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Even if you never bought their album, there’s few people in the world (well, those with internet access) who haven’t heard of OK Go. The band made a name for themselves after creating one of the world’s first viral music videos — Here It Goes Again — which showcased band members performing a carefully choreographed and synchronized dance routine across multiple treadmills. That was back in 2006. Since then, they’ve continually pushed the creative envelope with their music videos and yesterday, they released what could be their best one yet: Upside Down & Inside Out.
The video was shot in one of those zero gravity airplanes and with the use of clever editing, made all the weightless scenes come together seamlessly. It was another viral hit but oddly enough, one that completely shunned YouTube as the go-to destination to watch the video. Instead, the band released a video on YouTube urging viewers to check out their video on — where else — but exclusively on Facebook of all places. What. The. Eff.
Of course, this is the internet and re-uploads of the video quickly made their way onto YouTube in no time. Still, it’s a strange move for a band who got their big break making videos on YouTube. Apparently, this may have had something to do with bad blood between the band’s record label and YouTube. But lead singer Damian Kulash danced around the subject, telling Adweek in a statement:
“With each video, we’re trying to find a new creative challenge for ourselves, and the launches feel the same way. The stars aligned with Facebook this time, and we were excited to try something new. A decade ago, we fell into a great thing, making our own videos—we found both a new creative outlet and new connection direct to our fans, but it was only possible because we were willing to experiment with new ways of reaching people.”
We can’t help but feel the band’s move to launch the video on Facebook was was fueled by lot and lots of money changing hands. If nothing else, this could be seen as Facebook’s way of proving they have the ability to fuel viral videos all their own. Not by inflating views. Not by stealing other people’s content. But by being the destination for content creators to showcase their videos first. Here are a few Facebook stats the band so graciously provided with their statement:
- 780 million people are connected to a music page on Facebook.
- People now watch a collective 100 million hours of video daily on Facebook.
- On average, there are more than 8 billion video views on Facebook every day.
- Every day more than 500 million people watch video on Facebook.
- More than 75 percent of video views are on mobile.
- 53 percent of all video views come from shares.
As anyone as it is trying to share a Facebook video to our friends and family who aren’t even on the social network, we’re not even mad we just hope this isn’t the start of a larger trend (exclusive anything usually sucks). The video was sweet and we enjoyed watching it. You do you, OK Go. You can check out their new music video which was in partnership with Russian airline S7 at the very top of this post.
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