The latest internet music video sensation: Chick Chick

Why someone would watch some music videos a million times over on YouTube and ignore the good music, is part of why the average 21st Century person is such a complex creature.

The latest in a long line of internet music video sensations is from Chinese pop star Wang Rong. The song “Chick Chick” was released just under a month ago and has already received over 7 million views on YouTube.

Lyrics consisting of mostly animal noises, women dressed as chickens and shirtless men – the recipe for the perfect music video sensation.

For me, internet sensations started with an April Fool’s joke in 2008 that is now known as Rickrolling.

Media companies all over the world pranked people with “bait and switch”. “Bait and switch” is when a link is provided – with the URL scrambled so its location is undetectable – that redirects to Rick Astley’s 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up”.

The prank revived Astley’s career. The song has now had more than 94 million views on YouTube.

Songwriter Nils Logren created a mashup of “Never Gonna Give You Up” with Avicii’s “Wake Me Up” earlier this year, which has been viewed over 3 million times on YouTube.

2010 saw the rise of the Biebs…

Justin Bieber’s “Baby” featuring Ludacris has had over 1 billion views on Youtube. It must be added that the video has also received over 4 million “dislikes”.

2011 brought us the post-apocalyptic music video of LMFAO, depicting a world epidemic where “everyday we’re shuffling”.

“Party Rock Anthem” was the breakout song for the rapper duo made up of Redfoo and Sky Blu (an uncle and nephew).

Perhaps the most memorable internet music video sensation is the pop song all the way from South Korea: “Gangnam Style”.

Psy’s song is even in The Guinness Book of World Records as the most “liked” video on Youtube, having received an astounding  8,7 million likes. The UN’s Ban Ki-moon even called the song a “force for world peace”.

More recently, has been the brothers from Norway, Ylvis.

“The Fox (What Does The Fox Say)” was ‘created to fail’, says Ylvis. But with over 465 million views on YouTube, it’s not quite a fail.

And that’s the thing with internet sensations: the bad stuff is the best stuff.