Saturday, April 18, 2009

Susan Boyle: Judging A Book By Its Cover

Probably one of the most widely reported and talked about stories this week is about a 47 year old lady singer from Scotland who participated on the television talent show "Britain's got Talent". By her plain appearance, the live audience, the judges( one of them is Simon Cowell of American Idol) and probably the whole world were in for a big surprise of their lives. Most if not all of those watching the show last April 11th were cynical about Susan, if she really has the talent to prove to the audience that her dream of becoming a professional singer in the likes of Elaine Page could be possible. Elaine Page by the way was the original star who played the character of Grizabella from the musical Cats, who sang the song "Memory" somewhere back in 1981. When Susan started singing "I Dreamed A Dream" from Les Miserables, everybody could not believe that she indeed had a good singing voice and those against her were now rallying behind her. They were cynical of her at first and now they were proven wrong. A star is born!

When Susan's video hit YouTube, it went down into history to be one of the most popular. The video that I just watched alone had actually 5,764,024 views and there are 20 more people watching the same video file with me at the same time. Now, the YouTube video of the performance is approaching levels of some of the biggest viral hits of all-time. Visible Measures, which tracks online video usage, estimates that so far Boyle's performance has already been seen more than 47 million times in all, taking into account all of the reproductions of the original. It even overshadowed President Obama's video of his election night victory speech which only garnered less than 20 million views. YouTube's most popular video of all-time, is Evolution of Dance, with more than 117 million views. At the pace the Boyle video is spreading, it certainly has a chance to eclipse that number.

Embedded is the video that I saw on YouTube. Judge for yourself. Watch the reactions of the audience and the judges before, during and after the performance.



1 comment:

Goddy: An Unbreakable Spirit said...

Hello, my friend Joel!

First, let me congratulate you for winning another award. It seems that collecting "trophies and plaques" has become your new hobby. Pretty good hobby!

Second, congrats for your latest post--Susan Boyle's performance. I have seen that video clip several times already and will love to see it over and over again. Oh, I remember my addiction to (watching) VINCENT BUENO's video clips! I still watch him sing and dance on videos up to now knowing it will lift me up; it will make me happy.

Back to Susan. It's a very inspiring experience. I got goose bumps while watching it and, believe me, it left me teary-eyed. Our hearts and minds must be filled with stories like this so that we will continue to believe that good people who suffer persecution, unfairness and injustices will be vindicated in the end.

And, lastly, here I am, asking you another favor. teach me how (and when--I mean the legal implication here) to embed a video clip on my site. I have always wanted to feature VINCENT BUENO's performances on my blog. And, yes, I like to write something about Susan Boyle, too--with a video clip, of course. You can send me an email (gramirez3105@yahoo.com) or simply leave a message (comment) in my latest post. (The three-column layout of my blog was designed by Czel of Vanity's Child. She also was the reason why I have ads on my blogs.) Thanks, friend!