Mystery of viral hits?

Instead of learning new technologies (Like I should, as a Software Engineer), I'm instead exploring viral hits and at times speculating how they became so popular. It is all a mystery to the retarded layman me. Despite all the bashing ARK Music Factory gets, Patrice Wilson (The CEO) should indeed be credited for having come up with the "Friday" viral hit, whether intentional or not.

Insult as much as you want, but you have to admit some people had all the luck.

Now that it has gained the publicity that it needs, ARK decided to go for higher stakes, this time teaming up with "Good Morning America" to produce "an original music video with viral potential to become the next big hit." From a superficial view, they want to replicate the level of publicity that "Friday" attained. For Patrice Wilson himself, this mission however was slightly different in that he wants to "make something everybody could like."

I will not bother to go into the details of the "One Week to Hit It Big" process, I'm not that interested anyway. What is important is that another teenager, this time by the name of Lexi St. George, was selected and her music video "Dancing to the Rhythm" was done in a week or so.

Some smart guy asked me to pause the YouTube video and press 4.
But I think she is pretty.

Oh wow, it did not seem that much of a viral hit. As of 11th July 2011 the music video has combined views (Posted on both ARK and ABC News channel) of only under 400,000 on YouTube, and it has been more than a week. This barely or even failed to match the short-lived notoriety Tonje Langeteig enjoyed with her so-called song.

Why? I don't like writing paragraphs of text, so here's a summarized list for myself:

• "Friday" was "so bad its good", but "Dancing to the Rhythm" was merely generically nice and fun. It isn't awful, at least to me, but neither is it mindbogglingly awesome.
• Similarly, Rebecca Black has a whole different charm to her, while Lexi St. George, a newcomer, has to compete with the likes of Miley Cyrus in terms of popularity.
• People simply have a poor opinion of ARK Music Factory. As the trolls on the internet were screaming out, "Friday" was what gave ARK its publicity.
• Didn't people notice the rate of diminishing returns in viral music videos for 2011? First we had Rebecca Black, followed by minor viral hit(s) by that of Jenna Rose, followed by a couple of even more short-lived ones by others.
• "One Week to Hit It Big" was a lower-budget effort, and unfortunately it probably wasn't as glamorous as American Idol/The X Factor
• Yeah right, it wouldn't be that viral in the first place if news of the selection process and music video production are released over the course of a few days, isn't it? Element of surprise: Hit the people with the unexpected.

Summary... Rebecca Black and "Friday" were in a league of their own, while Lexi St. George and "Dancing to the Rhythm" had to compete with the more popular hits due to the song's somewhat generic nature.

I believe that a generic song doesn't necessarily mean it will never be a success, it only means the singer needs to rely on other factors to make the song a success. Lady Gaga has her over-the-top outfits and interesting personality. Miley Cyrus... I don't really know much about her, other than she was also a very popular teen actress in kids' shows. Hence even if the artiste happen to have a not-so-special song, he/she can still expect to generate a bit of revenue from it. Lexi needs to work on finding her own niche.

All this reminds me again of how I can't find my own niche to distinguish myself from others, be it blogging or programming. Sigh, doomed to obscurity and mediocrity.

P.S: I couldn't resist posting yet another screen shot from Jenna Rose's "My Jeans" music video. Notice that during this scene her eyes rolled very briefly to look at the camera (Around at 2 min 30 sec of the original).

Haha, she's kind of cute.