Consider Pork and Beans. Back in 2008, Weezer released the following video, incorporating some of the site’s top viral sensations … and predictably going viral itself.

Back then, there was Tay Zonday, the Numa Numa kid, Afro Ninja, Chris Crocker, All Your Base, etc. Pork and Beans was a subtle wink and nod to the memes of the day, with Weezer knowing all the while that incorporating those brands would go a long way toward users engaging in conversation. It was all about cashing in on the social currency that came with knowing what was cool or interesting on the Internet.

But fast forward a few years and could you imagine such a video being made today? Who would be in it? Rebecca Black, most likely. If Weezer went back a year or so there would be the Old Spice Guy. And Antoine Dodson.

Of course, we’re not in new territory. My colleague Liz Miller called it a year ago when she predicted that 2011 would be the year that viral video died. Back then, the Double Rainbow guy and 12-year-old Greyson Chance were the only members of the top 10 not linked to existing brands. One could argue that things have gotten somewhat better, with Rebecca Black, Karmin and Maria Aragon emerging as surprise music sensations.

But even Karmin and Aragon are performing covers — really impressive covers, but covers nonetheless. As AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka noted Tuesday, what YouTube’s top videos list suggests is that people just really like “watching” music videos on the site.

What this all speaks to is not the diminishment of YouTube’s ability to take videos viral, but the fact that YouTube just isn’t about viral videos anymore. More and more, the site is about professionally produced content, repeatable success and creating consistently engaged audiences. Machinima, for instance, might not have a breakout hit in the 2011 most-watched list, but it’s created a sustainable business off the YouTube platform.

Of course, there will always be a place for stupid human tricks and cute pets on YouTube, for the same reason that America’s Funniest Home Videos somehow continues to exist. But as time goes on, the novelty of those videos — and their effect on the cultural zeitgeist — will continue to be diminished.

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That doesn’t necessarily mean that Weezer’s presence had a huge impact on the performance of those videos: Johnson’s contribution to the project so far, for example, is his standard news roundup, which barely features the band and now has 2.2 million views. That’s on par with previous installments of Johnson’s =3 series; last week’s episode is currently at 4.4 million views.

However, those YouTube stats are going to climb even further, as not all of the Weezer/YouTuber collaborations have been posted yet, and two of the YouTubers who have yet to launch their videos are Mystery Guitar Man and Annoying Orange, both of whom command huge audiences.

But has the project actually done anything for sales? Well, Billboard won’t release its numbers for the first week of sales until next week, and the whole process is hard to track accurately. Based on first day sales, Hurley looks on track to sell 45,000-50,000 albums in its first week (way behind the new Linkin Park album).

Predictions based on first day sales may not accurately reflect where the album actually lands on the charts, but even 50,000 albums sold in the first week would still be low. The band’s last album, Raditude, moved 66,000 units in its first week. So we won’t know for sure until next week, but right now it’s not looking good.

Why haven’t those viewing numbers translated to album sales? Well, I have a humble theory. I’ve watched at least a half dozen of these videos, and I don’t remember hearing one Weezer song from the new album in any of them. Weezer is doing a great job of pushing their brand to the YouTube audience here, but they seem to have forgotten to sell the music while they were at it.

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However, as part of a massive promotional effort built around their new album Hurley (coincidentally, now available in stores today!) they instead gave YouTubers like Ray William Johnson, Mystery Guitar Man, Tay Zonday, Annoying Orange, Fred and Hot for Words a chance to put the band in their videos.

While the launch of the (at least) 15 videos was originally intended for today at noon, videos actually began rolling out yesterday, beginning with Auto-Tune the News’ collaboration, which mashes up greenscreened footage of the band with the auto-tuning of Congressman Charles Ravel, who addressed the House of Representatives regarding charges of ethical violations on Aug. 10, not knowing how lyrical his speech might end up being.

This seems like somewhat out-of-date subject material for an Auto-Tune the News video, especially since they’ve recently found a very successful niche for themselves in auto-tuning the latest viral footage.

However, these videos were all filmed last August, according to Key of Awesome’s Mark Douglas. In a guest column we published earlier today, Douglas (who also created a Weezer video) described the experience of meeting the band alongside the other participating YouTubers, noting that:

There really does seem to be a strong sense of YouTube community out on the West Coast. Most of the people doing this work very hard, and seem to appreciate the opportunity they’ve been given. It’s pretty hard to become a YouTube diva, because there’s not much time to sit back and think about your success. You’ve always got more videos to make! Ray William Johnson is about as big as you can get right now, but he was setting up his own camera and sound before interviewing Rivers Cuomo. Every time I’ve been in a room full of “Internet celebrities,” the thing that strikes me is that they are all just regular people. That’s one of the things I’ve always liked about Weezer, too: They just seem like normal nice guys who happen to rock. YouTube has always been about artists communicating directly with fans, and Weezer has been doing that since before YouTube was invented.

Weezer’s Hurley is out in stores now. If you have trouble finding it, just look for the big picture of Lost’s Jorge Garcia on the cover.

