The most viewed Lindy Hop, Balboa, Blues Dance, and Charleston videos of 2013. Why? Because it’s December. More of an explanation and analysis below the list. Also, don't forget to check out the "Lindy Hop News & Noteworthy 2013 Edition" post.

The Criteria

I did a semi-exhaustive search for Lindy Hop, Blues Dance, Balboa, and solo Charleston performed and posted from December, 2012 to the end of November, 2013. That was mostly to include stuff that I couldn't include in last year’s wrap up because it was so late, including Snowball and Lindy Focus videos.

I was going to do separate lists for Balboa and Blues Dance but the numbers didn’t support it so I just took the top videos from them and combined them into the one list.

I only included videos by and for our dance communities. That was done mainly to exclude stuff from the various versions of Dancing with The Stars and So You Think you Can Dance because none of us want to relive those train wrecks. That also means fancy pants music videos by mainstream artists were excluded because it seemed silly to combine videos being created for different reasons and deliberately targeting a much broader audience. However, you can check out a sampling of them below.

You’ll also note that I combined the views of multiple videos of the same performance such as the ones done at the International Lindy Hop Championships, but kept different performances of the same routine separate. That means the four videos of Tommy & Frida’s dance at ILHC were combined, but Max & Annie’s performance at ILHC and ESDC are still separate.

At first, this list was just going to be a top 10, but I expanded it because I don’t expect to do additional video posts based on different criteria like I have in past years because I don’t have the time. I just cut it off at 10,000 views because it seems like a nice round number without getting a ridiculously long list.

I will freely admit that this list is probably missing key videos because my search abilities are far from perfect, and many videos aren’t properly tagged or labeled. If you have something that fits the criteria above, then post it in the comments below.

A Note on YouTube Statistics

I did a list like this in 2011, but not in 2012 because in the middle of last year, YouTube made a lot of changes to the interface and the way it counted views on videos.

The main change was the length of time needed for a video to be watched before it is counted as a “view.” YouTube did that to encourage people to post more videos of substance that keep viewers on the site. Also, probably to keep views down for the ones with women in bikinis in the thumbnails labeled “Cute Kittens thrown off cliff” that were actually advertisements for Nigerian princes looking to cash checks.

Of course the biggest question is “How did that Collegiate Shag video get to so popular?” If you dig into the public statistics for that video, you’ll see that the numbers were pretty typical up until about a month ago when it suddenly exploded. You used to be able to publicly see various view milestones in the statistics for each video like when it was posted on a particular website, but not anymore. Only the video owner can see that now. In the past, I’ve seen videos blow up because they got posted on random non-English versions of Reddit or Fark. That could have happened here, or maybe it’s possible that we’re on the cusp of a worldwide Collegiate Shag revival. Or not. Anything is possible.

This does make the views for those lengthy complete Invitational videos pretty impressive, especially since I believe that views are based on a ratio related to the overall length of the video.

Otherwise, there aren’t many surprises. If you want to know the secret to making a dance video go viral, then it helps to be a really, really good dancer dancing really well at a really big event. Or get a bunch of friends and make a high quality music video around a highly populated urban area. Or . . . get a major pop music star to feature your dance. Based on this criteria, Max & Annie and Frida & Skye leading an I Charleston through Tokyo, Japan for Justin Bieber’s next video project could potentially break the internet.

Other Notes

These numbers are taken off the videos as of December 9, 2013.
If you exclude the 11 I Charleston entries, then there are only two videos featuring solo jazz.
There are five videos featuring crossover dances with other dance communities like Nina & Ben’s dance at the primarily West Coast Swing event, Boston Tea Party.
It’s interesting to note that none of the three balboa videos came from any of the main Balboa events. One is a performance by Mickey and Kelly backed by an equally entertaining big band at the Prague Spring Swing Festival which is not a primarily balboa event and the other is the Open Balboa J&J Final from Lindy Focus.
There are two informational type videos. One is the short but handy Yehoodi “What Is Lindy Hop” video, and the other is a super lengthy explanation of blues dance produced by Joe DeMers. As I mentioned before, the number of views compared to the overall length of a video makes this a pretty impressive for a 36+ minute video. Also, contrast this video with the fact that there are no popular videos of blues dance from this year. 4 of the top 5 are the other installments of this series and the rest are blues performances or competitions from Lindy events. Is it because the scene isn’t that big? Or that scene as a whole doesn’t value video watching? Or maybe there just weren’t any truly compelling performances from the past year? It’s probably a combination of factors.
If you combine Frida Segerdahl & Michael Seguin’s solo spotlight with the views of the entire video of the Lindyfest Invitational J&J, then they have the most viewed Lindy Hop performance of the year. I find that highly amusing.
There are two videos that don’t fit into any category such as the winner of this year’s Jazz Dance Film Festival. I will say that there were a number of really interesting video projects that featured Lindy Hop and other dances this year. If I have the time, I’ll try to compile those into a separate post. As it is, I’m just scheduling a News & Notes for 2013 post and a much broader state of the union type post, both hopefully to be done by the end of the year.
Until then, there’s always this