(Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar
"(Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar" | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
![]() | ||||
Single by Felicia Day | ||||
Released | August 17, 2009 | |||
Recorded | 2009 | |||
Genre | Electropop | |||
Length | 3:39 | |||
Label | The Guild | |||
Songwriter(s) | Felicia Day, Jed Whedon | |||
Producer(s) | Felicia Day | |||
Felicia Day singles chronology | ||||
|
"(Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar" is a 2009
Background
When interviewed at
While Day composed the lyrics herself, whilst listening to "really bad 1990s dance songs", she turned to screenwriter
Music video
The music video features the entire cast of The Guild dressed up as their own online "avatar" characters from the web series.
Day comments that "In a regular Hollywood situation it would have cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars", but the video was recorded in Whedon's closet three weeks prior to its general release.[3] Whedon stated that in directing the video (his first time "directing anything" according to his wife) he "basically wanted to do a relatively cliché dance video as if it were about medieval fantasy warriors who took themselves really seriously," in which respect he felt the cast delivered "perfectly and hilariously". He used stop motion techniques to compensate for those members of The Guild cast who do not have dancing skills. Then, to make it "legit" as a video, Whedon made sure to include "actual sexy footage of Felicia, stellar dancing with Amy [Okuda] showing off her chops, and of course, raining money."[4]
Jeff Lewis describes himself as "not good at anything at all - dancing or rap" and comments, "they were able to make what I did [the rap sequence] fairly entertaining". Lewis recorded four lines of rap at Jed's house which were later synced up to the video. He was told to dance or "do anything" for three minutes, which "felt really bad and embarrassing... awful" but was impressed when the footage was slowed down, and became "more than I anticipated or imagined in a music video."[4]
Reception
The video reached 1 million YouTube hits in less than 2 days.[5][6][7] By April 2012–33 months after release—the YouTube video had 19,710,073 hits, averaging around 600,000 hits a month.[8]
On August 6, 2010 the song became a playable track on Rock Band 2 via the Rock Band Network.[9] BBC entertainment reporter Mark Savage describes the song as "[r]eminiscent of Ace of Base's 'All That She Wants'" and describes the rap by Jeff Lewis and Sandeep Parikh as "intricate and clearly masterful".[3]
TV writer, director and producer
References
- ^ Bierly, Mandi (August 17, 2009). "Felicia Day asks Do You Wanna Date My Avatar". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2009-08-18.
- ^ "Seize the Day". GameTrailers. August 7, 2009.
- ^ a b c Savage, Mark (August 21, 2009). "Cult web series tops iTunes chart". BBC News. Retrieved August 24, 2009.
- ^ a b c Milne, Carly (2009-08-18). "'Do You Want To Date My Avatar' #1 on iTunes and Amazon". Digital City. Archived from the original on 19 September 2009. Retrieved 2009-08-21.
- ^ Hustvedt, Marc (August 19, 2009). "'Do You Wanna Date My Avatar' Breaks 1M Views, #1 On iTunes, Amazon". Tubefilter News. Retrieved August 22, 2009.
- ^ Brophy-Warren, Jamin (August 25, 2009). "How the Web Series 'The Guild' Stays Successful". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 25, 2009.
- ^ Bridges, C. A. (August 18, 2009). "Actually, I do wanna date Felicia Day's avatar". The Daytona Beach News-Journal. Archived from the original on 2009-08-21. Retrieved August 24, 2009.
- ^ "The Guild : Do You Wanna Date My Avatar". Youtube.com. 2009-08-17. Retrieved 2010-08-11.
- ^ "Full Song - "(Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar"". Marketplace.xbox.com. Retrieved 2010-08-07.
- ^ "'(Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar' Video Number One Video on iTunes!!!; comment by Joss". Whedonesque.com. August 17, 2009. Retrieved August 21, 2009.