YouTube Honors Best Videos of 2007

YouTube just announced the winners of the annual YouTube Awards.

There were six nominees for each of these categories: music, sports, comedy, instructional, short film, inspirational, commentary, creative, politics, series, eyewitness and adorable.

Users and viewers from all over the globe were tasked to vote for the winners.

The music category was dominated by Tay Zonday (pictured below: he doesn’t look like the big hit type, huh?) with his song “Chocolate Rain.” He had this to say: “It’s the new Emmys. It’s the next Oscars. The next People’s Choice Awards. It’ll be interesting to see what happens five years, 10 years.” He made a new video remix called “Cherry Chocolate Rain” for Dr. Pepper. Talk about going from zero to hero! The video was professionally made with direction, production, rappers, and hot chics!

Comedy went to Neil Cicierega’s Harry Potter puppets and their skits. I watched them personally, it’s not that overly hilarious and the jokes are not really new but it was nonetheless creative and probably worthy of the award.

Creative went to a Swiss artist named Guillaume Reymond from NOTsoNOISY for his Human Tetris (not the same as the Japanese version). It was an original concept which used stop motion to recreate a round of the addictive game. They used people as the squares that form the shapes of the game. They used a theatre for the game area and the people were sitting in the seats that acted like pixels. See picture below.

Commentary went to Michael Buckley from the online show “What the Buck?” I feel it should have gone to Chris Crocker (the picture below is a capture from the infamous “Leave Britney Alone” video) instead – the so-called “Britney’s No. 1 Fan” – who went ape crazy on the entire world for talking bad about Britney Spears and her train wreck antics. “What the Buck?” wasn’t at all entertaining, but obviously tackled more issues than Crocker. It’s like an online ranting (aka commentary according to the new world of media) much like TV’s “The View.”

Politics went to AvaazOrg for the video entitled “Stop the Clash of Civilizations” – which voiced out the feelings of individuals about the non-difference of Arabs and Westerners. It shows how people around the world are being blinded by select Islamic extremists into believing that they are all enemies. Much media attention was drawn, however, by Obama Girl for the widely-viewed “I Got A Crush On Obama” video that stormed the online community and launched a new direction for the career of model Amber Lee Ettinger (pictured below – she is hot!) who played the Obama crazy bikini-clad lady for barelypolitical.

Eyewitness went to “Battle at Kruger” poster Jason275 which showed an actual fight between a group of water buffaloes and a pack of lions (there was even a crocodile!) for one of their calves. It was very much like National Geographic and Animal Planet. It had all the drama and excitement but without the professional production and direction. The video was probably shot from a safari trip – very real and indeed deserving of the award.

Short Film went to “My Name is Lisa” – a drama about the life of a little girl who makes video blogs and her mother who happens to suffer from Alzheimer’s Disease. It’s a very sad portrayal of a very sad reality. Very touching!

Series went to “The Guild” – a comedic series about online gamer Cyd Sherman, her online guildmates, and their adventures and misadventures in the online and the real world. The series looks really good and it’s funny enough and real enough to entice online players and non-online players alike.

Adorable went to “Laughing Baby” – a hilarious video of a baby who’s, well, laughing because of ripped paper. It’s like the baby smoked weed or something.

Instructional went to Dan Brown (not the author of “The Da Vinci Code”) for “How to Solve a Rubik’s Cube (Part One).” The video has 3 million plus views and has been helping the entire world learn the standard method of solving a Rubik’s cube. Part Two has 2.6 mil in viewership.

YouTube has emerged as the number one forum for entertainment online. These awards are making more and more amateurs feel welcome in the entertainment business. It proves that you don’t have to star in big budgeted movies to showcase talent.

“Has there been interest from music labels at all? Definitely,” said Tay Zonday.