Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Monday, June 23, 2008 at 9:36 PM PT

Avril Lavigne vs. Evolution

Pop singer Avril Lavigne’s army of fans are amassing online with one goal in mind…take down Judson Laipply and his Evolution of Dance as the most-watched YouTube video of all time.

Wait, Avril Lavigne is the second most-watched video ever on YouTube?

As of today, Evolution has 89,589,770 views. But the music video for Lavigne’s Girlfriend is nipping at Laipply’s moonwalking heels with 88,787,747 plays, leaving just 802,023 plays between them. All the more impressive, Laipply’s video was released April 6 2006, while Lavigne’s was released February 27, 2007

So why is Lavigne’s camp is resorting to less-than-bubblegummy-pop tactics to try and take the crown?

To fire up the all the Sk8ter Bois and girls for this web video battle royale, the somewhat-creepily titled AvrilBandAids.com has set up a “refresher” page to try and game the system. Keep the page open and it will refresh the Lavigne video page on YouTube every 15 seconds.

Come on, Lavigne-iacs! This is something Team Britney would do! Don’t sink to their level.

Stats-goosing is nothing new, but Girlfriend has hovered near the top of the all-time heap for awhile on what seems like its own inexplicable merits (though I’ll admit, it is one catchy song). Just let the drama play out. The video for Music is My Hot Hot Sex was stripped of its most-watched title after accusations of gamesmanship arose, why risk it for Lavigne? You don’t want her to fall to pieces…

Back here at NTV HQ, we’ve been trying to figure out what makes Girlfriend so popular. Was it the release date? The abundance of bathroom humor? The undying appeal of mini-golf? Others have pondered this very same question.

(Hat tip to Golden Fiddle who has the most awesomest of headlines: “Hey, Hey YouTube.”)

Sphere Tweet This

Topic: Shows & Stars

Comments (9)

Avril’s video would be at 100 million views if they enabled embeds, RCA is holding back the number of views since they require ad supported plays. Stupid move with this particular video since it will be a very publicly discussed event when the first Youtube video hits 100 million streams.

editechial — 9:49 PM on June 23, 2008 Reply
Amazing they are doing it without embeds. Most of the music industry still hasn’t learned much. At least the TV networks are embracing embeds, for the most part.

Frank Sinton — 9:57 PM on June 23, 2008 Reply
We Are nOT crEEpy , wE lOVe AvRil SHes ThE BEst DaMn THinG So shUt It BiATcH

.avrilpink- christina — 10:39 PM on June 23, 2008 Reply
that picture of her with her fist pumping in the air looks so annoying! although i like her and her music, that pic just makes me want to punch her in the face.

Don — 11:55 PM on June 24, 2008 Reply
It is creepy, Avril is a skanky version of Britney – that’s not good. Hahahaha, such a poser..getting her low life fans to watch her crap videos.

She is not rock/punk – she’s no more than a pop industry strategy

BTW – the person who wrote that bandaids is not creepy has a creepy, retarded way of writing. Can’t you use the f***ing caps lock button properly???

The smart guy — 9:28 AM on June 25, 2008 Reply
The song Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne was the most legally downloaded mp3 song in the world in 2007, so there is no denying that the song is overwelmingly popular.

Jordy — 10:25 AM on June 29, 2008 Reply
Thanks for the article, he is my take on this…

I think Avril deserves the no. 1 spot because YouTube has disabled the counts used by automated systems and has deleted all of those views, additionally Avril’s videos are not embedded anywhere else but in YouTube, unlike Evolution of Dance’s video which is embedded all over the internet. It is quite amazing that Avril’s video has managed to rack up that many views without embedding, If Avril’s video had been allowed to be embedded by RCA it would have already far surpassed the Evolution of dance video long ago.

Also the Evolution of Dance video has been out far longer than Avril’s video and it has caught up in record time, proving the immense popularity of the song worldwide.

Avril’s song Girlfriend was the most legally bought and downloaded song of 2007.

Furthermore, Avril was the best selling female artist in the world in 2007 according to http://www.worldwidealbums.net/2007.htm

And Avril Lavigne now has the most NO. 1 Top 40 Hits This Decade. Avril Lavigne has ascended to a lofty pedestal: The 22-year-old now has the most No. 1 top 40 hits this decade at “five” and is the No. 2 artist in the 14-year history of Nielsen BDS, behind Mariah Carey’s six chart-toppers. —Chuck Taylor (Billboard.com)Source: http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/content_display/reviews/singles/e3i6337374c02990aa382432d13494ab554

Kardemee — 12:55 AM on July 17, 2008 Reply
avril’s vid already reached 99 million plus! it’s nearly 100!!

CRZL — 12:22 AM on August 31, 2008 Reply
ganda mo ha!!!!!!!!!!! girlfriend

jessica — 5:19 PM on March 4, 2009 Reply

Linkbacks (9)

[...] Lavigne vs. Evolution Avril Lavigne vs. Evolution Pop singer Avril Lavigne�s army of fans are amassing online with one goal in mind�take down [...]

Avril Lavigne vs. Evolution - Avril Lavigne… — 10:15 PM on June 23, 2008
[...] reinado de Evolution of Dance está ameaçado. O vídeo que caminha para ser o mais visto de todos os tempos no YouTube é GirlFriend [2007], de [...]

Tiago Dória Weblog » Blog Archive… — 11:21 PM on June 23, 2008
[...] Avril Lavigne beat Mr. Evolution of Dance for Most Viewed Video ever? News: Newteevee reports that Avril Lavigne has come within striking distance of the Most Viewed Video, all-time on YouTube, [...]

Will Avril Lavigne beat Mr. Evolution of… — 5:58 AM on June 24, 2008
[...] Avril Lavigne is abou to have the #1 video on YouTube [...]

GEARFUSE » Afternoon Linkage for June… — 9:16 AM on June 24, 2008
[...] is a neat piece in NTV about the battle to be the #1 Most Viewed Video on YouTube. For quite some time that spot has [...]

Do View Counts Really Matter? Avril Lavigne… — 3:09 PM on June 26, 2008
[...] Weekend Vid Picks: TED Talks, 50 Million Views And Counting Maybe it’s just leftover trauma from high school, but I’m always a bit bitter when I hear about how awesome some party was — some party to which I was not invited. In the case of the annual TED conference, though, I don’t mind so much, mainly because they now do a fantastic job of providing video highlights all year long. And there’s an entire Internet that agrees with me — this week, TED talk videos hit 50 million views, an impressive achievement given that there’s no army of Avril Lavigne fans doing their bidding. [...]

Weekend Vid Picks: TED Talks, 50 Million… — 8:00 AM on June 29, 2008
[...] as well as its relationships with partners. In a prominent recent example, Avril Lavigne fans had created a page that autoplayed and auto-refreshed the video for her single “Girlfriend” in an attempt [...]

YouTube No Longer Counting Autoplays? «… — 10:34 AM on July 6, 2008
[...] to have surpassed Judson’s Laipply’s Evolution of Dance last night, after her fans mounted a campaign to send the long-running No. 2 video of all time on the site to the top spot. But Girlfriend is [...]

Avril Ascends, But YouTube Withholds Her… — 11:51 AM on July 18, 2008
[...] After weeks of speculation about its autoplay view-counting policy and at least one high-profile news story, YouTube has revealed that the company purposefully does not count video [...]

YouTube Says Autoplays Don’t Count… — 9:25 AM on July 23, 2008