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Art is literally imitating life in Weezer's most recent video, for "Pork and Beans," a track from The Red Album. Mathew Cullen, director for the production company Motion Theory, said of the video in an interview with Rolling Stone, "Essentially, it's a viral made of virals."



Bringing in more than 7 million views, Weezer's high-concept video streak has continued with the "Pork and Beans" showcase of 2008's homemade celebrities re-creating and manipulating the video posts that made them famous.

Cullen remarked that getting everyone together for the video was actually quite difficult, since many of the "celebrities" they were looking to include do not have managers or agents. "We tried to send e-mails to their MySpace pages and their YouTube accounts, and many of them don’t answer them," he recalled. "So we would target their top three or four MySpace friends. That proved to be the most successful way to reach out the people that we wanted most."

Like the song itself, the positive message and forward way of thinking at the video's center appealed to the YouTubers involved: "It's an anthem for being yourself and being happy with who you are. It was important for us that we were celebrating what made each one of these people special and it wasn’t in any way about making fun of who they were," Cullen pointed out. The video has a redeeming aspect for many of its stars, including Miss Teen South Carolina who carries a light saber on stage and gets the chance to put the questions she’s asked into a blender. Famed Britney Spears fan Chris Cocker even shares a hug with Rivers Cuomo.

"We brought a bunch of YouTube celebrities into L.A. and shot a video with them, and it was really insane and surreal," Weezer bassist Scott Shriner told Buzznet in mid-May, before the clip was unveiled. "I'm pretty excited about it. I'm not a huge YouTube guy, but even to someone who's not that interested in YouTube, it's still a really interesting video. It's gonna be a trip."

Other "stars" of the video include Kevin Federline, Tay Zonday, the dramatic chipmunk and Afro Ninja. Not all the YouTubers Cullen went after were available for the video, however. "We wanted to get Techno Viking. We were big fans of it, but I couldn't find him. The other guy we wanted was Ghyslain Raza, the 'Star Wars' kid, but he'd been a victim of cyber-bullying over the years," he said.

And in the way of YouTube, "response" videos have already begun surfacing with different variations on "Pork and Beans." "Somebody decided to take the video and make a mash-up with an 80-piece orchestra doing 'Pork and Beans,' so I think that's the ultimate compliment: when you inspire someone to make something else."

In the increasingly difficult music industry, Weezer, too, may have figured out a "way to reach the top of the charts." The band's self-titled album is currently at #1 on Billboard's Top Digital Album chart.