It’s not like the words "hot hot sex" don’t grab people’s attention. One of the top-viewed videos on YouTube is labeled "xxx," even if it’s just a (juvenile) trick. But there’s something fishy going on with the new champion of all-time most viewed YouTube videos, which just unseated "Evolution of Dance" after an 18-month run. 

Even though the video’s nearly a year old.

And it sucks.

I mean really sucks.

To quote Rafael, our lead graphic designer who had the misfortune of hearing me do my research: "That makes me want to take a spike to my head."

Indeed it does, and YouTube has committed to investigating.

The video is entitled "CANSEI DE SER SEXY Music is My Hot Hot Sex." That first part is Portuguese, it reportedly means "I got tired of being sexy."

I can relate. But in this case, it’s the name of a Brazilian band that shortens it to CSS, inspired by a Beyonce Knowles quote, not by the computer programming language. Translated from Portuguese, here’s my favorite lyric: My music is where I’d like you to touch.

Reminds me of my uncle.

That was a joke.

But this is not: "Music is My Hot Hot Sex" has grabbed nearly 90 million hits, or 13 million more than the world-famous mega-hit "Evolution of Dance," which we can all agree is very, very cool. Most of the 89,791,498 seem to have come recently, too, at a record pace. It’s likely to get even more, now that it’s strangely famous.

The creator of the video, which features youth pretending to play instruments and sort-of lip-synching and a guy probably not playing a tiny keyboard who might be somebody’s dad but looks like a guy I saw last week in the back of a truck, is pretty shocked, too.

According to an interview conducted by Andy Baio at Waxy.org, Italian creator Clarus Bartel said, "Never would I have imagined that such an ugly video, made on a whim, would make it to the top of the charts." Bartel made the video in response to an Italian contest, and based it on an iPod Touch commercial.

Bartel’s not the only one suspicious of the video’s sudden popularity. Several commentators smell a rat:

"I think that more people are shocked that this video has had this many views than people who actually viewed it. Somewhere there is a glitch in the system. Even when ipod touch used this song on their ad no there wasnt that many views," says "pixiething."

"I bet the company refreshed in like 80,000,000 times so it was the number 1 and people saw it and went and brought in on iTunes or Something," says "Horrie10," reviving the old capitalization of nouns made popular by Thomas Jefferson.

"how did this video suddenly get so many views! it wasnt even in the top twenty, now suddenly 10 million more than the most viewed!" says "Ollie53."

"this is number 1? what has this world come to [?]" asks noyce456, whose question echoes a running theme elsewhere. ReadWriteWeb’s Marshall Kirkpatrick postulates that the popularity may have to do with YouTube’s newly expanded international audience, hence the Brazilian band and the Italian creator and the American confusion at what the hell is going on.

But Baio was still quite suspicious, because this video would have to suck in any language, right? Using YouTube’s API, Baio discovered that the number of ratings and comments were disproportionate to the views, especially when compared to other popular videos. "Evolution of Dance," for example, received 123,314 comments and 270,893 ratings. "Hot Hot Sex" received just 4,366 comments and 4,090 ratings.

Numbers like these only served to intensify suspicions that the system was somehow rigged, perhaps by some automatic refresh script. YouTube’s not pleased by the idea, and has said they’ll be looking into it.

But even Baio’s numbers aren’t as telling as they could be because Bartel says he accidentally disabled ratings and has deleted hundreds of personal insults directed toward him in the comments.

Again, I can relate. Insults are just part of the "public" Internet life.

At any rate, we’ll all be anxiously awaiting whether or not YouTube decides the video’s unexplainable popularity is legitimate. Bartel denies any foul play on his part.