Colleen and Josh – Well researched and impenetrable argument. I concede your points. Please do not leak to the for blogs I am dating Taylor for his ability to be part wolf. (And correction – he is not a werewolf but a shape changer, small detail but he’s very sensitive about it. Thanks!)

Peter – While a disappointment that I did not receive this award I have come to terms with it as the right decision. I have full faith in the music industry experts who made the final choice and believe their years of critical review to be of the highest caliber. After much reflection, I feel that their decision was based off that target audience. While I have a video that inspires a small group of teenage girls, Beyonce’s video reaches out to all women regardless of age. Therefore, her empowering video with it’s well choreographed steps of feminism are largely better than mine.

I have not let this set back stop my absurdly optimistic attitude and will continue to make outstanding musical tracks and hopeful lyrics.

Peace. Love. Music. TSwizzle.

Most of the compelling points above, about the impact of the song, are not in relation to video. (Such as it being compared to Aretha.) The fact that it has been parodied does not sway me. William Hung has been parodied, but that doesn’t make him good. And most Britney Spears’s videos have more intricate choreography than Single Ladies.

Taylor Swift has been categorized into the field of country music, which is a blend of popular musical that was originally found in the Southern United States and the Appalachian Mountains. It has roots in traditional folk music, Celtic music, gospel music and old-time music and evolved rapidly in the 1920s. Taylor’s Swift’s song, “Love Story”, gives a false perception of modern love and fairtytales that are ultimately unrealistic for young girls to believe in and look towards. Plus, her irregularly shaped eyes lead girls to consider plastic surgery into changing their eye shape as well, and creating an overall increase in self-consciousness in teenage girls. With her recent relationship with Taylor Lautner, who also plays young Jacob Black in the Twilight saga and found to be a werewolf, encourages bestiality, which is a crime in all 50 states, as well as territories.

Back to Beyonce’s popular video, the cultural impact can be described as follows:

“Single Ladies” has gained widespread popularity for its catchy hook and theme of female empowerment, with critics comparing the song to Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” or Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”. The music video has achieved fame for its intricate choreography, which has been credited as having started the “first major dance craze of both the new millennium and the Internet”. It was parodied on Saturday Night Live, where the two female backup dancers from the video were replaced by Justin Timberlake and SNL castmembers Andy Samberg and Bobby Moynihan. On June 3, 2009, Joe Jonas of the Jonas Brothers did the dance and posted it on their YouTube account for their album countdown. Also, the song and its choreography was used on the popular American TV show Glee, performed by the character Kurt, played by Chris Colfer, who also performed a watered down version of the dance.

The music video has inspired a legion of imitators who have posted videos of themselves on to YouTube attempting to perform the choreography. One of the more popular viral videos is that of Shane Mercado, who appeared on The Bonnie Hunt Show to perform the choreography and later got the chance to meet Knowles. In one of the videos on the internet, filmed by American singer John Legend, the American president Barack Obama can be seen doing a small part of the “Single ladies” dance, while talking to Knowles. In London, 100 dancers wearing leotards similar to the one worn by Knowles performed the choreography on April 20, 2009 to promote Trident Unwrapped, a gum company. The music video for “Single Ladies” is also parodied on a 2009 television commercial in the United Kingdom for the new Doner Kebab flavoured Pot Noodle.

The video has generated interest in j-setting, the dance form that choreographer JaQuel Knight highlights in the video, and is credited as bringing the dance style to the mainstream. Like the histories of many popular dances, there are several versions of the development of J-setting (named after the “Prancing J-Settes” of Jackson State University in Jackson, MS). In a radio interview on NPR’s All Things Considered, Knight shared his excitement about the popularity of the video’s one-take dance sequence as an inspiration for anyone to get up off the couch and try out the moves.

The popularity of the video on YouTube has been in turn reflected by Knowles; during her concert tour, excerpts from many of the YouTube videos play on the video screens in the background. In the music video for “Dancin on Me” by DJ Webstar and Jim Jones, it features three females in the background imitating the “Single Ladies” dance.

“Single Ladies” won the 2009 BET Awards Video of the Year. In addition, it was nominated for a total of nine awards at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, and ultimately won the award for Video of the Year, and an additional two awards as well, though its loss in the Best Female Video category to Taylor Swift’s “You Belong with Me” led to controversy during the ceremony; Swift’s award acceptance speech was interrupted by singer/rapper Kanye West, who grabbed her microphone to declare the “Single Ladies” video as “one of the best videos of all time”. When Knowles won the Video of the Year award, she stated, “I remember being 17 years old, up for my first MTV award with Destiny’s Child, and it was one of the most exciting moments in my life” and that she would like for Swift to “come out and have her moment”.

The song is covered by The Chipettes, which also topped several charts, in the film Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, and is available on the film’s soundtrack.

A Sunday edition of Stone Soup features Val Stone watching the video on YouTube to learn the dance, with her daughter Holly stating that she will “never show her anything on YouTube again” in reaction to seeing her doing the dance.

Issue #33 of the comic book series The Brave and the Bold features a scene where Wonder Woman, Zatanna, and Barbara Gordon sing a karaoke version of the song while at a club.

The song inspired the title of a new Queen Latifa comedy TV series called Single Ladies.

To conclude using an inverted funnel, Beyonce is superior to Taylor Swift in her musical abilities, healthy sexual habits, and public image.

P.S. I know what your house looks like.