Born In '88

An unofficial case study.

We all know that Cee-lo’s “F*ck You” is a low budget viral sensation, but how did it get there? An item’s rise to Internet fame can take a number of routes, and in the case of “F*ck You,” it didn’t necessarily start or flourish on YouTube.*

“F*ck You” was uploaded on Aug. 19 and to date, the official release of the video on Cee-lo’s YouTube account has received over 2.4 mil views and there are about a dozen unofficial versions with considerable page rank including a remix featuring 50 Cent that together have received over 579k views.

While YouTube’s metrics aren’t always the most accurate or detailed, their analytics reveal some landmarks in the timeline.

Who needs the new music cartel when you have twitter?

The new music cartel—an allegiance of the top hip-hop/urban blogs on the web—is usually the go-to tool for launching a piece of hip-hop related news, music, or video but in the case of “F*ck You,” two twitter handles proved to be more useful.**

On Aug. 20, the video garnered over 35k views from referrals from stand-up comedian @joerogan (Klout: 77 | “Celebrity”) and “actor/writer” @simonpegg  (Klout: 80 | “Persona”) —the first referral from YouTube got 26K.

A referral from YouTube’s music channel isn’t as helpful as you’d think.

After the video received referrals from Facebook (49k, and a second time 69k) and social bookmarking website Reddit (45k), “F*ck You” was picked up by YouTube’s music channel (50k) and then made the YouTube homepage (80k).

Outside referrals: 2; YouTube: 0

Real Facebook users don’t click links.

Facebook is the definition of over sharing. It links all the popular social networks and web tools and publishes their content on an already over populated feed of photos, comments and videos. So when Facebook users start posting links to a hilarious Cee-lo video, few even see it, let alone take the time to click on it. Thus enters the video embed.

YouTube videos can be easily embedded on Facebook and the first video embed got over 255K views, almost the equivalent of the 300k+ views gained from all the referrals combined. And they say Facebook won’t last.

If you build it, they will come.

All of the said events occurred on Aug. 20 and only marked the original referrals for the official release. The seeds were planted, and with time, the rest of the Internet caught on—additional digital marketing push from the Cee-lo camp would have been immaterial. As expected, the anti-gold digger anthem was the most popular with males aged 25-55—sorry kids, this grown folk business.

*An official music video for the song off of the upcoming LP, The Ladykiller, is scheduled for release later this week.

**The analytics for the remix video from 50 Cent’s YouTube account are no longer available but landmarks included referrals from Thisis50.com and members of the NMC.

Editor’s Note: Sometimes lyrics do sell. Cee-lo didn’t need a big budget crew make this viral video happen, just a designer (or really even a savvy intern) to input the lyrics into After Effects, sync the timeline and export the video to YouTube. Motion typography has long been a trend on YouTube and where creativity is concerned, Cee-lo’s video doesn’t hold a candle. The same animation was used for each composition and there were no additional effects unlike Jay-Z’s “Brooklyn” or personal favorite, Pulp Fiction video. The frank lyrics did the trick.

-@KD