While getting my morning fix of news from BoingBoing and Slashdot, I read this one post about the ultimate in YouTube videos of the year as it is now coming to an end. I think it was on Slashdot, but I don’t quite find it anymore; otherwise, I would have added the link to it here.

This post had the shortcoming of not linking to those ‘most’ viewed-commented-influential-etc videos, and I had to go hunting. Obviously, that cost me quite some time because when on YouTube you not only watch that one video you came for – or am I the only one getting stuck all the time?

In order to save you some time, I am now giving you all these ‘most-ed’ videos – can you believe 21 million views for the Battle of Kruger (as of this writing in 2007)?

OK, let’s get going, the first I found was the Obama Girl, singing out her little heart about her crush on Mr. Obama with about 4.5 million views and nearly 14,000 comments:

Then I enjoyed Chris Crocker defending Britney Spears in his piece ‘Leave Britney Alone’. About 14 million had watched it before me, and over 200,000 had commented:

(edit 2026: not the original video – that must have become the victim of the censor.)

As mentioned above, ‘The Battle at Kruger” had been watched way over 20 million times, and I actually was one of them. I had watched it when it was going all over the internet, but I was not one of the only 19 thousand who had left comments:

And last but not least, I watched a bit of Esmee Denters’ rendition of Justin Timberlake’s “What Goes Around.” About 13 million had watched this one, and about 60 thousand had had the urge to comment. First, I did not quite get what the attraction of specifically this video is. Yes, Esmee seems to have that spark in her personality, and she certainly is pretty, but then I investigated some more, checked out her other recordings, and I have to admit, she grabbed the opportunity and went with it. I have to say that I am impressed. And now, see for yourself:

I think these are all very nice examples of the factor of ‘critical mass’.

Just trying to imagine how much time all this has cost mankind. The battle at Kruger alone – 20,000,000 times 8 minutes – before you read on, just make a wild guess, how much time that is…

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Over 300 years!

So, whattaya think, was that worth it?