, this would be horrible," he said. "But I do music, and I'm an extravagant guy anyway."

Though Tackett said he regrets the results of his actions and has advised people be careful what they record and post to the Internet, all the attention has provided "a little bit" of a boost to his music career, attracting new MySpace fans from places like Australia and Korea. Plus, he won't have to disassemble fryers at 3 a.m. anymore.

Now his Mr. Unstable music identity has become a sole source of income. "I was paying my bills already with CD money," he said. "But the Burger King money was my spending money, my spare change. It has just put me down where I have nothing extra." He is hoping his unusual style, topped off with a mohawk and rubber-banded hairdo his mother calls a "dreadhawk," and even more unusual music keep his career rolling.

Though Tackett says the bath wasn't a planned publicity stunt -- though it did turn out that way, he admits -- it wasn't completely spur of the moment either. He made sure to hose down the sink before jumping in a potentially unsanitary environment. "I worked on that for like an hour with boiling water," he said. "We cleaned the nasty Burger King stuff."

-- Mark Milian

More on the theme of kids taking over the Internet:  16-year-old Jordan Parrot wrote and directed an episode of real-live television. Parrot is an actor on the kid sketch show called "Say What?," which just signed a deal with the national cable network G4. Parrot's episode is a "Miami Vice" spoof called "Schoolyard Vice" (trailer below), wherein a detective duo busts an illicit (or rather, against-school-rules) candy ring. 

The trailer, which is infused with the requisite kiddie silliness you might see on a real playground, is pretty funny. And when you consider that a person this young was behind the shot selection and pacing (there's a great behind-the-scenes clip), it's all the more impressive. Parrot has been climbing through the ranks at Be, a kind of talent agency incubator and production studio aimed exclusively at kids. 

I'm liking this kids-take-over-the-world thing. Imagine if war were suddenly conducted only with squirt guns and water balloons; bikes and skateboards replaced cars and motorcycles; and video games became government-subsidized. In fact, I see no reason not to hand over the reins to the tween set right now.  It may be our last good chance.

On Tuesday, a judge in the Viacom vs. Google/YouTube copyright case ordered Google to give up detailed logs of users' search behavior.

As Wired's Threat Level puts it: "Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users' names and IP addresses." 

Viacom's hope is to show that users watch so many infringing videos that YouTube can be seen as nothing more than a hive of copyright violations and piracy. One question, however, is why Viacom needs access to the identities of YouTube users, many of whom are young people and even children. When they know peoples' private viewing habits, what will they do with the information?  Remember this?

I know I don't want anyone seeing what I watch on YouTube -- any more than I want people to know what I'm searching on Google, watching on TV, or listening to on the radio.  YouTube users are simply using a video system that's available free online. 

Suddenly that transgression has landed their private information in the hands of a sue-happy multinational media company.  That doesn't seem right.  And according to the EFF, it may not even be legal:  As Congress recognized [in the Video Privacy Protections Act], your selection of videos to watch is deeply personal and deserves the strongest protection.

Viacom is not going to be making a lot of friends with this, nor is it presenting a friendly image to the  young people who are, increasingly, its target demographic.  The company is so locked into this crusade that it can't even see what it's doing to itself.

image courtesy loan samelli

For people interested in early details of YouTube history and some insight and color from its co-founder, Chad Hurley, check out this video from Liz Gannes at NewTeeVee.  Hurley gave a speech at the Startup2Startup dinner last week, and talked about the founding of the site, how it initially had 8 people working on it for free out of a room at Sequoia, and how baby YouTube quickly started getting and serving more videos than it had ever expected to.   Nice job, Liz.

Last week, someone in the online video business gave me a simple tip.

"Fred," the guy said.

"Fred?" I said.

"Yes," he said. "Kids love Fred."

I had not heard of Fred, much less known that kids loved him. But that would swiftly end. As soon as I could, I searched for Fred on YouTube and found his video channel. There were plenty of videos, and I hunkered down to watch.

A warning before I continue: Fred is for immature audiences only. The following article may contain themes and language that are unsuitable for anyone over 16.

The first thing about Fred is that he brings new meaning to the word hyper. The fictional 6-year-old, invented and played by 14-year-old Nebraskan Lucas Cruikshank, is a fast-talking tyke with "temper problems," an absentee father and a propensity to screech if things don't go his way. If those traits aren't enough to dissuade you, Fred's voice is 'chipmunked,' raising it several octaves above Cruikshank's own to achieve, if not maximum verisimilitude, then certainly maximum annoyingness. Try to imagine a shrill, halting super-soprano bleating these lines from an episode called "Fred Goes Swimming":

"I'm ready to go inside the pool! Oh my God, it's cold. I love swimming. I love swimming! This pool is small. On TV I saw a pool that was really big . . . oh my God, there's a shark! I'm scared. Just kidding, it's just a toy shark. I got you!"

Doesn't sound like your cup of tea? That makes two of us. Let us say we are outnumbered; with nearly 250,000 subscribers, Fred's YouTube channel is the fourth most subscribed in the site's history. Meaning every time he posts a new video, nearly a quarter of a million people get notified.

Since he created his channel less than two months ago, Fred has racked up more subscribers than almost all of YouTube's old guard, passing up lonelygirl15, LisaNova, kevjumba, and sxephil. He's also got more subscribers than the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Soulja Boy, and oh yeah, CBS.
   

'Numa Numa' kid and Rihanna and T.I.'s hyper-viral new song

Rihanna at the 2008 VMAs. (Photo: WireImage)

Those who watched the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday might have done a double take when a figure rose from the stage floor, singing a familiar "mai ai hee" harmony — the same used in the wildly popular "Numa Numa" Internet video.

But the sunglasses-wearing musician belting out the tune amidst bright lights, smoke and applause wasn't the pudgy star of the popular YouTube video or the frontman who penned the Romanian pop song. It was someone with a video that trumps the popularity of even "Numa Numa" itself, with the No. 5 all-time most-viewed spot on YouTube: pop superstar Rihanna.

The "Umbrella" singer collaborated with rapper T.I. on "Live Your Life," the second single from his album "Paper Trail," which hits stores at the end of the month. The track opens and closes with a sample from the original 2004 European chart-topper "Dragostea din tei," the catchy tune many in the United States call the "Numa Numa" song.

For Dan Bălan, songwriter and O-Zone lead singer, hearing a cover of the song is nothing new. Since the song first hit the charts in 2004, Bălan has greenlighted numerous other bands' takes on "Dragostea din tei" — meaning "love of the lime tree" — in about a dozen languages. "There were five versions of the same song in the top 20" on the French music charts concurrently, Bălan said. "Never in the history of music has something like that happened."

Yet the single never made a successful transition stateside, seeing very limited radio play and lukewarm sales. Bălan blames Ultra Records, the independent electronic dance label O-Zone signed to for U.S. distribution. "The record label didn't do anything," he said. "They couldn't really push it."

Gary Brolsma, the "Numa Numa" guy. (Photo: Mark Milian / Los Angeles Times)

But the song found its American audience in December 2004 when Gary Brolsma, a suburban kid just out of high school, posted a video of him dancing to the song on Newgrounds. The clip has since received more than 12 million hits on the user-submitted videos and games site. And another 19 million on YouTube. "The success of my song is because of Gary," Bălan said.

Still, Bălan sees it more as a missed opportunity than a triumph. "The moment when Gary came with this phenomenon on the Internet, there was a time to break" into the American mainstream, he said. "Now everyone is thinking about viral marketing."

Of course, "marketing" was the last thing on Brolsma's mind when he plugged in his Web-cam and began filming himself pumping fists to the track — one he, himself, happened upon thanks to another online video. "I was just fooling around in my room," he said. "It was just a random song I found, and I thought it would be really funny."

In the four years when many of his Saddle Brook, N.J., classmates were away at college, Brolsma, 22, has been making cameos on music videos for Weezer and the Barenaked Ladies and on TV shows like the War at Home and South Park.

Brolsma, a big fan of the foul-mouthed cartoon, was shocked when he saw himself caricatured on an episode of South Park, and his avatar subsequently mauled by Sneezing Panda's mother. Despite the writers not approaching him beforehand about the characteristically offensive portrayal, Brolsma loved the episode. "That was awesome," he said.

