A lot has happened this year, but if Internet analytics are any indication, none was as important as 14-year-old Rebecca Black’s hilariously terrible song, “Friday.” Not only was “Rebecca Black” the “fastest rising” Google search term globally in 2011, but her music video for “Friday” was, not surprisingly, watched more times this year than any other video on YouTube.
According to the counter on the official “Friday” video, the clip has only received 12.5 million views. We say “only” because the video has actually received more than 10 times that amount. The discrepancy is because Black took down the video from YouTube in June due to a copyright claim — by Black. (Weird.) At that point, the official video had 167 million views. The 12.5 million count is simply the number of views the video has received since it was put back online on September 16, giving it a total view count of around 180 million — more than 100 million views over the next-highest contender. And that doesn’t count the number of views all the reposted videos have received.
Other top 10 videos include a “talking dog,” Lonely Planet’s “Jack Sparrow” rap, two babies having an unintelligible conversation with each other, Nyan Cat, Karmin’s cover of Chris Brown’s “Look At Me Now,” an SNL skit, 10-year-old Maria Aragon’s cover of Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way,” a Star Wars-themed Volkswagen commercial and, of course, some cute cats.
Unlike all of the other top 10 YouTube videos of 2011, “Friday” is the only one that has an overwhelming majority of “dislikes” over “likes” — only about 27 percent of viewers actually like “Friday,” which still seems a bit too high. But we’ll let you judge that for yourself:
Check out the full YouTube Rewind 2011 here.
