Tonight is the MTV Video Music Awards - pop stars, rock legends, and celebrities converge at the Staples Center in Los Angeles for a night full of music, performances, fashion, stunts, and awards. The Video of the Year award is among the top Moonman awards given at the VMAs, so we thought we'd take a closer look at the contenders and pose the question: If the winners were chosen by online video viewership, which music video would win the Video of the Year?
To find out, we looked at the online video viewership for each of the nominees. We measured each music video by our True Reach metric, which takes into account all related clips to the original music video, including performances, pardodies, mashups, covers, and more.
And the Moonman goes to...
Gotye and Kimbra win by a long shot. Their breakout hit, Somebody That I Used to Know, blows away the competition with more than 650 million views. Somebody That I Used to Know has more than 180 related videos - many of them parodies of the original video. We uncovered a Star Wars parody, an Obama parody, and countless of other covers of the tune.
Rihanna and Calvin Harris' We Found Love also had a big presence in online video. 375 million views across more than 90 clips is no small feat. Following Rihanna and Calvin Harris' act is Katy Perry's latest hit, Wide Awake. The music video has more than 143 million views, and nearly 100 clips. Drake and Rihanna nip on Katy's toes with Take Care at 130 million views across more than 80 copies and derivatives. Finally, rounding out the nominees is M.I.A.'s music video, Bad Girls with 34 million views.
Which music video do you think will take home the award? Let us know in the comments section below!