He occasionally gets recognized at movie theaters, but despite all the exposure, Brolsma isn't hounded when he walks down the street. "A lot of people still don't think I'm American," he said. "They think I'm actually singing it."

So, no, he isn't singing in the "Numa" video, but he is the lead vocalist for a solo project and a young rock band, called Nonetheless, which is preparing to record a studio record. "I am in a band, and ironically I am the singer," Brolsma said.

Bălan and his now defunct European pop band have never toured in the United States, but he's working on an album in New York, so maybe we'll see him onstage soon. Perhaps Brolsma and his garage rockers will join him. "Maybe we would do something for fun," Bălan said.

— Mark Milian

Bryan Levi, creator of the "Jesus shot" video. (Photo credit: Korina Schlieper)

Video game publishers generally don't get excited when a customer publicizes a programming glitch in a software release because "it exposes a problem," said EA Sports president Peter Moore. But Bryan Levi got paid for it.

Levi, who goes by the handle Levinator25 on YouTube, recorded the video we wrote about Friday, showing a glitch in the Tiger Woods '08 game.

Since he posted the "Jesus shot" clip last year, it received only a few comments and about 50,000 views -- not very popular by YouTube standards. It wasn't even Levi's most watched video -- that honor goes to a clip of his friend chugging bottles of Ipecac.

But since the EA Sports parody video went viral, now with more than a million hits, it has sent a flurry of viewers to Levi's original video, leaving comments of congratulations and claims that he got "owned" by the game publisher's rebuttal.

"A lot of people are saying that I got owned by them, but I kind of laugh at that because I think it's pretty cool," Levi said.

Neither party took offense to the mutual jabs. In fact, both Levi and EA's Moore could agree on one thing: They think the whole situation is very funny.

"I thought other people would find it humorous, so why not?" Levi said. "And now they got me back. They told me they loved my video."

Levi was really excited to see the golf pro acknowledge and act out his video. Tiger Woods "is always very willing to do something like this," Moore said. "He realizes that marketing is changing."

Woods didn't stop at walking on water either. On Saturday the EA Sports YouTube channel was updated with another video, this one showing the golfer playing with a Rubik's cube and then putting the toy into a hole a few yards away. "Square Peg, Round Hole" has yet to feel the viral buzz, however, with just shy of 2,000 hits since it hit the Web.

Levi, a 21-year-old film and video student at Penn State, wouldn't disclose the amount of money he was paid for giving Wieden+Kennedy, EA's ad agency, the rights to worldwide use of his video, but the video gamer did say he hopes to score a free copy of the new Tiger Woods game in stores Tuesday.

He also plans to continue shooting and posting videos to his YouTube channel once he's able to buy a new video camera -- his old one is broken.

But Levi shouldn't have to wait long. His check should be on the way.

-- Mark Milian

It's been a busy week for viral marketing on YouTube.

On Monday Samsung hit us with a clever short disguised as an "unboxing" video (a trend where fans and bloggers record themselves opening their new gadgets for the first time). The spin on the often anticlimactic genre was the parade of a miniature marching band and baton-twirling ladies that sprang forth from the high-tech box. It led to a pyrotechnic-laden unveiling of Samsung's new Omni i900 cellphone, which looks and acts a lot like Apple's wildly popular iPhone.

To produce and market the video, Samsung employed the U.K.-based Viral Factory. The two have partnered regularly in the last 18 months, and the Samsung Omnia (i900) Unboxing video was the ninth since the companies first hooked up, according to an e-mail from Toni Smith, managing director for the Viral Factory.

When Samsung asks the marketing firm to promote a product, the guidelines are few. "They give us a product (in this case the i900) and a task (in this case create buzz around the launch of the i900)," Smith wrote. "We then write, produce and seed the campaign."

The day after the Samsung video went online, Electronic Arts Inc.'s EA Sports posted a video response to a fan who had poked fun at a programming glitch in one of its games. About a year ago, YouTube user Levinator25 posted a video highlighting an error in the EA Sports game Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08 that showed the Tiger Woods character standing on water, then slicing a golf ball into the hole. Levinator25 dubbed it "the Jesus shot."

EA Sports' response, recorded in a style similar to its Tiger Woods TV commercials, shows the actual golf pro walking onto a pond and performing the feat. The message that closes the video: "It's not a glitch. He's just that good."

The Portland, Ore.-based Wieden+Kennedy ad agency manages the viral efforts for Electronic Arts, one of the world's largest video game publishers. "We've done a lot of viral videos," said EA Sports President Peter Moore. "We believe we're reaching a younger audience than with network television."

And because there's not much involved in viral campaigns — beyond getting the OK from Tiger and then shooting and uploading the video — companies can score with successful advertisements without the costs of broadcasting them on primetime TV. Such campaigns aren't "something you can manufacture," Moore said. "You can't actually push it, because [savvy Web surfers] reject that."

So how do you create a successful viral promotion? "By making it good, and by making it relevant to the target audience," Smith said in an e-mail. "This is very hard, as they're a tough bunch to please and the competition is huge."

The free exposure from high-profile blogs, such as Engadget for the Samsung video and golf blogs for the Tiger Woods clip, certainly can't hurt. "We didn't pay to place the clip on these blogs (you can't), but they posted it because it's right for their audiences," Smith wrote.

The two videos also hit the front page of the popular social news website Digg a couple hours apart Wednesday — both submitted by the same user, badwithcomputer, who says he isn't getting any kickbacks either.

"Unfortunately, I won't be receiving a new Samsung phone or a copy of an EA game any time soon," he wrote in an instant messenger conversation. "That Samsung video had 3K views when I submitted it yesterday and now has over 200K and climbing. I feel like a huge Digg story really pushed that thing into going viral (getting a lot of views from Digg and getting picked up by other blogs)."

In three days the Tiger Woods video on YouTube has gotten 706,000 hits; Samsung has had 658,000 in four days.

"People pass it on," Moore said. "It's like pond scum."

Or like a virus.

— Mark Milian

Correction: The story originally stated that Electronic Arts does all of its viral marketing in-house. Wieden+Kennedy, the ad agency EA uses for its TV commercials, actually organized, and hired Los Angeles-based Motion Theory to shoot the Tiger Woods video.

Timothy Tackett before a music performance. (Photo credit: Maci Godiva)

My college professors always warned us to be careful what we publish on the Internet. As it turns out, Timothy Tackett never got that piece of advice.

If he had, he may have thought twice before posting a video to his MySpace page, showing him bathing in his employer's kitchen sink.

In the nearly four-minute video, Tackett, 25, who more famously goes by the alias Mr. Unstable, is seen basking in a sudsy utility sink in the back of the Xenia, Ohio, Burger King where he works. That is, used to work.

Just days after the video was posted, the company fired Tackett and four to five other employees working the graveyard shift, when the unsanitary hijinks was filmed, Tackett said.

Some say it's not unreasonable to assume someone at Burger King might search the Web for clips relating to the restaurant franchise and happen upon Tackett's posting.

Now increase those odds by 868,000 -- about the number of hits so far to the various versions on YouTube. Yes, the footage lives on even after MySpace removed it without Tackett's consent and has even spurred a few parodies, ranging from funny to confusing.

Burger King's reaction to seeing a seemingly nude employee -- even though he was wearing a Speedo, he assures -- bathing in the restaurant's sink, the same one used for washing dishes and utensils, isn't surprising. But Tackett argues the other employees on duty were punished unjustly. "None of these people had anything to do with the situation," he said. "I don't see what anybody could have done." Sadly, all is fair in YouTube and fast food.

Tackett stressed that the utility sink was thoroughly cleaned after his bath and is just as sanitary as most fast food joints -- which may not be saying much. The whole ordeal could have been avoided had the water at his apartment not been shut off that day, leaving him without a place to shower. But what's a guy to do when he needs to get ready for a music performance on his birthday?

Maybe it was fate. Tackett had been incubating a rap career for years, performing under pseudonyms like Ork-0, Dr. Orkgazm and currently Mr. Unstable. This incident provided the 15 minutes of fame he needed to get his name off the ground, and Tackett is hoping to ride the wave to stardom. "I'm trying not to be 'the Burger King guy that bathed in the sink,' " he said.

