Ko-C’s “Balance” remix video featuring Tenor has reached 1 Million views on YouTube and that happened few weeks ago. Recently, his “Bollo c’est bollo” video equally reached 1 Million views. You might be wondering how I know about this. Some persons might actually ask themselves if I really have nothing to do with my life other than going to YouTube to spy on the views of one artiste or another.

Well, if you are thinking that way then you might be very wrong, because I actually cannot follow up the views of artistes, first because there are too many music videos out there. Nonetheless, we always have first hand information when any artiste reaches a significant number of views on YouTube. I owe this to the fact that immediately that happens; everyone on social media will start congratulating the artiste making it sound like views on YouTube is an achievement in the career of an artiste.

The phenomenon of celebrating YouTube views by both artistes and their fans has always been a mystery to me. We know that in our world of today, immediately anyone wants to watch a video of just about anything, the person just goes to YouTube, this is why almost all record labels and independent artistes in the whole world do everything to get their videos on this platform, because it is the most trusted platform for the consumption of videos by most internet users.

But does this make 1 Million views or any number of views on YouTube an achievement or something that warrants a celebration? Given the widespread availability of the internet now, music is available to almost everyone and as such it is very possible to know an artiste and follow his or her work closely without ever watching a video of this artiste. But yet in Cameroon we still celebrate YouTube views like they were the measure of an artiste‘s reach, meanwhile we are yet to see a category of “ Highest YouTube Views” at the different awards that reward the work of artiste.

On the other hand, statistics have revealed that more than 60% of the Cameroonian population is not connected to the internet and with the somewhat exorbitant prices of mobile data bundles in Cameroon, watching a video on YouTube might actually be a demonstration of genuine interest by an individual in the art of any artiste and given that music is made to feed the soul and touch hearts, our artistes may see 1 Million views as a proof that they are reaching out to a lot of people and that will warrant a celebration.

What do you think about our artistes celebrating YouTube views, do you think it is necessary or totally out of place?

Feel free to drop your thoughts in the comment section.

Written by

Emmanuel Asafor