The bait is sexy; be prepared for a switch

By David Sarno

Oct. 14, 2007 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Not long after Los Angeles musician Lani Trock began posting videos of herself singing and playing guitar online, a message arrived in her in-box offering a bit of time-tested advice about how the young musician could grow her fan base.

“If you want more viewers . . . change you [sic] tags!” wrote the user, whose sobriquet was JapaneseBeachGirls. The tags he was referring to are keywords that creators attach to their videos so that search engines -- and the people using them -- can quickly find the type of video they’re looking for.

“Always put in ‘sex,’ ‘sexy,’ and ‘bikini,’ ” the fan suggested. “Lots of people search those tags.”

Trock gave it a shot, adding the tags to the clips she’d posted on the video-sharing site LiveVideo.com. For good measure, she also added “hot,” “girl,” “beach,” “fun” and “love.”

A ha’penny to whoever can guess what happened next.

“I definitely saw a dramatic increase in views,” said Trock, 23, along with an uptick in the number of strangers who wrote to her through the site’s e-mail system, many of whom were “older men who wanted to be my friend.”

Over at YouTube, it’s pretty well established that racy videos have a leg up, as it were, on the competition. The site has strict prohibitions against nudity of any kind, so some video makers have found creative ways to lure viewers with the promise of a free show.

A YouTube video called “Naked Chicks!” exemplifies a well-worn strategy for boosting a video’s view-count. In addition to its breathlessly pervy title, the video’s “thumbnail” image -- the small photo you see before you open the clip -- shows off the nicely tanned lower half of a bikini-clad woman.

Click on that thumbnail, however, and the yoke’s on you (and the video’s 7 million other viewers): “Naked Chicks!” turns out to be a humdrum slide show of baby chickens.

In the online video world, this kind of bait-and-click technique is a popular way to “game” a video site -- as in, take advantage of its usage policies to score cheap views.

“Don’t try to cheat the system,” warn YouTube’s community guidelines. “No gamed thumbnails.” But as with any guideline, this one has been variously interpreted.

The online TV network No Good Television (“We put the F-U back into fun . . . “) runs one of YouTube’s most popular channels, using its industry connections to crank out hit after hit with its mix of soppingly hormonal movie promos and ribald celebrity interviews, in which A-listers are free -- if not encouraged -- to use words that would not be allowed on network television, or even cable.

These days, NGTV always seems to have multiple videos on YouTube’s hit charts. One of its recent bonanzas was a video called “Jessica Biel Strips for Chuck but not for Larry!!!” which featured a thumbnail of an oiled-up Biel in a skimpy swimsuit. The video itself, though, was little more than a re-cut trailer for the Adam Sandler vehicle “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry.” Other than a split-second peep at the photo already displayed in the thumbnail -- the promise of a disrobing Biel fails miserably to materialize.

In a similar vein, NGTV had another popular video last week -- a promo for that best picture shoo-in “Mr. Woodcock.” “Billy Bob’s Boob Buffet Uncensored” has a thumbnail showing a woman handling her own substantial assets. It’s never clear in the video which buffet, or which boobs, the teaser is referring to -- since there is no discussion of either quantity.

Certain members of the YouTube community have caught on to the BoobTube trend, and they are not fans.

“The people I’m angry at are people that are YouTube partners who are using these images to get views,” said Bryony Mortenson, 24, herself a partner who goes by Paperlilies. Mortenson made the statement in a video she posted called “YouTube Boobs,” which appeared on the most-viewed list when she posted it last month. “It’s not like they’re just getting millions of views and that’s it -- they’re fooling people into watching their videos because they’re going to get paid for it.”

Mortenson, the British phenom behind last month’s “Miss West Carolina Speaks” -- a parody of the Miss Teen USA debacle -- is especially miffed about NGTV’s thumbnail choices. “No Good TV do it for every single video!” she said in an e-mail exchange. “It’s pretty pathetic, seeing as how they are a legitimate TV network or channel or whatever it is.”

Mortenson’s derision, however, extends to regular Joe YouTube partners as well.

Truth in advertising?

In late August, popular video blogger and bawdy YouTube humorist Philip DeFranco, a.k.a. sxephil, posted a video titled “Big Boobs and You,” a rant about his aesthetic preferences vis-a-vis the female form. The video’s thumbnail was in line with its title, but the video only flashed the image for a split second, the rest was just a monologue.

DeFranco admitted the video was an experiment to see how much traffic an offering with that name and image could generate. It scored 1.8 million views, by far the most successful of the 107 videos DeFranco had posted up to that point. The conclusion of his experiment was clear.

“Sex sells,” he said by instant message. The results were so compelling that DeFranco decided to revise his general approach to vlogging: “Sex, gossip, and news,” he typed proudly. “This is my bread and butter.”

When asked about the issue of misleading thumbnails, YouTube said the incidence of this type of trickery was difficult to track, but that it was “not rampant.”

“When it comes to our attention that someone has rigged their video to gain placement on the top pages, we remove the video or channel from public view,” representatives said by e-mail, adding that “in the long run, our most successful partners upload clips that do not take away from the user experience.”

Though one must pause and reflect before sympathizing with the woes of a multibillion-dollar company, it’s true that making thousands of real-time decisions about what constitutes “rigging” and what doesn’t is not an enviable task.

YouTube elder Blunty3000 has made a mission of riding that very line, deploying his own sortie of boob-oriented videos, including his latest hit, the marginally nuanced “The Wondrous Magnificence of the Human Form,” which strings together user-submitted photos to create an essay on physical beauty. Also, there are chicks in bikinis. Score? Two million views and counting.

Blunty3000 defended his intentions in an e-mail, saying the videos are meant to provoke thoughtful discussion, while at the same time performing a sort of public service by testing YouTube’s tolerance.

He noted, for instance, that he posted a similar video featuring a barely clothed part of male anatomy (his). That video was swiftly removed by YouTube. Whereas the lady stuff, he contends, doesn’t ruffle as many feathers.

YouTube has not released details about how ad revenue is shared with the partners. But people with knowledge of the system have said YouTube must approve any video a partner wants to “monetize” -- or use for advertising. These videos are subject to more stringent content standards, so partners will often choose not to submit their racier works.

Still, there’s money at stake. YouTube stars are constantly competing for subscribers -- a built-in audience, sometimes of thousands -- that is alerted each time the creator posts a new video.

So even if the poster chooses to skip “monetizing” his or her current risque video, its success could still help nab subscribers for future endeavors.

Some faux-sexy videos “game” the system, others are just sexy -- but they all seem to be feeding on the same dynamic.

As our musician Lani Trock put it, when it comes to getting exposure for your video, “you can never underestimate the power of horny men online.”

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