Vevo and music videos dominating the Viral Charts

Another bad day for any video that is not music and Vevo.  I counted 17 of the top 20 as music videos.  While I don't have a problem with music videos and I enjoy a great many.  It is such a shame that they dominate everything.  Videos that languished with a few views with a Vevo branding suddenly jump up the YouTube charts.  I feel sorry for everyone who will eventually simply be shown premium content and the home video will pale into insignificance.  I am proud of Harry and Charlie's clip doing it's bit to break the trend.  Although I doubt they will be in the top 20 on YouTube by the end of the year.

Harry and Charlie (and Jasper too) - Holiday is Wales 2010

Our Welsh Holiday - Locations and notes

As an accompaniment to the Holiday in Wales video here are the names of the places.

Beach - Aberdovey April 10th. First full day of our holiday and a very hot one. We all were buried at least once. Harry and Charlie were buried twice. Feet felt numb after being in the water for a few minutes however.

Walk in the Hills - Llanidloes, April 11th. Following a fairly short but steep route. We filmed the Running in Leaves video shortly after the clip of Harry and Charlie walking down the hill together.

See-Saw - Llanidloes. After finishing the walk

Feeding the lambs - April 12th. We stayed in some lovely log cabins 'Dwr Y Felin' surrounded by farmland, Hugh and Sarah took us to see the newborn lambs one morning which was great. We was really happy Harry and Charlie got to feed the orphan lambs. We were also able to stroke the calves, cows and horses . Something the boys will remember for a long time. On the walk to the farm we saw a lamb with his/her mother who had only just been born.

Climbing and Jumping - Aberystwyth, April 12th. Spent the day climbing walking around, climbing the hill to the top of the electric railway and walking to the castle which is where the video was taken.

Steam Train - Vale of Rheidol Railway to The Devil's Bridge, April 13th. A great ride following the side of a hill gaining 600ft. Very tight corners on a narrow gauge railway. The trip took about an hour. The boys would have loved it more if they had not been quite so preoccupied with eating. http://www.rheidolrailway.co.uk/

Caves - King Arthur's Labyrinth, April 15th. Perhaps the most worrying of paces to visit as Charlie did not make it down the cave at the Black Country Museum. However we made it in and loved it, so all was well. I noticed the website does not mention some of the best parts of the trip into the Labyrinth so I will not either but it does start with a boat ride. We were not allowed to film in the caves and it was too dark anyway, this was us emerging into the light at the end. It was an hour the boys really enjoyed. The gift shop seem to have loads of Knight merchandise that we ended up having to take home with us :( I took the picture below just before the boat ride out as we were last. I am sure no one minded me using a flash as they were round the corner. http://www.kingarthurslabyrinth.co.uk/



Hot Tub - Outside the Log Cabin we were staying in for the week

I do these things more for our own memories and records but thanks for taking an interest.

Harry and Charlie - Running in the Leaves

Gaga Update

It was pointed out to me by a Gaga fan that my Blog post was unfair towards Gaga. I have updated it to be clearer what I meant.

http://harryandcharlie.blogspot.com/2010/04/charlie-bit-me-has-enjoyed-being-number.html

Easter - Chocolate

Charlie Bit Me has enjoyed being Number 1

Charlie Bit My Finger – Again!, aka Charlie bit Me, differs in many ways to most of the YouTube high flyers for a number of reasons. I think they are mostly obvious but will list a few;

1. Not one penny was spent in its production
2. Not one penny has been spent in its promotion
3. There are no sexual references or innuendoes
4. There is nothing designed to shock in its content
5. Nothing is promoted
6. We have only hosted it on YouTube so every view you see are YouTube site views
7. The video was created and shared with no intentions of money being made from it
8. The wellbeing of the Harry and Charlie has always been more important than anything else
9. Anything to do with Charlie Bit Me has been handled by one person until very recently.
10. I am not 100% sure about this one, but I am pretty sure no one plays Charlie Bit Me in a Blogger music player gadget automatically every time their blogger page is refreshed (even if they don’t have a sound card or sound turned off). Wow would that make a difference to the views of Charlie Bit Me

Now the real point of this note was to say this;

Everything has its moment in time. If Gaga overtakes Charlie Bit Me, then it happens. For that matter any number of Vevo music videos could overtake it in the coming months. We would also rather that happen than see the figures fixed by people not wanting or wanting some other course of events and trying to manipulate them. Harry and Charlie will always be about brotherly love, innocents, natural and spontaneous moments absolutely not commercialism. We do not shock, try and make waves or trends or try and appeal to a commercial world. What we do does not generate wealth for multinational organisations. We get lovely comments from teenagers to great grand parents.

The site is made child friendly as often as I am able to delete the comments with foul language. Some of the comments we have seen from ‘fans’ of other videos and pop stars have been verbal diarrhoea at best, disgusting uneducated base mentality at worst. I would like to think any Charlie Bit Me fans are well above this kind of behaviour. We also don't allow the site to be used as a hate site towards any other videos. We maybe unique on that, but it is important to us.

Personally I don't quite see why some people are getting so excited. To me it would be like watching a major/premier league football team taking on a Sunday league Boy Scouts team and then the major league supporters getting over exited when they win.

Seeing the Time Magazine article the other day was great. Thanks to all of you who support the video.

Having the Number 1 spot on YouTube has been fun but it hardly the most important thing about life. Staying honest, genuine and true to yourself and everyone else is of much higher value.

We have always been proud that a simple home video has been able to do so well in the charts compared to all the commercial offerings out there but as we are incredibly proud of our sons anyway a chart position is just a bonus.

I hope no one minds me referring to the artist knows as ‘Lady Gaga’ as Gaga. In the UK ‘Lady’ means something more than a standard dictionary definition. A Lady is a title and apart from the queen women of royal and noble status carry the title of "Lady". As a title of nobility the use of 'Lady' are parallel to those of Lord. I could go around saying Lord Harry and Lord Charlie but I don’t for any number of reasons not least because it would be meaningless and probably upset a few people. If you do have a problem with this please write your complaint to harryandcharlie@googlemail.com making sure you address Harry and Charlie with their stage names of the day; Lord Ahh Ahh and Lord HaHa. I think of 'Lady Gaga' as a brand.

If being a ‘real’ Lord or Lady is of real interest to you go here, or give lots of money and or favours to a British Political party. We have no commercial interest of contact with the link above. I was just interested to see what was out there.