Tackett was incredibly difficult to reach for this interview, due to a relentless media blitz. In between performing, recording his new album and being interviewed on his local TV news and "radio stations from Florida to Canada," he lost his voice. "If I was a normal person, this would be horrible," he said. "But I do music, and I'm an extravagant guy anyway."

Though Tackett said he regrets the results of his actions and has advised people be careful what they record and post to the Internet, all the attention has provided "a little bit" of a boost to his music career, attracting new MySpace fans from places like Australia and Korea. Plus, he won't have to disassemble fryers at 3 a.m. anymore.

Now his Mr. Unstable music identity has become a sole source of income. "I was paying my bills already with CD money," he said. "But the Burger King money was my spending money, my spare change. It has just put me down where I have nothing extra." He is hoping his unusual style, topped off with a mohawk and rubber-banded hairdo his mother calls a "dreadhawk," and even more unusual music keep his career rolling.

Though Tackett says the bath wasn't a planned publicity stunt -- though it did turn out that way, he admits -- it wasn't completely spur of the moment either. He made sure to hose down the sink before jumping in a potentially unsanitary environment. "I worked on that for like an hour with boiling water," he said. "We cleaned the nasty Burger King stuff."

-- Mark Milian

More on the theme of kids taking over the Internet:  16-year-old Jordan Parrot wrote and directed an episode of real-live television. Parrot is an actor on the kid sketch show called "Say What?," which just signed a deal with the national cable network G4. Parrot's episode is a "Miami Vice" spoof called "Schoolyard Vice" (trailer below), wherein a detective duo busts an illicit (or rather, against-school-rules) candy ring. 

The trailer, which is infused with the requisite kiddie silliness you might see on a real playground, is pretty funny. And when you consider that a person this young was behind the shot selection and pacing (there's a great behind-the-scenes clip), it's all the more impressive. Parrot has been climbing through the ranks at Be, a kind of talent agency incubator and production studio aimed exclusively at kids. 

I'm liking this kids-take-over-the-world thing. Imagine if war were suddenly conducted only with squirt guns and water balloons; bikes and skateboards replaced cars and motorcycles; and video games became government-subsidized. In fact, I see no reason not to hand over the reins to the tween set right now.  It may be our last good chance.

On Tuesday, a judge in the Viacom vs. Google/YouTube copyright case ordered Google to give up detailed logs of users' search behavior.

As Wired's Threat Level puts it: "Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users' names and IP addresses." 

Viacom's hope is to show that users watch so many infringing videos that YouTube can be seen as nothing more than a hive of copyright violations and piracy. One question, however, is why Viacom needs access to the identities of YouTube users, many of whom are young people and even children. When they know peoples' private viewing habits, what will they do with the information?  Remember this?

I know I don't want anyone seeing what I watch on YouTube -- any more than I want people to know what I'm searching on Google, watching on TV, or listening to on the radio.  YouTube users are simply using a video system that's available free online. 

Suddenly that transgression has landed their private information in the hands of a sue-happy multinational media company.  That doesn't seem right.  And according to the EFF, it may not even be legal:  As Congress recognized [in the Video Privacy Protections Act], your selection of videos to watch is deeply personal and deserves the strongest protection.

Viacom is not going to be making a lot of friends with this, nor is it presenting a friendly image to the  young people who are, increasingly, its target demographic.  The company is so locked into this crusade that it can't even see what it's doing to itself.

image courtesy loan samelli

For people interested in early details of YouTube history and some insight and color from its co-founder, Chad Hurley, check out this video from Liz Gannes at NewTeeVee.  Hurley gave a speech at the Startup2Startup dinner last week, and talked about the founding of the site, how it initially had 8 people working on it for free out of a room at Sequoia, and how baby YouTube quickly started getting and serving more videos than it had ever expected to.   Nice job, Liz.

Last week, someone in the online video business gave me a simple tip.

"Fred," the guy said.

"Fred?" I said.

"Yes," he said. "Kids love Fred."

I had not heard of Fred, much less known that kids loved him. But that would swiftly end. As soon as I could, I searched for Fred on YouTube and found his video channel. There were plenty of videos, and I hunkered down to watch.

A warning before I continue: Fred is for immature audiences only. The following article may contain themes and language that are unsuitable for anyone over 16.

The first thing about Fred is that he brings new meaning to the word hyper. The fictional 6-year-old, invented and played by 14-year-old Nebraskan Lucas Cruikshank, is a fast-talking tyke with "temper problems," an absentee father and a propensity to screech if things don't go his way. If those traits aren't enough to dissuade you, Fred's voice is 'chipmunked,' raising it several octaves above Cruikshank's own to achieve, if not maximum verisimilitude, then certainly maximum annoyingness. Try to imagine a shrill, halting super-soprano bleating these lines from an episode called "Fred Goes Swimming":

"I'm ready to go inside the pool! Oh my God, it's cold. I love swimming. I love swimming! This pool is small. On TV I saw a pool that was really big . . . oh my God, there's a shark! I'm scared. Just kidding, it's just a toy shark. I got you!"

Doesn't sound like your cup of tea? That makes two of us. Let us say we are outnumbered; with nearly 250,000 subscribers, Fred's YouTube channel is the fourth most subscribed in the site's history. Meaning every time he posts a new video, nearly a quarter of a million people get notified.

Since he created his channel less than two months ago, Fred has racked up more subscribers than almost all of YouTube's old guard, passing up lonelygirl15, LisaNova, kevjumba, and sxephil. He's also got more subscribers than the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Soulja Boy, and oh yeah, CBS.
   

Levinator25 gets a paycheck for his Tiger Woods glitch video

Bryan Levi, creator of the "Jesus shot" video. (Photo credit: Korina Schlieper)

Video game publishers generally don't get excited when a customer publicizes a programming glitch in a software release because "it exposes a problem," said EA Sports president Peter Moore. But Bryan Levi got paid for it.

Levi, who goes by the handle Levinator25 on YouTube, recorded the video we wrote about Friday, showing a glitch in the Tiger Woods '08 game.

Since he posted the "Jesus shot" clip last year, it received only a few comments and about 50,000 views -- not very popular by YouTube standards. It wasn't even Levi's most watched video -- that honor goes to a clip of his friend chugging bottles of Ipecac.

But since the EA Sports parody video went viral, now with more than a million hits, it has sent a flurry of viewers to Levi's original video, leaving comments of congratulations and claims that he got "owned" by the game publisher's rebuttal.

"A lot of people are saying that I got owned by them, but I kind of laugh at that because I think it's pretty cool," Levi said.

Neither party took offense to the mutual jabs. In fact, both Levi and EA's Moore could agree on one thing: They think the whole situation is very funny.

"I thought other people would find it humorous, so why not?" Levi said. "And now they got me back. They told me they loved my video."

Levi was really excited to see the golf pro acknowledge and act out his video. Tiger Woods "is always very willing to do something like this," Moore said. "He realizes that marketing is changing."

Woods didn't stop at walking on water either. On Saturday the EA Sports YouTube channel was updated with another video, this one showing the golfer playing with a Rubik's cube and then putting the toy into a hole a few yards away. "Square Peg, Round Hole" has yet to feel the viral buzz, however, with just shy of 2,000 hits since it hit the Web.

Levi, a 21-year-old film and video student at Penn State, wouldn't disclose the amount of money he was paid for giving Wieden+Kennedy, EA's ad agency, the rights to worldwide use of his video, but the video gamer did say he hopes to score a free copy of the new Tiger Woods game in stores Tuesday.

He also plans to continue shooting and posting videos to his YouTube channel once he's able to buy a new video camera -- his old one is broken.

But Levi shouldn't have to wait long. His check should be on the way.

-- Mark Milian

It's been a busy week for viral marketing on YouTube.

On Monday Samsung hit us with a clever short disguised as an "unboxing" video (a trend where fans and bloggers record themselves opening their new gadgets for the first time). The spin on the often anticlimactic genre was the parade of a miniature marching band and baton-twirling ladies that sprang forth from the high-tech box. It led to a pyrotechnic-laden unveiling of Samsung's new Omni i900 cellphone, which looks and acts a lot like Apple's wildly popular iPhone.

