Angry in the Great White North

BONUS UPDATE: It's official!  Super-viral:

The video of Harper, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and some friends performing the Beatles' With a Little Help From My Friends at the National Arts Centre was the most popular YouTube file in Canada Monday, and peaked at No. 5 on YouTube's worldwide most-popular list.

On the News & Politics category home page, variations of the video appear no less than six times, including holding the top two spots!  It also has a spot on the All Categories page.  And best of all, on the YouTube home page itself, as the most popular News & Politics video!

UPDATE: When I said this video had legs, I was wrong.  Someone has strapped a jet engine on it and hit the afterburners!  Since yesterday, the numbers of views counted has over doubled!  Now standing at 346,649! 

The YouTube video of Stephen Harper performing at the NAC Gala as topped 170,000 views since it was posted on Saturday:

The punditry is call this a political masterstroke, the sort of video that actually changes people's view of the prime minister, and shifts votes.

The irony is that the idea came from Laureen Harper, and was not conceived of as a political move at all.

So how effective is the video?  First, assume that the video is effective in of itself.  No one watching can help but smile, except maybe for the most partisan Liberals.  But an average Canadian voter, who might not have voted Conservative before, would be impressed by what he or she saw.

So it comes down to how many people have seen the video.  At the time I'm writing this, the YouTube version of the video had been viewed 174,976 times.

An hour ago it was 170,275 times, so the video continues to rack up views.

CONTINUED UPDATE: In 24 hours, the number of views have surged to 346,649!

This doesn't count the number of people who saw the CTV version of the video.

In contrast, consider the much ballyhooed Grit Girl videos.  In total, the 17 videos have garnered 74,631 views.  And that is over a period of 7 months.  The latest video has been up for two weeks, and has had 91 views.

Just to help the Liberals out, I'm going to add in the Liberal Party commercials as presented on YouTube.  You know the ones -- Michael Ignatieff in front of a forest backdrop droning on about something or other.  There three videos are World View (61,605 views), Jobs (20,985 views) and Green Jobs (5,962 views).  Total views: 88,552.

Add that to the Grit Girl ads, and you have 163,183 views, and not much hope of going up any higher.

The NAC Gala video has topped that in two days. Continued Update: And more than doubled the total of all Liberal videos a day later.

But then I've included the official Liberal Party commercials, but not the official Conservative Party commercials.  On YouTube, the Conservative "Just Visiting" spots are Country (54,731 views), Arrogance (21,809 views), Hypocrisy (38,851 views) and Economy (7.106 views).  Total views: 122,497.

Add that to the current tally is the NAC Gala video, and you have 297,473 views, nearly doubling the Liberal count.  Continued Update: Adding to the new NAC Gala video count, you get 469,146 views, or nearly triple the the total Liberal video view count.

And over half of those views are that video of Stephen Harper singing a Beatles classic.  The video that people are saying is a game changer.  Continued Update:  Did I say half of those views?  Now it's two-thirds the soaring count of views of Conservative Party videos is of the game-changing NAC Gala performance.

Total cost to the Conservatives?  $0

You know that a sizable fraction of those views are from people who had seen an excerpt on the TV news, then looked for it online on YouTube so see the entire performance for themselves and to share it with friends.  Continued Update: At this point, I'm willing to say that I'm certain that this is what is happening.

Now that's viral.

Of note: A total of 1,834 people rated the NAC Gala video, garnering it a rating of 4.5 out of 5.  The most viewed Grit Girl video, "Jim Flaherty on the Recession", only earned 56 ratings, also a 4.5.  That means only 0.46% of the viewers of the Grit Girl video were impressed enough to bother giving the video a ranking, while just over 1% of the viewers of the Stephen Harper video were so inclined.  Remember that people tend to vote for things they like, and simply click away from things they don't like without voting at all, among people who bother to participate in voting.  So the score is less important (it will always be high) compared to the participation rate in judging whether a video is connecting with people.  Continued Update: The number of votes is up to 2,752, dropping the ratio to 0.8%, but still outpacing the Grit Girl voting participation rate of 0.46%.

The Final Insult: The Secret Outtakes video, in which Rick Mercer spoofs the Green Jobs video, has had 32,448 views, crushing the Green Jobs video (5,962 views) it was spoofing.

View Count Update:  In the two hours since this was posted, the hit count for the YouTube video of Stephen Harper performing at the NAC Gala has gone from 174,976 to 179,402.  This video still has legs.  Continued Update:  Ah, you know it already.  One day later, the the total views have doubled!