A first wrinkle: The video for something similar to “Forget You” that has racked up so many views on YouTube was meant to be a place holder before a “proper video” is released this week. The Cee Lo single, though, has been aided by a nifty design that used the lyrics to great effect. They bounce along with the song — appearing and disappearing, growing bigger and moving across the screen. The title words, unprintable in a family newspaper, are largest of all.Also enjoyable for the contortions the Grey Lady goes through to avoid the phrase "Fuck You" while still communicating the phrase.
“I was only approached a couple of days before the song needed to be released on YouTube,” Terry Scruby, 33, who created the video, wrote in an e-mail. “I designed and animated the entire song in only one night, and actually had to drop additional ideas I wanted to incorporate to take the video to the next level because I simply didn’t have time.”
Mr. Scruby, whose company, based in London, is called TD4, said he had never been caught up in an Internet phenomenon before. “It has been the first piece of my work that has been forwarded back to me by my friends and colleagues in a ‘You must see this’ type way, which really highlights the viral nature of how this song has spread,” he wrote, adding, “Yep, that’s right — none of my friends who posted the link on Facebook knew that I had made it. I hadn’t told anyone about it because I had no idea it would be so popular.”
The second wrinkle is that viral sensations move much more rapidly than even the greatest optimist could imagine. The bright-flash success for Cee Lo caught many by surprise — including the record company. For the first week, while the song was being played to death on YouTube, the single was not actually for sale.
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posted by dortmunder at 4:35 PM on August 20, 2010 [1 favorite]