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Pretending to game the system: Fans hoax "Girlfriend" vid to the #1 spot on YouTube.
- icey 18y agoI have to admit, I never thought the day would come that I would think "Wow, that Avril Lavigne fansite sure had some good strategy."
- incomethax 18y agoJust goes to show the power of a truly viral campaign
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- OneSeventeen 18y agoNo kidding. Great reality hack.
- mynameishere 18y agoHorrible song. And why does every pop song have voice resampling these days?
- j2d2 18y agoI suspect the answer is similar to the same reason everything is compressed about as much as possible.
- Prrometheus 18y agoIt's aural MSG.
- nuclear_eclipse 18y agoSince I don't really listen to pop, what are you meaning by 'voice resampling', and what does it do for/to the song?
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- mynameishere 18y agoIt's "auto tune". The original idea was to correct mistakes, but it's now used as an effect, specifically the "cher effect". It's not too excessive in the above song, but it's still pretty bad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Believe_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Believe_(Cher_song) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bTREzJL83A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bTREzJL83A
- shiranaihito 18y agoIt was extremely unfortunate how that (kind of) effect became a trend in soulless mainstream music for many years to come. A similar effect was used extensively on Blackstreet's album "Another Level", where it caused much less harm (being more restrained).
- mrtron 18y agoI heard a clip of the new girl from that 'reality' show the Hills and it sounded like the resampling was the whole voice. They have been doing it for years...they are just way more obvious about it now. Yes, I am ashamed of the above statement.
- mechanical_fish 18y agoWhen your competition consists of a big online jukebox containing free copies of every pop song ever recorded, it pays to encourage a popular taste for sounds that have never been recorded before.
- apotheon 18y agoI can't believe I let myself get tricked into watching that stupid video. Do the people who say the song is catchy, entertaining, et cetera, actually hear the lyrics? Are they just that devoid of an ear for quality, that they can't tell the lyrics are not only typical bland pop music fare, but actually more poorly composed than the usual by a wide margin? Can they not hear the droning repetitiveness of the instrumental "melody"? No wonder I don't like listening to the radio. . . .
- clay 18y agoThose tech journalists that wrote those stories didn't even check out how youtube deals with these things... How obscenely lazy can you be?
- astine 18y agoThey're not lazy, they're looking for a good story. It's good business to spin a mundane story as sensational news. They're after the same thing as Avril Lavigne, views.
- TFrancis 18y agoAs people generating entertainment for their readers, you're right. It was a good story. But, as "journalist" they, in my opinion, are lazy. They failed to fully research the issue and present it as clearly as possible.
- astine 18y agoIf by 'journalist' you mean someone who how a vocation of providing the public with important news and information, you for have a fundamental misunderstanding of the modern news-media. True journalists, I'm afraid, are few and far between. Muckracking is a far more profitable occupation, both in terms of finance and popularity. It's why idiots with voting power are a better filter than your standard copy-editor. Money and power are self reinforcing pursuits; truth and integrity are not. </pessimism> On the plus side: once you realize how the system works, you are free to game it to get your message across. It becomes amazing the kind of stunts you can perform.
- sanj 18y agoThis reminds me of my third most favourite MIT hack: In 1998, Bill Clinton gave MIT's commencement address. The MIT administration discovered that a rather embarrassing hack was planned. To forestall it, a few days before commencement, a sternly worded message was emailed around: Any students who appear at the commencement exercises wearing a black beret, a blue dress, kneepads, or any combination thereof will be denied entrance. Needless to say, the hack itself was never intended to be performed.
- boredguy8 18y agoThis sentence no verb.
- boredguy8 18y agoFunny how a comment goes down when the context changes. Calm down with the hate.
- helveticaman 18y agoWhat did you mean?
- boredguy8 18y agoThe post initially contained a sentence or two with no verbs, which made the post rather hard to understand. My comment was a gentle request for clarification and a nod to Hofstadter / self reference. While the post contained the error, it got upvoted to about 4. After the error was fixed, my comment was as low as -4 (because at that point it made no sense). Hence the "chill with the hate" comment.
- mleonhard 18y agoWho were they trying to get excluded from the commencement?
- zenspider 18y ago
- petercooper 18y agoInteresting strategy, but Girlfriend came out 18 months ago. That post reviews the song and the song as if they're something new.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- ALee 18y agoThis effect should have a name- it would kill me if someone called it the Girlfriend Effect. A) Hack (that fakes A). B) As media cries foul, the media causes A to happen. C) Echo chamber as bloggers find out the real story, which adds to A (not necessary, this just adds to the effect). It's not the Streisand Effect because there is no attempt to ban, it's that the media exposure causes the hoax to become real. So, I'm sure there is a ghost story/supernatural/Greek myth parallel somewhere.
- beaudeal 18y agohonestly, i didn't think the day would come that i would be so impressed by the ingenuity of the avril lavigne fan club in relation to viral marketing. kudos.