To produce and market the video, Samsung employed the U.K.-based Viral Factory. The two have partnered regularly in the last 18 months, and the Samsung Omnia (i900) Unboxing video was the ninth since the companies first hooked up, according to an e-mail from Toni Smith, managing director for the Viral Factory.

When Samsung asks the marketing firm to promote a product, the guidelines are few. "They give us a product (in this case the i900) and a task (in this case create buzz around the launch of the i900)," Smith wrote. "We then write, produce and seed the campaign."

The day after the Samsung video went online, Electronic Arts Inc.'s EA Sports posted a video response to a fan who had poked fun at a programming glitch in one of its games. About a year ago, YouTube user Levinator25 posted a video highlighting an error in the EA Sports game Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08 that showed the Tiger Woods character standing on water, then slicing a golf ball into the hole. Levinator25 dubbed it "the Jesus shot."

EA Sports' response, recorded in a style similar to its Tiger Woods TV commercials, shows the actual golf pro walking onto a pond and performing the feat. The message that closes the video: "It's not a glitch. He's just that good."

The Portland, Ore.-based Wieden+Kennedy ad agency manages the viral efforts for Electronic Arts, one of the world's largest video game publishers. "We've done a lot of viral videos," said EA Sports President Peter Moore. "We believe we're reaching a younger audience than with network television."

And because there's not much involved in viral campaigns — beyond getting the OK from Tiger and then shooting and uploading the video — companies can score with successful advertisements without the costs of broadcasting them on primetime TV. Such campaigns aren't "something you can manufacture," Moore said. "You can't actually push it, because [savvy Web surfers] reject that."

So how do you create a successful viral promotion? "By making it good, and by making it relevant to the target audience," Smith said in an e-mail. "This is very hard, as they're a tough bunch to please and the competition is huge."

The free exposure from high-profile blogs, such as Engadget for the Samsung video and golf blogs for the Tiger Woods clip, certainly can't hurt. "We didn't pay to place the clip on these blogs (you can't), but they posted it because it's right for their audiences," Smith wrote.

The two videos also hit the front page of the popular social news website Digg a couple hours apart Wednesday — both submitted by the same user, badwithcomputer, who says he isn't getting any kickbacks either.

"Unfortunately, I won't be receiving a new Samsung phone or a copy of an EA game any time soon," he wrote in an instant messenger conversation. "That Samsung video had 3K views when I submitted it yesterday and now has over 200K and climbing. I feel like a huge Digg story really pushed that thing into going viral (getting a lot of views from Digg and getting picked up by other blogs)."

In three days the Tiger Woods video on YouTube has gotten 706,000 hits; Samsung has had 658,000 in four days.

"People pass it on," Moore said. "It's like pond scum."

Or like a virus.

— Mark Milian

Correction: The story originally stated that Electronic Arts does all of its viral marketing in-house. Wieden+Kennedy, the ad agency EA uses for its TV commercials, actually organized, and hired Los Angeles-based Motion Theory to shoot the Tiger Woods video.

Timothy Tackett before a music performance. (Photo credit: Maci Godiva)

My college professors always warned us to be careful what we publish on the Internet. As it turns out, Timothy Tackett never got that piece of advice.

If he had, he may have thought twice before posting a video to his MySpace page, showing him bathing in his employer's kitchen sink.

In the nearly four-minute video, Tackett, 25, who more famously goes by the alias Mr. Unstable, is seen basking in a sudsy utility sink in the back of the Xenia, Ohio, Burger King where he works. That is, used to work.

Just days after the video was posted, the company fired Tackett and four to five other employees working the graveyard shift, when the unsanitary hijinks was filmed, Tackett said.

Some say it's not unreasonable to assume someone at Burger King might search the Web for clips relating to the restaurant franchise and happen upon Tackett's posting.

Now increase those odds by 868,000 -- about the number of hits so far to the various versions on YouTube. Yes, the footage lives on even after MySpace removed it without Tackett's consent and has even spurred a few parodies, ranging from funny to confusing.

Burger King's reaction to seeing a seemingly nude employee -- even though he was wearing a Speedo, he assures -- bathing in the restaurant's sink, the same one used for washing dishes and utensils, isn't surprising. But Tackett argues the other employees on duty were punished unjustly. "None of these people had anything to do with the situation," he said. "I don't see what anybody could have done." Sadly, all is fair in YouTube and fast food.

Tackett stressed that the utility sink was thoroughly cleaned after his bath and is just as sanitary as most fast food joints -- which may not be saying much. The whole ordeal could have been avoided had the water at his apartment not been shut off that day, leaving him without a place to shower. But what's a guy to do when he needs to get ready for a music performance on his birthday?

Maybe it was fate. Tackett had been incubating a rap career for years, performing under pseudonyms like Ork-0, Dr. Orkgazm and currently Mr. Unstable. This incident provided the 15 minutes of fame he needed to get his name off the ground, and Tackett is hoping to ride the wave to stardom. "I'm trying not to be 'the Burger King guy that bathed in the sink,' " he said.

Tackett was incredibly difficult to reach for this interview, due to a relentless media blitz. In between performing, recording his new album and being interviewed on his local TV news and "radio stations from Florida to Canada," he lost his voice. "If I was a normal person, this would be horrible," he said. "But I do music, and I'm an extravagant guy anyway."

Though Tackett said he regrets the results of his actions and has advised people be careful what they record and post to the Internet, all the attention has provided "a little bit" of a boost to his music career, attracting new MySpace fans from places like Australia and Korea. Plus, he won't have to disassemble fryers at 3 a.m. anymore.

Now his Mr. Unstable music identity has become a sole source of income. "I was paying my bills already with CD money," he said. "But the Burger King money was my spending money, my spare change. It has just put me down where I have nothing extra." He is hoping his unusual style, topped off with a mohawk and rubber-banded hairdo his mother calls a "dreadhawk," and even more unusual music keep his career rolling.

Though Tackett says the bath wasn't a planned publicity stunt -- though it did turn out that way, he admits -- it wasn't completely spur of the moment either. He made sure to hose down the sink before jumping in a potentially unsanitary environment. "I worked on that for like an hour with boiling water," he said. "We cleaned the nasty Burger King stuff."

-- Mark Milian

More on the theme of kids taking over the Internet:  16-year-old Jordan Parrot wrote and directed an episode of real-live television. Parrot is an actor on the kid sketch show called "Say What?," which just signed a deal with the national cable network G4. Parrot's episode is a "Miami Vice" spoof called "Schoolyard Vice" (trailer below), wherein a detective duo busts an illicit (or rather, against-school-rules) candy ring. 

The trailer, which is infused with the requisite kiddie silliness you might see on a real playground, is pretty funny. And when you consider that a person this young was behind the shot selection and pacing (there's a great behind-the-scenes clip), it's all the more impressive. Parrot has been climbing through the ranks at Be, a kind of talent agency incubator and production studio aimed exclusively at kids. 

I'm liking this kids-take-over-the-world thing. Imagine if war were suddenly conducted only with squirt guns and water balloons; bikes and skateboards replaced cars and motorcycles; and video games became government-subsidized. In fact, I see no reason not to hand over the reins to the tween set right now.  It may be our last good chance.

On Tuesday, a judge in the Viacom vs. Google/YouTube copyright case ordered Google to give up detailed logs of users' search behavior.

As Wired's Threat Level puts it: "Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users' names and IP addresses." 

Viacom's hope is to show that users watch so many infringing videos that YouTube can be seen as nothing more than a hive of copyright violations and piracy. One question, however, is why Viacom needs access to the identities of YouTube users, many of whom are young people and even children. When they know peoples' private viewing habits, what will they do with the information?  Remember this?

I know I don't want anyone seeing what I watch on YouTube -- any more than I want people to know what I'm searching on Google, watching on TV, or listening to on the radio.  YouTube users are simply using a video system that's available free online. 

Suddenly that transgression has landed their private information in the hands of a sue-happy multinational media company.  That doesn't seem right.  And according to the EFF, it may not even be legal:  As Congress recognized [in the Video Privacy Protections Act], your selection of videos to watch is deeply personal and deserves the strongest protection.

