"Hot Hot Sex" YouTube Video Gets Attention: Good and Bad

"YouTube chart topper provokes web backlash" TimesOnline (UK) (March 19, 2008)

For a YouTuber, it was good news, bad news:

• Good news:
  The music video he posted, including "Music Is My Hot Hot Sex," shot to the top of the charts.
• Bad news:
  Someone may have been rigging the ratings, and now the poster is getting angry messages.

It isn't just the number of hits that the video got, that raised suspicion.

Generally, videos get rated every 500 times they're watched. The "Hot Hot Sex" video got a rating for every 21,000 views. That suggested that the "views" weren't from "legitimate external sources."

One possible explanation that doesn't involve deliberate rigging is that the words "hot" and "sex" in the video post attracted the traffic. That and "iPod" and "touch."

That could be. Getting hits depends very heavily on what words show up in the text of a post.

Which, to be honest, is one of the reasons I posted this item.

Besides, it's an interesting look at how ratings and YouTube work, and online culture.