K. Michelle Latest Victim of WorldStarHipHop F**kery Posted by Nathan S. on 10/20/11 | Filed under Top Stories, Features, RefinedHate, K. Michelle

Because these things always turn into a "why you hating!?" flame war I'll begin with a disclaimer. Like Wale or Kid Ink before him, this isn't really about the specific artist. I genuinely like K. Michelle and support her music. Unfortunately though, knowingly or unknowingly, she's the latest example of form of fuckery that just can't be ignored. To put it more plainly, here's the beginning of a completely unedited email currently sitting in my inbox:

"(Atlanta, Georgia, October 2011)-- R&B songstress K. Michelle shocked fans and critics alike with the release of her latest video “Sweetest Love” to the worldwide web Monday. The video received an astounding 4million views within the first 24 hours of being posted on worldstarhiphop.com."

I don't think I'm exactly breaking news when I say that WorldStarHipHop (WSHH) is as trustworthy as a crackhead who hasn't had a fix in days, but it's amazing how many people truly believe a number like that. Not only do fans constantly hit me up with "how could you not post this video? It's got 47 million view on WSHH" but artists do the same. Nary a day goes by that some rapper I've never heard of writes me bragging about the 2 million views he got in the last ten minutes.

Simply put, no you didn't. Let's use this K. Michelle video as a test case. Currently the most popular video K. Michelle has on YouTube, a site whose numbers are completely accurate because unlike WSHH Google could give a fuck about making random rappers happy, is "I Just Can't Do This" with approximately 1.7 million views over the last year.

In other words, they're claiming that "Sweetest Love" got more than twice as many views on WSHH in one day, and five times as many over the last three days, than "I Just Can't Do This", a song produced by R. Kelly and pushed onto radio, MTV, BET etc., has in the last two years. And all this despite the fact that WSHH's audience is exponentially smaller than YouTube's. To be frank, if you're an artist with the kind of fan base that can rack up 7 million views in just a few hours on a niche urban video site, you're too busy touring Europe to care.

Pardon me if I'm a little skeptical

But who cares, right? Who cares if WSHH inflates its numbers more than Hollywood pornstars inflate their breasts? I care, and here's why. First, believe it or not I don't want to see young artists who don't know any better get ripped off. I've heard multiple stories of WSHH charging to post videos under the expectation of millions of (completely fake) views - artists, don't fall for it. Furthermore, it makes everyone involved look bad. From major label A&Rs to DJs to bloggers and journalists, nothing signals "I don't know what I'm doing" faster than a "my videos got eleven billion views!" email.

And last, but certainly not least, it just fucks up the game in general. The artist that does things the right way and has 50K views on YouTube, a more than respectable number, suddenly looks like a failure next to guy who's on WSHH with 12 million. That means the fuckery is winning, and we're all worse off for it.

So by all means, head over to WSHH to get your fill of fights in 24 hour Denny's, just don't believe anything you hear and nothing you see - especially when it comes to views.

See Also: Watch Me Lose My Sh*t on Wale, HulkShare Links & Hip-Hop Mixtapes
See Also: I Call Bullsh*t on Your Mixtape’s Download Numbers