Viacom is not going to be making a lot of friends with this, nor is it presenting a friendly image to the  young people who are, increasingly, its target demographic.  The company is so locked into this crusade that it can't even see what it's doing to itself.

image courtesy loan samelli

For people interested in early details of YouTube history and some insight and color from its co-founder, Chad Hurley, check out this video from Liz Gannes at NewTeeVee.  Hurley gave a speech at the Startup2Startup dinner last week, and talked about the founding of the site, how it initially had 8 people working on it for free out of a room at Sequoia, and how baby YouTube quickly started getting and serving more videos than it had ever expected to.   Nice job, Liz.

Last week, someone in the online video business gave me a simple tip.

"Fred," the guy said.

"Fred?" I said.

"Yes," he said. "Kids love Fred."

I had not heard of Fred, much less known that kids loved him. But that would swiftly end. As soon as I could, I searched for Fred on YouTube and found his video channel. There were plenty of videos, and I hunkered down to watch.

A warning before I continue: Fred is for immature audiences only. The following article may contain themes and language that are unsuitable for anyone over 16.

The first thing about Fred is that he brings new meaning to the word hyper. The fictional 6-year-old, invented and played by 14-year-old Nebraskan Lucas Cruikshank, is a fast-talking tyke with "temper problems," an absentee father and a propensity to screech if things don't go his way. If those traits aren't enough to dissuade you, Fred's voice is 'chipmunked,' raising it several octaves above Cruikshank's own to achieve, if not maximum verisimilitude, then certainly maximum annoyingness. Try to imagine a shrill, halting super-soprano bleating these lines from an episode called "Fred Goes Swimming":

"I'm ready to go inside the pool! Oh my God, it's cold. I love swimming. I love swimming! This pool is small. On TV I saw a pool that was really big . . . oh my God, there's a shark! I'm scared. Just kidding, it's just a toy shark. I got you!"

Doesn't sound like your cup of tea? That makes two of us. Let us say we are outnumbered; with nearly 250,000 subscribers, Fred's YouTube channel is the fourth most subscribed in the site's history. Meaning every time he posts a new video, nearly a quarter of a million people get notified.

Since he created his channel less than two months ago, Fred has racked up more subscribers than almost all of YouTube's old guard, passing up lonelygirl15, LisaNova, kevjumba, and sxephil. He's also got more subscribers than the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Soulja Boy, and oh yeah, CBS.
   

Samsung, EA Sports go viral on YouTube

It's been a busy week for viral marketing on YouTube.

On Monday Samsung hit us with a clever short disguised as an "unboxing" video (a trend where fans and bloggers record themselves opening their new gadgets for the first time). The spin on the often anticlimactic genre was the parade of a miniature marching band and baton-twirling ladies that sprang forth from the high-tech box. It led to a pyrotechnic-laden unveiling of Samsung's new Omni i900 cellphone, which looks and acts a lot like Apple's wildly popular iPhone.

To produce and market the video, Samsung employed the U.K.-based Viral Factory. The two have partnered regularly in the last 18 months, and the Samsung Omnia (i900) Unboxing video was the ninth since the companies first hooked up, according to an e-mail from Toni Smith, managing director for the Viral Factory.

When Samsung asks the marketing firm to promote a product, the guidelines are few. "They give us a product (in this case the i900) and a task (in this case create buzz around the launch of the i900)," Smith wrote. "We then write, produce and seed the campaign."

The day after the Samsung video went online, Electronic Arts Inc.'s EA Sports posted a video response to a fan who had poked fun at a programming glitch in one of its games. About a year ago, YouTube user Levinator25 posted a video highlighting an error in the EA Sports game Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08 that showed the Tiger Woods character standing on water, then slicing a golf ball into the hole. Levinator25 dubbed it "the Jesus shot."

EA Sports' response, recorded in a style similar to its Tiger Woods TV commercials, shows the actual golf pro walking onto a pond and performing the feat. The message that closes the video: "It's not a glitch. He's just that good."

The Portland, Ore.-based Wieden+Kennedy ad agency manages the viral efforts for Electronic Arts, one of the world's largest video game publishers. "We've done a lot of viral videos," said EA Sports President Peter Moore. "We believe we're reaching a younger audience than with network television."

And because there's not much involved in viral campaigns — beyond getting the OK from Tiger and then shooting and uploading the video — companies can score with successful advertisements without the costs of broadcasting them on primetime TV. Such campaigns aren't "something you can manufacture," Moore said. "You can't actually push it, because [savvy Web surfers] reject that."

So how do you create a successful viral promotion? "By making it good, and by making it relevant to the target audience," Smith said in an e-mail. "This is very hard, as they're a tough bunch to please and the competition is huge."

The free exposure from high-profile blogs, such as Engadget for the Samsung video and golf blogs for the Tiger Woods clip, certainly can't hurt. "We didn't pay to place the clip on these blogs (you can't), but they posted it because it's right for their audiences," Smith wrote.

The two videos also hit the front page of the popular social news website Digg a couple hours apart Wednesday — both submitted by the same user, badwithcomputer, who says he isn't getting any kickbacks either.

"Unfortunately, I won't be receiving a new Samsung phone or a copy of an EA game any time soon," he wrote in an instant messenger conversation. "That Samsung video had 3K views when I submitted it yesterday and now has over 200K and climbing. I feel like a huge Digg story really pushed that thing into going viral (getting a lot of views from Digg and getting picked up by other blogs)."

In three days the Tiger Woods video on YouTube has gotten 706,000 hits; Samsung has had 658,000 in four days.

"People pass it on," Moore said. "It's like pond scum."

Or like a virus.

— Mark Milian

Correction: The story originally stated that Electronic Arts does all of its viral marketing in-house. Wieden+Kennedy, the ad agency EA uses for its TV commercials, actually organized, and hired Los Angeles-based Motion Theory to shoot the Tiger Woods video.

Timothy Tackett before a music performance. (Photo credit: Maci Godiva)

My college professors always warned us to be careful what we publish on the Internet. As it turns out, Timothy Tackett never got that piece of advice.

If he had, he may have thought twice before posting a video to his MySpace page, showing him bathing in his employer's kitchen sink.

In the nearly four-minute video, Tackett, 25, who more famously goes by the alias Mr. Unstable, is seen basking in a sudsy utility sink in the back of the Xenia, Ohio, Burger King where he works. That is, used to work.

Just days after the video was posted, the company fired Tackett and four to five other employees working the graveyard shift, when the unsanitary hijinks was filmed, Tackett said.

Some say it's not unreasonable to assume someone at Burger King might search the Web for clips relating to the restaurant franchise and happen upon Tackett's posting.

Now increase those odds by 868,000 -- about the number of hits so far to the various versions on YouTube. Yes, the footage lives on even after MySpace removed it without Tackett's consent and has even spurred a few parodies, ranging from funny to confusing.

Burger King's reaction to seeing a seemingly nude employee -- even though he was wearing a Speedo, he assures -- bathing in the restaurant's sink, the same one used for washing dishes and utensils, isn't surprising. But Tackett argues the other employees on duty were punished unjustly. "None of these people had anything to do with the situation," he said. "I don't see what anybody could have done." Sadly, all is fair in YouTube and fast food.

Tackett stressed that the utility sink was thoroughly cleaned after his bath and is just as sanitary as most fast food joints -- which may not be saying much. The whole ordeal could have been avoided had the water at his apartment not been shut off that day, leaving him without a place to shower. But what's a guy to do when he needs to get ready for a music performance on his birthday?

Maybe it was fate. Tackett had been incubating a rap career for years, performing under pseudonyms like Ork-0, Dr. Orkgazm and currently Mr. Unstable. This incident provided the 15 minutes of fame he needed to get his name off the ground, and Tackett is hoping to ride the wave to stardom. "I'm trying not to be 'the Burger King guy that bathed in the sink,' " he said.

Tackett was incredibly difficult to reach for this interview, due to a relentless media blitz. In between performing, recording his new album and being interviewed on his local TV news and "radio stations from Florida to Canada," he lost his voice. "If I was a normal person, this would be horrible," he said. "But I do music, and I'm an extravagant guy anyway."

