Difference between revisions of "1224: Council of 300"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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{{w|YouTube}} (a video sharing site) has an odd quirk in its view counter. When a video hits 301 views, the view counter briefly stops updating. This means that YouTube is checking the views to make sure that no foul play is going on. (The choice of the number 301 is due to a harmless off-by-one error; Numberphile produced a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIkhgagvrjI video] that explains all this very well.) At times the number 301 catches some YouTubers off guard — for very popular videos, it may appear that the video has more likes than views!
 
{{w|YouTube}} (a video sharing site) has an odd quirk in its view counter. When a video hits 301 views, the view counter briefly stops updating. This means that YouTube is checking the views to make sure that no foul play is going on. (The choice of the number 301 is due to a harmless off-by-one error; Numberphile produced a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIkhgagvrjI video] that explains all this very well.) At times the number 301 catches some YouTubers off guard — for very popular videos, it may appear that the video has more likes than views!

Revision as of 07:39, 27 December 2013

Council of 300
'And hypnotize someone into thinking they've uploaded it and passed it around.' 'But then won't the uploader get suspicious that it pauses at 301+ for a while? Why don't we just forge the number entirel--' ::BLAM:: 'The Council of 299 is adjourned.'
Title text: 'And hypnotize someone into thinking they've uploaded it and passed it around.' 'But then won't the uploader get suspicious that it pauses at 301+ for a while? Why don't we just forge the number entirel--' ::BLAM:: 'The Council of 299 is adjourned.'

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Title text description missing
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.
YouTube (a video sharing site) has an odd quirk in its view counter. When a video hits 301 views, the view counter briefly stops updating. This means that YouTube is checking the views to make sure that no foul play is going on. (The choice of the number 301 is due to a harmless off-by-one error; Numberphile produced a video that explains all this very well.) At times the number 301 catches some YouTubers off guard — for very popular videos, it may appear that the video has more likes than views!

More recently YouTube added a "301+" to indicate that the video has reached the 301 point and is awaiting review.

The author plays with the near coincidence of this number, and a conspiracy theory entity known as the Committee of 300. In this case, the video's first 300 views come from each of the Committee's council members, with the first view coming from a regular person coming from Cueball.

Transcript

[A secret society meets in a darkened chamber; a kitschy video involving two people and an RC helicopter is projected onto the background.]
Master: ..then it is settled. We the 300 members of the Secret Council decree that this video meets our standards and shall "go viral".
Master: send it to one of our agents to be leaked to the common folk.
Steward: Some of them are noticing the number.
Master: ..add a plus sign to throw them off.
Steward: very well.
Soon...
[A communication sent to Cueball, one of the many unsuspecting plebeians of the world.]
Email: Ooh! check out this great video I found!
[Zoom in on the viewer count of a YouTube video.]
301+


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Discussion

This kind of doesn't make sense. I found the explanation for this comic through "Multiple Cueballs". There's only one. Some could argue that it's the guy speaking in the first panel, but it's only showing the front of his/her head. What if it's Ponytail? Or Hairbun? Or Rob? It doesn't show any hair.. but what if the hair is on the back of his/her head? Or what if it's a new character altogether? --JayRulesXKCD (talk) 11:34, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Look at the video in the first panel172.68.50.73

This phenomenon is explained by a Google engineer on YouTube. 62.245.198.190 08:17, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

No reference to Committee of 300?. Sorry, I have no time to elaborate. --Palmpje (talk) 12:41, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

I think the first panel is poking fun at the complete irrelevance of merit in videos going viral (i.e. a kid crying about a celebrity or a horrible song that only got recorded because the "artist's" parents were rich). You could say it seems that merit makes a video less likely to go viral, but then you'd have to think about how a small percentage of the videos are worthy of virality, and you see that that percentage within the category of viral videos is proportionate. But, that said, a conspiracy by a dark cabal would answer more questions about this phenomenon more adequately than the commonly quoted, "people are stupid," so I think the first panel is a reference to this. Hence the, "We decree that this video meets our standards and should go viral." The explanation given above really only starts in the second panel. Plus, it wouldn't be the first time xkcd referenced and made fun of conspiracy theories.173.25.45.105 14:01, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

To me, it's just a silly hypothetical link between the number 301 and the Committee (which I didn't know about until, like, just now). I wouldn't say that it's a biting commentary about Internet popularity, but different strokes for different folks. Alpha (talk) 16:50, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
I can just see the guy doing finger quotes around "go viral". Wwoods (talk) 19:20, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

What's the helicopter-carrying-a-string video? Is that something specific and real? 200.49.162.52 09:56, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Looks like a black helicopter (a common conspiracy theory) to me. 141.101.98.130 19:41, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

301 is the number of people in the council plus the first regular person to view it. It's an obvious point, but we seem like we want to be complete. Not sure where to add it, so I'll let wiki-magic take care of that. 76.106.251.87 19:07, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

The council member in the second panel seems to have a collar. Has Randall every drawn figures like that? 141.101.96.120 12:45, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

The collar looks like a cape to me. 108.162.231.220 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)