I'd like to see some indepth analysis of this phenomenon which I just witnessed on YouTube. Perhaps this only seems shocking to me, and there may be a number of reasons for that to be so. But before my take, here's what happened. I was on YouTube watching a fairly popular video from a few years ago. Endless Caruso One Liners.

Then I noticed something funny. For no reason, the old video with the cat named Burger and Fries was a "Related Video". I think, oh that's funny, why is that related? And then I realized that it was a featured video. Not just that, but it now shorter, crappier and what's worse had a banner ad at the beginning and end.

So the longer version, posted a week earlier has 2 million views. The one a week later has 56 million views and is a featured video.

Original video
Featured Video

Now I can think of tons of reasons why this might be really bad, neutral or even pretty good. But I'm curious to know what you can come up with. Keep in mind these are both over 4 years old, so this might be really old news. But I bet there's an interesting discussion to be had. I bet if anybody can figure out when this video became featured, it would help to see what this might mean.

I'm especially interested to see the Official No Dupe VideoSift Philosophy™ take on this phenomenon. According to our Philosophy, nay our Law, nay our very Way Of Life™ there are certain criteria by which any video must be judged. The fact that the Featured Video is so obviously the inferior to the original video troubles me. There is a part of me, the part of me that is a True Sifter™ is screaming at me- the end is nigh, the end is nigh. YouTube is granting Featured Video statuses to DUPES? The next step is obviously armageddon, right?

Or maybe this happened back when YouTube was still new. Maybe this was the first ever "Featured Video" and featuring that version was a ploy to increase traffic to YouTube. I mean, it's obviously the biggest site in the history of ever now, but it used to be that other sites were bigger than it? I guess? I don't know -- this arguement doesn't look that promising to me, but maybe there is something there.

So if not that, then what? Videowhip is paying money NOW? to drive traffic to them from YouTube, 4 years later? That doesn't make sense either!

There are obviously pieces to this, and insights which I am missing to be able to figure out what's going on here. Why is YouTube suggesting a 4 year old dupe with a banner ad to me?