Though Tackett said he regrets the results of his actions and has advised people be careful what they record and post to the Internet, all the attention has provided "a little bit" of a boost to his music career, attracting new MySpace fans from places like Australia and Korea. Plus, he won't have to disassemble fryers at 3 a.m. anymore.

Now his Mr. Unstable music identity has become a sole source of income. "I was paying my bills already with CD money," he said. "But the Burger King money was my spending money, my spare change. It has just put me down where I have nothing extra." He is hoping his unusual style, topped off with a mohawk and rubber-banded hairdo his mother calls a "dreadhawk," and even more unusual music keep his career rolling.

Though Tackett says the bath wasn't a planned publicity stunt -- though it did turn out that way, he admits -- it wasn't completely spur of the moment either. He made sure to hose down the sink before jumping in a potentially unsanitary environment. "I worked on that for like an hour with boiling water," he said. "We cleaned the nasty Burger King stuff."

-- Mark Milian

More on the theme of kids taking over the Internet:  16-year-old Jordan Parrot wrote and directed an episode of real-live television. Parrot is an actor on the kid sketch show called "Say What?," which just signed a deal with the national cable network G4. Parrot's episode is a "Miami Vice" spoof called "Schoolyard Vice" (trailer below), wherein a detective duo busts an illicit (or rather, against-school-rules) candy ring. 

The trailer, which is infused with the requisite kiddie silliness you might see on a real playground, is pretty funny. And when you consider that a person this young was behind the shot selection and pacing (there's a great behind-the-scenes clip), it's all the more impressive. Parrot has been climbing through the ranks at Be, a kind of talent agency incubator and production studio aimed exclusively at kids. 

I'm liking this kids-take-over-the-world thing. Imagine if war were suddenly conducted only with squirt guns and water balloons; bikes and skateboards replaced cars and motorcycles; and video games became government-subsidized. In fact, I see no reason not to hand over the reins to the tween set right now.  It may be our last good chance.

On Tuesday, a judge in the Viacom vs. Google/YouTube copyright case ordered Google to give up detailed logs of users' search behavior.

As Wired's Threat Level puts it: "Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users' names and IP addresses." 

Viacom's hope is to show that users watch so many infringing videos that YouTube can be seen as nothing more than a hive of copyright violations and piracy. One question, however, is why Viacom needs access to the identities of YouTube users, many of whom are young people and even children. When they know peoples' private viewing habits, what will they do with the information?  Remember this?

I know I don't want anyone seeing what I watch on YouTube -- any more than I want people to know what I'm searching on Google, watching on TV, or listening to on the radio.  YouTube users are simply using a video system that's available free online. 

Suddenly that transgression has landed their private information in the hands of a sue-happy multinational media company.  That doesn't seem right.  And according to the EFF, it may not even be legal:  As Congress recognized [in the Video Privacy Protections Act], your selection of videos to watch is deeply personal and deserves the strongest protection.

Viacom is not going to be making a lot of friends with this, nor is it presenting a friendly image to the  young people who are, increasingly, its target demographic.  The company is so locked into this crusade that it can't even see what it's doing to itself.

image courtesy loan samelli

For people interested in early details of YouTube history and some insight and color from its co-founder, Chad Hurley, check out this video from Liz Gannes at NewTeeVee.  Hurley gave a speech at the Startup2Startup dinner last week, and talked about the founding of the site, how it initially had 8 people working on it for free out of a room at Sequoia, and how baby YouTube quickly started getting and serving more videos than it had ever expected to.   Nice job, Liz.

Last week, someone in the online video business gave me a simple tip.

"Fred," the guy said.

"Fred?" I said.

"Yes," he said. "Kids love Fred."

I had not heard of Fred, much less known that kids loved him. But that would swiftly end. As soon as I could, I searched for Fred on YouTube and found his video channel. There were plenty of videos, and I hunkered down to watch.

A warning before I continue: Fred is for immature audiences only. The following article may contain themes and language that are unsuitable for anyone over 16.

The first thing about Fred is that he brings new meaning to the word hyper. The fictional 6-year-old, invented and played by 14-year-old Nebraskan Lucas Cruikshank, is a fast-talking tyke with "temper problems," an absentee father and a propensity to screech if things don't go his way. If those traits aren't enough to dissuade you, Fred's voice is 'chipmunked,' raising it several octaves above Cruikshank's own to achieve, if not maximum verisimilitude, then certainly maximum annoyingness. Try to imagine a shrill, halting super-soprano bleating these lines from an episode called "Fred Goes Swimming":

"I'm ready to go inside the pool! Oh my God, it's cold. I love swimming. I love swimming! This pool is small. On TV I saw a pool that was really big . . . oh my God, there's a shark! I'm scared. Just kidding, it's just a toy shark. I got you!"

Doesn't sound like your cup of tea? That makes two of us. Let us say we are outnumbered; with nearly 250,000 subscribers, Fred's YouTube channel is the fourth most subscribed in the site's history. Meaning every time he posts a new video, nearly a quarter of a million people get notified.

Since he created his channel less than two months ago, Fred has racked up more subscribers than almost all of YouTube's old guard, passing up lonelygirl15, LisaNova, kevjumba, and sxephil. He's also got more subscribers than the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Soulja Boy, and oh yeah, CBS.
   

Mr. Unstable loses job over Burger King bath but soaks up 15 minutes of fame

Timothy Tackett before a music performance. (Photo credit: Maci Godiva)

My college professors always warned us to be careful what we publish on the Internet. As it turns out, Timothy Tackett never got that piece of advice.

If he had, he may have thought twice before posting a video to his MySpace page, showing him bathing in his employer's kitchen sink.

In the nearly four-minute video, Tackett, 25, who more famously goes by the alias Mr. Unstable, is seen basking in a sudsy utility sink in the back of the Xenia, Ohio, Burger King where he works. That is, used to work.

Just days after the video was posted, the company fired Tackett and four to five other employees working the graveyard shift, when the unsanitary hijinks was filmed, Tackett said.

Some say it's not unreasonable to assume someone at Burger King might search the Web for clips relating to the restaurant franchise and happen upon Tackett's posting.

Now increase those odds by 868,000 -- about the number of hits so far to the various versions on YouTube. Yes, the footage lives on even after MySpace removed it without Tackett's consent and has even spurred a few parodies, ranging from funny to confusing.

Burger King's reaction to seeing a seemingly nude employee -- even though he was wearing a Speedo, he assures -- bathing in the restaurant's sink, the same one used for washing dishes and utensils, isn't surprising. But Tackett argues the other employees on duty were punished unjustly. "None of these people had anything to do with the situation," he said. "I don't see what anybody could have done." Sadly, all is fair in YouTube and fast food.

Tackett stressed that the utility sink was thoroughly cleaned after his bath and is just as sanitary as most fast food joints -- which may not be saying much. The whole ordeal could have been avoided had the water at his apartment not been shut off that day, leaving him without a place to shower. But what's a guy to do when he needs to get ready for a music performance on his birthday?

Maybe it was fate. Tackett had been incubating a rap career for years, performing under pseudonyms like Ork-0, Dr. Orkgazm and currently Mr. Unstable. This incident provided the 15 minutes of fame he needed to get his name off the ground, and Tackett is hoping to ride the wave to stardom. "I'm trying not to be 'the Burger King guy that bathed in the sink,' " he said.

Tackett was incredibly difficult to reach for this interview, due to a relentless media blitz. In between performing, recording his new album and being interviewed on his local TV news and "radio stations from Florida to Canada," he lost his voice. "If I was a normal person, this would be horrible," he said. "But I do music, and I'm an extravagant guy anyway."

Though Tackett said he regrets the results of his actions and has advised people be careful what they record and post to the Internet, all the attention has provided "a little bit" of a boost to his music career, attracting new MySpace fans from places like Australia and Korea. Plus, he won't have to disassemble fryers at 3 a.m. anymore.

Now his Mr. Unstable music identity has become a sole source of income. "I was paying my bills already with CD money," he said. "But the Burger King money was my spending money, my spare change. It has just put me down where I have nothing extra." He is hoping his unusual style, topped off with a mohawk and rubber-banded hairdo his mother calls a "dreadhawk," and even more unusual music keep his career rolling.

