Lovely article about the science of farts, which can explain to you the effects of various beverages and food on your anus muscles. Maybe I have some competition for my coveted Google search placement for the word “Fart.”

You’ve got to love tomorrow’s Washington Post story titled “What Happened to YouTube Star Brandon Hardesty.” It documents the rise and (implied) fall of Hardesty (see his YouTube channel)

• Three years ago, Brandon Hardesty, then 19, was a grocery clerk and college student living in his parents’ Baltimore home. He logged on to YouTube regularly to upload videos of himself reenacting movie scenes and making goofy faces.
• Those disarming antics snowballed into a somewhat lucrative career, as chronicled in a May 2009 Magazine article by April Witt. YouTube invited him to place ads on his videos and share the revenue (one month, he made about $1,500); he also landed supporting roles in films, including an “American Pie” sequel and an upcoming Adam Sandler flick scheduled to hit theaters Labor Day.
• Now, “Brandon Hardesty is learning that YouTube success is not an easy ticket to television or movie stardom.”
• Seems his YouTube revenue is just about enough to pay his share of his rent… “Though his lifestyle can be slow, Brandon has few qualms with it. “Hollywood is pretty much as people told me,” he says. “Be patient, you’re not going to get a job right away, and audition as much as you can.”

Stay tuned next year to read Washington Post’s 9th page sidebar about how Hardesty is living in his van, making crazy sounds and faces to the company of a crack whore, and surviving on expired cat food.

Here are 34 posts, websites and videos about online video… curated kindly by Christopher Mingryan.

Can someone summarize them in the comments below please? I’m too lazy to read.

Did you know you can search YouTube comments for keywords? This comes in handy when you want to find out who’s trashing you in videos.

Here’s an example… click here to search video comments for the word Nalts.

This is so clever, and well executed. It’s a spoof of every moment of every trailer you’ve seen for Oscar-Award-Winning movie trailers. But it’s self aware. Thanks to George from YouTube for including it in his e-mail footer.

Folks it’s content like this that makes the viewer in me very excited, and the creator hope that my 15 minutes aren’t completely done.

BritAnick (pronounced to rhyme with Titanic) are not new to YouTube (see channel), and are Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher, and they met in Atlanta and have a manager. But to be clear, they’re at this moment far, far less popular than me on YouTube. Okay?

The reality is that I like to see people like this zoom past me. It’s not great for my ego, but it’s inevitable and deserving. Let the shakedown continue. Or as one YouTube employee says, “the popularity race is representing a marathon, where the distance between the popularity grows as the race continues.”

Did I mention I’m a sprinter at best?

And, yo, Brian or Nick… ready for a collab so you’ll remember me when you get to the top? What? You haven’t heard of a collab’s ability to propel your popularity on YouTube? Oh you should read this crap.

Walter Sabo, Hitviews founder and former radio maven, makes it more apparent why radio people seem to have adapted more naturally to online video than television people. At first I thought it was simply that the radio people saw their boat sinking sooner than television people (some who vary their whistling melodies and choose a new route past the graveyard to show they’re flexible).

In fact there’s another reason that Sabo has attracted radio investments and a posse of former radio sales people, and it’s evident in his anti-standard piece and even more succinctly in his “Four Crazy Things My Dad Said About Media Buying”:

Every radio spot he (Sabo’s father and store owner) bought was a live read by personalities. Every print ad was endorsed by a local celebrity. Every TV buy at least had live tags even though TV was too precious to offer live spokespeople. On the Internet he would have bought a webstar video visiting the business and talking about it. We all buy products from friends.

Indeed radio and today’s version of online video are arguably more alike than online video and television. Why? The talent carries the show. You may like the tunes best, but you can’t argue with the facts: when a radio star jumps stations, the audience often follows. Is it any coincidence that one of YouTube’s hottest properties is a former disc jockey (yeah the fat guy- Shaycarl). If Shay loved beets I’d eat ‘em.

Online video is about a charismatic human and people who enjoy them… unscripted reality and a fairly intimate relationship (as one-to-many goes). Like radio personalities, online video folks don’t mind plugging a good sponsor. And that doesn’t work as naturally on the boob tube, except for during an occasional talk show (where’d that format come from again) or that radio-like television show we call American Idol.

I’m not entirely unbiased about Sabo’s poetry (see below graphic to find the “Hitviews Pro” series on JackMyers.com) because I have a working relationship and friendship with the radio and online-video media maven… Still, I do believe he’s the Billy May’s of online video. He cuts through a lot of the jargon and states inarguable truisms, and it’s especially charming when he quotes his dad. Get on his good side, and he’ll give you a bear hug, make you feel special, and drive two states to bring you cookies when you’re having back surgery. Get on his bad side, and he’ll pinch your brain. Either way you’ll find him more interesting than the average human, and check your pulse if you don’t find this article about why records in automobiles failed (it’s not why you’d think).

