As of the writing of this post, the current stats on YouTube show Evolution of Dance by Canadian comedian Jud Laipply still in 1st place on YouTube’s “Most Viewed Videos of All Time” with a total of 91,170,533 views.  Avril Lavigne’s music video, Girlfriend, is currently in second place with 90,662,174 views.  With just a little over half a million views seperating these two, how long will it be until Avril pulls ahead of one of the most entertaining YouTube videos to date?

But how did this happen?  How did Avril’s video appear at such a high ranking.  I mean, after all, no body likes Avirl Lavigne. (oooooooh buuuuurnnnnnn).  Continue reading to find out…

On the surface a number of factors could be involved.  With YouTube’s popularity at an all time peak right now it could simply be that more of the mainstream, general public is viewing these videos.  This seems quite understandable, the more of the MTV crowd that comes into YouTube, the more crummy videos float to the surface.

But that is not what is happening.  That would be the natural course of things, however, the methods of Avril’s current success on YouTube are far from natural (and I bet a few sections of Avril herself are far from natural, but that is besides the point).  The truth of the matter appears to be a website called AvrilBandAids.com, a site that once loaded will automatically load the specific Avril Lavigne video, Girlfriend, every 15 seconds.

This process, apparently refered to as Stat-Goosing, is not a new thing.  Some time ago YouTube removed quite a number of views that were stat-goosed to the music video Music is My Hot Hot Sex.  The question is what makes Girlfriend different from Music is My Hot Hot Sex?  Some speculate that it is Avril’s mainstream popularity that is keeping YouTube and Google from removing the false views.  After all, if you were YouTube/Google, what keywords would you rather have to help target your website’s ad banners: Avril Lavigne or Hot Hot Sex?  (and no, “Both” is not a valid answer)

Like was stated at the start of this article, there is less than half a million views between the two, and we shall soon see who will be the true king or queen of YouTube’s Most Viewed listing.  My vote for winner, however, is Optimus Prime…