Though Tackett says the bath wasn't a planned publicity stunt -- though it did turn out that way, he admits -- it wasn't completely spur of the moment either. He made sure to hose down the sink before jumping in a potentially unsanitary environment. "I worked on that for like an hour with boiling water," he said. "We cleaned the nasty Burger King stuff."

-- Mark Milian

More on the theme of kids taking over the Internet:  16-year-old Jordan Parrot wrote and directed an episode of real-live television. Parrot is an actor on the kid sketch show called "Say What?," which just signed a deal with the national cable network G4. Parrot's episode is a "Miami Vice" spoof called "Schoolyard Vice" (trailer below), wherein a detective duo busts an illicit (or rather, against-school-rules) candy ring. 

The trailer, which is infused with the requisite kiddie silliness you might see on a real playground, is pretty funny. And when you consider that a person this young was behind the shot selection and pacing (there's a great behind-the-scenes clip), it's all the more impressive. Parrot has been climbing through the ranks at Be, a kind of talent agency incubator and production studio aimed exclusively at kids. 

I'm liking this kids-take-over-the-world thing. Imagine if war were suddenly conducted only with squirt guns and water balloons; bikes and skateboards replaced cars and motorcycles; and video games became government-subsidized. In fact, I see no reason not to hand over the reins to the tween set right now.  It may be our last good chance.

On Tuesday, a judge in the Viacom vs. Google/YouTube copyright case ordered Google to give up detailed logs of users' search behavior.

As Wired's Threat Level puts it: "Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users' names and IP addresses." 

Viacom's hope is to show that users watch so many infringing videos that YouTube can be seen as nothing more than a hive of copyright violations and piracy. One question, however, is why Viacom needs access to the identities of YouTube users, many of whom are young people and even children. When they know peoples' private viewing habits, what will they do with the information?  Remember this?

I know I don't want anyone seeing what I watch on YouTube -- any more than I want people to know what I'm searching on Google, watching on TV, or listening to on the radio.  YouTube users are simply using a video system that's available free online. 

Suddenly that transgression has landed their private information in the hands of a sue-happy multinational media company.  That doesn't seem right.  And according to the EFF, it may not even be legal:  As Congress recognized [in the Video Privacy Protections Act], your selection of videos to watch is deeply personal and deserves the strongest protection.

Viacom is not going to be making a lot of friends with this, nor is it presenting a friendly image to the  young people who are, increasingly, its target demographic.  The company is so locked into this crusade that it can't even see what it's doing to itself.

image courtesy loan samelli

For people interested in early details of YouTube history and some insight and color from its co-founder, Chad Hurley, check out this video from Liz Gannes at NewTeeVee.  Hurley gave a speech at the Startup2Startup dinner last week, and talked about the founding of the site, how it initially had 8 people working on it for free out of a room at Sequoia, and how baby YouTube quickly started getting and serving more videos than it had ever expected to.   Nice job, Liz.

Last week, someone in the online video business gave me a simple tip.

"Fred," the guy said.

"Fred?" I said.

"Yes," he said. "Kids love Fred."

I had not heard of Fred, much less known that kids loved him. But that would swiftly end. As soon as I could, I searched for Fred on YouTube and found his video channel. There were plenty of videos, and I hunkered down to watch.

A warning before I continue: Fred is for immature audiences only. The following article may contain themes and language that are unsuitable for anyone over 16.

The first thing about Fred is that he brings new meaning to the word hyper. The fictional 6-year-old, invented and played by 14-year-old Nebraskan Lucas Cruikshank, is a fast-talking tyke with "temper problems," an absentee father and a propensity to screech if things don't go his way. If those traits aren't enough to dissuade you, Fred's voice is 'chipmunked,' raising it several octaves above Cruikshank's own to achieve, if not maximum verisimilitude, then certainly maximum annoyingness. Try to imagine a shrill, halting super-soprano bleating these lines from an episode called "Fred Goes Swimming":

"I'm ready to go inside the pool! Oh my God, it's cold. I love swimming. I love swimming! This pool is small. On TV I saw a pool that was really big . . . oh my God, there's a shark! I'm scared. Just kidding, it's just a toy shark. I got you!"

Doesn't sound like your cup of tea? That makes two of us. Let us say we are outnumbered; with nearly 250,000 subscribers, Fred's YouTube channel is the fourth most subscribed in the site's history. Meaning every time he posts a new video, nearly a quarter of a million people get notified.

Since he created his channel less than two months ago, Fred has racked up more subscribers than almost all of YouTube's old guard, passing up lonelygirl15, LisaNova, kevjumba, and sxephil. He's also got more subscribers than the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Soulja Boy, and oh yeah, CBS.
   

16-year-old directs G4 TV episode 'Schoolyard Vice'

More on the theme of kids taking over the Internet:  16-year-old Jordan Parrot wrote and directed an episode of real-live television. Parrot is an actor on the kid sketch show called "Say What?," which just signed a deal with the national cable network G4. Parrot's episode is a "Miami Vice" spoof called "Schoolyard Vice" (trailer below), wherein a detective duo busts an illicit (or rather, against-school-rules) candy ring. 

The trailer, which is infused with the requisite kiddie silliness you might see on a real playground, is pretty funny. And when you consider that a person this young was behind the shot selection and pacing (there's a great behind-the-scenes clip), it's all the more impressive. Parrot has been climbing through the ranks at Be, a kind of talent agency incubator and production studio aimed exclusively at kids. 

I'm liking this kids-take-over-the-world thing. Imagine if war were suddenly conducted only with squirt guns and water balloons; bikes and skateboards replaced cars and motorcycles; and video games became government-subsidized. In fact, I see no reason not to hand over the reins to the tween set right now.  It may be our last good chance.

On Tuesday, a judge in the Viacom vs. Google/YouTube copyright case ordered Google to give up detailed logs of users' search behavior.

As Wired's Threat Level puts it: "Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users' names and IP addresses." 

Viacom's hope is to show that users watch so many infringing videos that YouTube can be seen as nothing more than a hive of copyright violations and piracy. One question, however, is why Viacom needs access to the identities of YouTube users, many of whom are young people and even children. When they know peoples' private viewing habits, what will they do with the information?  Remember this?

I know I don't want anyone seeing what I watch on YouTube -- any more than I want people to know what I'm searching on Google, watching on TV, or listening to on the radio.  YouTube users are simply using a video system that's available free online. 

Suddenly that transgression has landed their private information in the hands of a sue-happy multinational media company.  That doesn't seem right.  And according to the EFF, it may not even be legal:  As Congress recognized [in the Video Privacy Protections Act], your selection of videos to watch is deeply personal and deserves the strongest protection.

Viacom is not going to be making a lot of friends with this, nor is it presenting a friendly image to the  young people who are, increasingly, its target demographic.  The company is so locked into this crusade that it can't even see what it's doing to itself.

image courtesy loan samelli

For people interested in early details of YouTube history and some insight and color from its co-founder, Chad Hurley, check out this video from Liz Gannes at NewTeeVee.  Hurley gave a speech at the Startup2Startup dinner last week, and talked about the founding of the site, how it initially had 8 people working on it for free out of a room at Sequoia, and how baby YouTube quickly started getting and serving more videos than it had ever expected to.   Nice job, Liz.

Last week, someone in the online video business gave me a simple tip.

"Fred," the guy said.

"Fred?" I said.

"Yes," he said. "Kids love Fred."

I had not heard of Fred, much less known that kids loved him. But that would swiftly end. As soon as I could, I searched for Fred on YouTube and found his video channel. There were plenty of videos, and I hunkered down to watch.

A warning before I continue: Fred is for immature audiences only. The following article may contain themes and language that are unsuitable for anyone over 16.

The first thing about Fred is that he brings new meaning to the word hyper. The fictional 6-year-old, invented and played by 14-year-old Nebraskan Lucas Cruikshank, is a fast-talking tyke with "temper problems," an absentee father and a propensity to screech if things don't go his way. If those traits aren't enough to dissuade you, Fred's voice is 'chipmunked,' raising it several octaves above Cruikshank's own to achieve, if not maximum verisimilitude, then certainly maximum annoyingness. Try to imagine a shrill, halting super-soprano bleating these lines from an episode called "Fred Goes Swimming":

"I'm ready to go inside the pool! Oh my God, it's cold. I love swimming. I love swimming! This pool is small. On TV I saw a pool that was really big . . . oh my God, there's a shark! I'm scared. Just kidding, it's just a toy shark. I got you!"

