YouTube Gives Out Awards For Their Best Clips

The Oscars? The Grammys?. The YouTubeys?

User-generated digital media has become a force to be reckoned with in today’s entertainment landscape, with no Web site of this nature more popular than YouTube. Since its founding in 2005, the file-sharing juggernaut has been the product of a major corporate acquisition by Google, been featured as part of Time magazine’s prestigious “person of the Year” for 2006, and has actually generated bona-fide stars who have transcended their Internet beginnings (lonelygirl15, anyone?)

It only stands to reason then that YouTube would allow Web users to participate in the first annual YouTube Awards, honoring the clips that became hits in various categories over the past year. Ten videos were nominated in each category and were ranked by the YouTube community of users over the course of five days — seven of those emerged victorious in their respective categories:

The MOST CREATIVE award goes to Capitol Records rock band OK Go with their treadmill-dancing music video for “Here It Goes Again.” As of January, the original video upload for “Here It Goes Again” had been viewed over ten million times, putting it in 8th place for the most views of any video and 5th place for most “favorited” video of all time on YouTube. The Video also received the 2007 Grammy award for Best Short Form Music Video.

The story of a man stranded on an islandwins the BEST COMEDY award, with the video “Smosh Short 2: Stranded” by teenaged duo Anthony Padilla & Ian Hecox viewed over 1,129,000 times.

“Hotness Prevails,” a self-proclaimed “intentionally idiotic” rant by Toronto native thewinekone takes the BEST COMMENTARY award.

The BEST SERIES award goes to the “Ask a Ninja” cache of clips in which a man dressed as a ninja answers questions such as “What kind of dates do ninjas go on?” and “Is it possible for a ninja to be so secret, that they don’t even realize they’re a ninja?” The “Ask a Ninja” director, digitalfilmmaker, is the 20th most-subscribed director on the site.

TerraNaomi receives the BEST MUSIC VIDEO award for “Say It’s Possible,” which premiered on YouTube in June 2006 and quickly became a smash, inspiring adoring fans to post over a hundred personal “covers” in a wide range of styles. This includes versions from countries in South America, North America and Europe. The song has been translated by fans into Spanish, Italian, and Mandarin Chinese. TerraNaomi has rode her web success into a recent contract with Island Records.

Virgin Records artists Sick Puppies contribute music to the MOST INSPIRATIONAL award-winning video, “Free Hugs Campaign,” in which – you guessed it ? there?s a lot of hugging going on.

And finally, what would a YouTube awards show be without a MOST ADORABLE category? Computer animator Dony Permedi provides your daily dose of “cute” with the winning entry, his master’s thesis animated short, “Kiwi!”

Awwwww ??

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