Since my blog’s been a bit slow lately, here are 5 great articles by Walter “Regis” Sabo and Caitlin “Cathy Lee” Hill. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Sabo is his blatant disregard for middlemen, especially media buyers. (Just once I want a media buyer to tell me how prejudice I am, and prove me wrong).

Some of the most-viewed YouTube “weblebrities” will gather with hundreds of people in the YouTube community, including video creators and viewers, professionals and stalkers.

Phil DeFranco Will Attend July's VidCon, a gathering of hundreds (maybe thousands) of YouTube community people.

The event — called VidCon 2010 and scheduled for July 9-11 – includes rapid-fire stage performances by some of YouTube’s biggest “stars,” including comedy duo Anthony Pedilla and Ian Hecox (“Smosh“), “What The Buck” host Michael Buckley, Phil DeFranco, “SxePhil” and “Like Totally Awesome” host, and Justine Ezarik, YouTube’s token popular hot girl who hails as iJustine (and author of Tasty Blog Snack). Those 5 people alone, mind you, have been seen collectively 1 billion times (if you count both videos on their individual channels, as well as on group channels like TheStation). For those of you not good at math, that’s “an assload” and more views than most television shows.

To put it in perspect, 106 million people watched the last episode of MASH and the 2010 Superbowl. Paranthetically, my stupid videos have been seen 130 million times, and my siblings still refer to it “as your little YouTube videos.” But if I’m on the local Fox news channel I’m suddenly hot.

Back to VidCon: What’s got me most excited are performanced by some of the most talented musicians on YouTube, including the advertainment song duo of Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal (Rhett and Link), the ukulele-playing singer Julia Nunes (know as j and seven a’s), and the cerebral guitarist Hank Green, who is the event’s mastermind. I’m also looking forward to seeing Joe Penna (TheMysteryGuitarMan aka MGM), who wrote the “Nalts, Nalts, It’s Not His Fault” theme song. He’s been on a magical high lately, and he’s eye and ear candy for the whole family (see his recent “Looping Around,” a song that’s almost passing 1 million views, and what my family calls “The Happy Song”).

Although I haven’t hit all of the major YouTube grassroots events, I have gathered with fellow YouTube fanatics in NYC (twice), London, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta. A nude female doll with my face has attended other events, and was no doubt far more interesting to meet. The only formal event YouTube has thrown, to my knowledge, was November 2008’s YouTube Live… a show the San Bruno company doesn’t appear to be reviving.

We’ll also see the omnipresent Charles Trippy and Alli Speed, who have documented their each day for a year. Trippy somehow doesn’t have a Wikipedia page, which I find highly suspicious. ZeFrank is also going, and will appear on a panel with other Internet has-beens like me.

When I saw a YouTube house ad for “how to upload a video,” I had written a scathing blog review (in my head at least) before the video even loaded. Then I was in for a surprise.

It was funny, edgy, self depricating, and informative. I’m unable to criticize it. It basically taught people how to upload without insulting their intelligence: an almost impossible creative assignment given the simplicity of the upload task. More importantly, the video armed itself for the inevitable scathing comments (“hey dipshit, if they can’t figure out how to upload, you can probably assume they’ve got no useful video to share”), by having some fun with the concept.

Might I suggest the creators of this raise their hand for a round of applause? Comment below. Go ahead- we’re proud of you and would like to give you a gold sticker.

Now we’ll need a book to accompany this. “Idiot’s Guide for Upoading YouTube Videos” (a companion guide for how to refresh a browser screen, or double click a mouse).

Of all the nonsense about social media, I can’t say I have heard it represented as a money saver until I read this interview with Jane Postlethwaite (Social Media Can Save Council Money). Man it’s weird to call a YouTuber buy her full name when you basically barely know her first name. She’s StylistBrighton, damnit (and SytlistBrightonStyle). I met the fashion stylist/model in London, but who knew her name was Postlethewaite?

Anyway the former fashion model and YouTube weblebrity is now the Brighton and Hove City Council Social Media Officer, and she’s opening the UK government’s eyes to using social media to reduce costs. It’s a fair point. When you have 9,000 employees and take 400 calls a day, there’s got to be an efficiency angle… keeping or improving relationships with the public without the burden and cost of mail and phones.

Could social media one day permit these people to see sunlight?

I have a client that receives 500 calls daily in a customer-service department with only about 4 or 5 people. If customers could gain access to basic information (the 80% of the calls that represent the same 10 questions), why shouldn’t social media provide cost offset?  As an example, I no longer call stores to check their hours or directions… Google covers that for me, and its’ faster and has zero cost to me or the company.

So kudos to Jane for being brave enough to enlighten a government office to social media (far braver than me trying to do it for pharmaceutical firms). And extra credit for conceiving it as an efficient channel of communication that can maintain or improve public relations and also reduce calls, letters, lines of people…

One day, when the US catches up, I hope I can update my driver’s license in a single tweet. A girl can have her dreams.