Doesn't sound like your cup of tea? That makes two of us. Let us say we are outnumbered; with nearly 250,000 subscribers, Fred's YouTube channel is the fourth most subscribed in the site's history. Meaning every time he posts a new video, nearly a quarter of a million people get notified.

Since he created his channel less than two months ago, Fred has racked up more subscribers than almost all of YouTube's old guard, passing up lonelygirl15, LisaNova, kevjumba, and sxephil. He's also got more subscribers than the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Soulja Boy, and oh yeah, CBS.
   

Viacom wants to know what you're watching on YouTube

On Tuesday, a judge in the Viacom vs. Google/YouTube copyright case ordered Google to give up detailed logs of users' search behavior.

As Wired's Threat Level puts it: "Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users' names and IP addresses." 

Viacom's hope is to show that users watch so many infringing videos that YouTube can be seen as nothing more than a hive of copyright violations and piracy. One question, however, is why Viacom needs access to the identities of YouTube users, many of whom are young people and even children. When they know peoples' private viewing habits, what will they do with the information?  Remember this?

I know I don't want anyone seeing what I watch on YouTube -- any more than I want people to know what I'm searching on Google, watching on TV, or listening to on the radio.  YouTube users are simply using a video system that's available free online. 

Suddenly that transgression has landed their private information in the hands of a sue-happy multinational media company.  That doesn't seem right.  And according to the EFF, it may not even be legal:  As Congress recognized [in the Video Privacy Protections Act], your selection of videos to watch is deeply personal and deserves the strongest protection.

Viacom is not going to be making a lot of friends with this, nor is it presenting a friendly image to the  young people who are, increasingly, its target demographic.  The company is so locked into this crusade that it can't even see what it's doing to itself.

image courtesy loan samelli

For people interested in early details of YouTube history and some insight and color from its co-founder, Chad Hurley, check out this video from Liz Gannes at NewTeeVee.  Hurley gave a speech at the Startup2Startup dinner last week, and talked about the founding of the site, how it initially had 8 people working on it for free out of a room at Sequoia, and how baby YouTube quickly started getting and serving more videos than it had ever expected to.   Nice job, Liz.

Last week, someone in the online video business gave me a simple tip.

"Fred," the guy said.

"Fred?" I said.

"Yes," he said. "Kids love Fred."

I had not heard of Fred, much less known that kids loved him. But that would swiftly end. As soon as I could, I searched for Fred on YouTube and found his video channel. There were plenty of videos, and I hunkered down to watch.

A warning before I continue: Fred is for immature audiences only. The following article may contain themes and language that are unsuitable for anyone over 16.

The first thing about Fred is that he brings new meaning to the word hyper. The fictional 6-year-old, invented and played by 14-year-old Nebraskan Lucas Cruikshank, is a fast-talking tyke with "temper problems," an absentee father and a propensity to screech if things don't go his way. If those traits aren't enough to dissuade you, Fred's voice is 'chipmunked,' raising it several octaves above Cruikshank's own to achieve, if not maximum verisimilitude, then certainly maximum annoyingness. Try to imagine a shrill, halting super-soprano bleating these lines from an episode called "Fred Goes Swimming":

"I'm ready to go inside the pool! Oh my God, it's cold. I love swimming. I love swimming! This pool is small. On TV I saw a pool that was really big . . . oh my God, there's a shark! I'm scared. Just kidding, it's just a toy shark. I got you!"

Doesn't sound like your cup of tea? That makes two of us. Let us say we are outnumbered; with nearly 250,000 subscribers, Fred's YouTube channel is the fourth most subscribed in the site's history. Meaning every time he posts a new video, nearly a quarter of a million people get notified.

Since he created his channel less than two months ago, Fred has racked up more subscribers than almost all of YouTube's old guard, passing up lonelygirl15, LisaNova, kevjumba, and sxephil. He's also got more subscribers than the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Soulja Boy, and oh yeah, CBS.
   

For YouTube junkies, NewTeeVee's video of Chad Hurley

For people interested in early details of YouTube history and some insight and color from its co-founder, Chad Hurley, check out this video from Liz Gannes at NewTeeVee.  Hurley gave a speech at the Startup2Startup dinner last week, and talked about the founding of the site, how it initially had 8 people working on it for free out of a room at Sequoia, and how baby YouTube quickly started getting and serving more videos than it had ever expected to.   Nice job, Liz.

Last week, someone in the online video business gave me a simple tip.

"Fred," the guy said.

"Fred?" I said.

"Yes," he said. "Kids love Fred."

I had not heard of Fred, much less known that kids loved him. But that would swiftly end. As soon as I could, I searched for Fred on YouTube and found his video channel. There were plenty of videos, and I hunkered down to watch.

A warning before I continue: Fred is for immature audiences only. The following article may contain themes and language that are unsuitable for anyone over 16.

The first thing about Fred is that he brings new meaning to the word hyper. The fictional 6-year-old, invented and played by 14-year-old Nebraskan Lucas Cruikshank, is a fast-talking tyke with "temper problems," an absentee father and a propensity to screech if things don't go his way. If those traits aren't enough to dissuade you, Fred's voice is 'chipmunked,' raising it several octaves above Cruikshank's own to achieve, if not maximum verisimilitude, then certainly maximum annoyingness. Try to imagine a shrill, halting super-soprano bleating these lines from an episode called "Fred Goes Swimming":

"I'm ready to go inside the pool! Oh my God, it's cold. I love swimming. I love swimming! This pool is small. On TV I saw a pool that was really big . . . oh my God, there's a shark! I'm scared. Just kidding, it's just a toy shark. I got you!"

Doesn't sound like your cup of tea? That makes two of us. Let us say we are outnumbered; with nearly 250,000 subscribers, Fred's YouTube channel is the fourth most subscribed in the site's history. Meaning every time he posts a new video, nearly a quarter of a million people get notified.

Since he created his channel less than two months ago, Fred has racked up more subscribers than almost all of YouTube's old guard, passing up lonelygirl15, LisaNova, kevjumba, and sxephil. He's also got more subscribers than the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Soulja Boy, and oh yeah, CBS.
   

Fred's YouTube channel is programming for kids by kids

Last week, someone in the online video business gave me a simple tip.

"Fred," the guy said.

"Fred?" I said.

"Yes," he said. "Kids love Fred."

I had not heard of Fred, much less known that kids loved him. But that would swiftly end. As soon as I could, I searched for Fred on YouTube and found his video channel. There were plenty of videos, and I hunkered down to watch.

A warning before I continue: Fred is for immature audiences only. The following article may contain themes and language that are unsuitable for anyone over 16.

The first thing about Fred is that he brings new meaning to the word hyper. The fictional 6-year-old, invented and played by 14-year-old Nebraskan Lucas Cruikshank, is a fast-talking tyke with "temper problems," an absentee father and a propensity to screech if things don't go his way. If those traits aren't enough to dissuade you, Fred's voice is 'chipmunked,' raising it several octaves above Cruikshank's own to achieve, if not maximum verisimilitude, then certainly maximum annoyingness. Try to imagine a shrill, halting super-soprano bleating these lines from an episode called "Fred Goes Swimming":

"I'm ready to go inside the pool! Oh my God, it's cold. I love swimming. I love swimming! This pool is small. On TV I saw a pool that was really big . . . oh my God, there's a shark! I'm scared. Just kidding, it's just a toy shark. I got you!"

Doesn't sound like your cup of tea? That makes two of us. Let us say we are outnumbered; with nearly 250,000 subscribers, Fred's YouTube channel is the fourth most subscribed in the site's history. Meaning every time he posts a new video, nearly a quarter of a million people get notified.

Since he created his channel less than two months ago, Fred has racked up more subscribers than almost all of YouTube's old guard, passing up lonelygirl15, LisaNova, kevjumba, and sxephil. He's also got more subscribers than the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Soulja Boy, and oh yeah, CBS.