The Haunted Vid
Weird, weird things are happening on the official site right now.
Every couple of days, I check the Popular Videos tab on the Control Panel, just to see how that stupid Cantina is doing. That particular tab shows the 36 most viewed videos on the site, and that stupid Cantina has been sitting at #10 for the past several months. A week or so ago, Wake Me Up Inside joined it, and had worked its way up to #32 by yesterday morning.
I noticed early yesterday afternoon that Wake Me Up had fallen to #33, which wasn't really a big deal at all, but I was curious which vid had overtaken it, so I looked through all the others. Color me surprised to see Sibling Rivalry sitting at #19. I hadn't noticed it on that page before at all, let alone that high... and that struck me as kind of odd. But then I just figured that hey, I'm not exactly the most observant crayon in the wagon, so I must have just overlooked it.
I played around on the site a bit last night before I laid down, then I went and read for a while, and when I came back I saw that it had moved up to #18. I was thinking, "Wow! This vid sure has gotten popular! It has to have gained like... 30 views in the past hour!" I made a post on my profile about it, it struck me as so odd. My view count when I started that post was 3231. Five minutes later, when I went to check it again, out of curiosity, it had 3247.
Yes, it had gained 16 views in five minutes. I updated my profile post with that information and immediately sent a message to one of the site administrators, because this is seriously wrong.
This morning, I wake up to find that it's climbed from #18 to #15, a gain of more than 500 views. At 9:30am, it had 3744 views. At 10:30am, it had 3820.
So I decided to do a little math. The vid itself is 1:55 minutes long, which means that it can be viewed 38 times an hour. Based on the views gained between 9:30 and 10:30 this morning, it's actually being viewed 76 times an hour. Which means that it's being viewed (or at least it thinks it's being viewed) from two different locations simultaneously, back to back, non-stop.
As I write this, my view count is 3955 and it's sitting at #13. At the rate it's gaining views, if it isn't stopped, it will pass the #12 video in 4 hours. It will take #10 from that stupid Cantina at 7:00pm tomorrow. It will catch the #1 video - the promo for The Powers That Be with 15,022 views - at noon on Saturday, April 28.
Why is it happening? I have absolutely no idea. The only possible explanation I can come up with is that two people have left a browser window open to it with it continuously running. For the past 36 hours. That's how long it would take to go from the 1200 or so views I think it had to the 3955 it has right now.
Part of me is thinking it has something to do with my "little friends" over there, because I really don't believe in coincidence and if this is some weird site glitch then why, out of the thousands of vids on that site, would it be one of mine doing this? But then I think... those folks have gone out of their way to make people think badly of me. If they're doing this on purpose, then what's the point? How are they making people dislike me by trying to make one of my vids the most popular one on the site?
I don't get it. But I can say, without a doubt, that I don't like it.
Every couple of days, I check the Popular Videos tab on the Control Panel, just to see how that stupid Cantina is doing. That particular tab shows the 36 most viewed videos on the site, and that stupid Cantina has been sitting at #10 for the past several months. A week or so ago, Wake Me Up Inside joined it, and had worked its way up to #32 by yesterday morning.
I noticed early yesterday afternoon that Wake Me Up had fallen to #33, which wasn't really a big deal at all, but I was curious which vid had overtaken it, so I looked through all the others. Color me surprised to see Sibling Rivalry sitting at #19. I hadn't noticed it on that page before at all, let alone that high... and that struck me as kind of odd. But then I just figured that hey, I'm not exactly the most observant crayon in the wagon, so I must have just overlooked it.
I played around on the site a bit last night before I laid down, then I went and read for a while, and when I came back I saw that it had moved up to #18. I was thinking, "Wow! This vid sure has gotten popular! It has to have gained like... 30 views in the past hour!" I made a post on my profile about it, it struck me as so odd. My view count when I started that post was 3231. Five minutes later, when I went to check it again, out of curiosity, it had 3247.
Yes, it had gained 16 views in five minutes. I updated my profile post with that information and immediately sent a message to one of the site administrators, because this is seriously wrong.
This morning, I wake up to find that it's climbed from #18 to #15, a gain of more than 500 views. At 9:30am, it had 3744 views. At 10:30am, it had 3820.
So I decided to do a little math. The vid itself is 1:55 minutes long, which means that it can be viewed 38 times an hour. Based on the views gained between 9:30 and 10:30 this morning, it's actually being viewed 76 times an hour. Which means that it's being viewed (or at least it thinks it's being viewed) from two different locations simultaneously, back to back, non-stop.
As I write this, my view count is 3955 and it's sitting at #13. At the rate it's gaining views, if it isn't stopped, it will pass the #12 video in 4 hours. It will take #10 from that stupid Cantina at 7:00pm tomorrow. It will catch the #1 video - the promo for The Powers That Be with 15,022 views - at noon on Saturday, April 28.
Why is it happening? I have absolutely no idea. The only possible explanation I can come up with is that two people have left a browser window open to it with it continuously running. For the past 36 hours. That's how long it would take to go from the 1200 or so views I think it had to the 3955 it has right now.
Part of me is thinking it has something to do with my "little friends" over there, because I really don't believe in coincidence and if this is some weird site glitch then why, out of the thousands of vids on that site, would it be one of mine doing this? But then I think... those folks have gone out of their way to make people think badly of me. If they're doing this on purpose, then what's the point? How are they making people dislike me by trying to make one of my vids the most popular one on the site?
I don't get it. But I can say, without a doubt, that I don't like it.