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You might have noticed that starting yesterday, the band Weezer appeared in cameos in videos on over a dozen top YouTube channels. These include The Gregory Brothers, Tay Zonday, Ray William Johnson and our own channel, Barely Political. Here’s the brief story of how I used this rather nerve-racking opportunity to get on stage with one of my favorite bands and give my wife a killer one-year anniversary video in the process.

In 2009, I began starring in my first online video show: a music/comedy web series called The Key of Awesome (part of Next New Networks). We’ve done more than 50 videos in the series this year, and we’ve been able to build the show up to 200 million views in that time. Coming from a standup background, where I often played to rooms of a few dozen people (or less), it’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that online video has allowed us to reach so many people. The highlight moment of this whole online video experience may have been when we confirmed I’d get to write and perform a song live with Weezer.

The call came in August to think of a song idea that Weezer could sing with me. I’m a huge Weezer fan, and so I was elated, scared, and almost in disbelief. Obviously, I said yes immediately, but was clueless as to what concept would be worthy of my musical heroes.

Then as I was thinking about what to get my wife for our upcoming first anniversary, it hit me: I’ll write a song for my wife, and have Weezer sing on it. With the help of my amazing music producer Jake Chudnow, we came up with a song that had a classic Weezer vibe, but still felt like a Key of Awesome song.

When I first started dating my wife in 2003, we pretty much fell in love instantly. However, music was an area we initially didn’t connect on. I couldn’t stand her taste in music (Broadway musicals), and she hated all the stuff I listened to (The Smashing Pumpkins/hair metal). This made road trips difficult. Initially, one of the only bands we were able to agree on was Weezer, and we listened to a lot of Weezer in the early days of our relationship. So a Weezer song about my wife was the answer. Now I just needed to write it.

Since I was working on several music videos the week prior to the Weezer shoot, I had to write most of the song on the plane to Los Angeles to film it. From there I recorded the vocals in my hotel room, and Jake finished putting together a demo for playback minutes before leaving to meet Weezer. So we pull into the parking lot across from the Thom Thom Club, and I immediately see Scott Shriner, bassist for Weezer, just hanging out. I introduced myself and tried to act like I wasn’t freaking out. The rest of the band arrived shortly after Scott, and I was suddenly starstruck and nervous about how I was about to play a song for guys I’ve idolized for 17 years. It felt like I was about to do a stand up set in front of George Carlin.

Aside from all the members of Weezer, the room was a who’s who of famous YouTubers: Dave Days, Ray William Johnson, Andrew Gregory of The Gregory Brothers, Dane Boedigheimer of The Annoying Orange, Mystery Guitar Man, and StSanders (who makes those awesome shredding videos). There was the added nervousness of performing my song in front of all these guys that I watch all the time, but all of them knew who I was and were very complimentary of my work.

There really does seem to be a strong sense of YouTube community out on the West Coast. Most of the people doing this work very hard, and seem to appreciate the opportunity they’ve been given. It’s pretty hard to become a YouTube diva, because there’s not much time to sit back and think about your success. You’ve always got more videos to make! Ray William Johnson is about as big as you can get right now, but he was setting up his own camera and sound before interviewing Rivers Cuomo. Every time I’ve been in a room full of “Internet celebrities,” the thing that strikes me is that they are all just regular people. That’s one of the things I’ve always liked about Weezer, too: They just seem like normal nice guys who happen to rock. YouTube has always been about artists communicating directly with fans, and Weezer has been doing that since before YouTube was invented.

My time to shoot with Weezer was pretty short. I only had a half an hour, but I got all of the shots I needed in a hectic frenzy. Lead guitarist Brian Bell asked me what the chords were to the song and I was so nervous that I forgot what chords were. “Um G, A minor, um H?” He realized I was a huge dorky fanboy and was really nice about it. Then he told me he really liked the song. This is a guy I’ve seen in concert four times. Completely surreal.

The one moment that I’ll always remember is Rivers Cuomo coming up to the microphone right next to me, and singing my wife’s name “Anastasia” at the top of his lungs. Rivers Cuomo is hard to read at times, but once I played him the song and told what I needed from him he committed to it without an ounce of self-consciousness.

I’ve always been fascinated by how online video as a community brings people together that normally may never collaborate or meet. The fact Weezer reached out to us and considers themselves part of that community felt like another indication that online video as a medium is continuing to rapidly grow. As a bonus, it allowed me to jam with my rock icons. It was an experience I’ll never forget. I hope my wife likes the video.

Mark Douglas is the writer and star of the online phenomenon The Key of Awesome. Mark spend over 10 years performing in sketch and stand up comedy, studied theater at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and has done voiceover work for Sesame Street, HBO and College Humor. Other credits include being half of the comedy duo The Rob and Mark Show, hosting the Spike TV show Geek Ray Vision and writing for the show Nintendo Week. All of Mark’s videos including The Key of Awesome series can be found at barelypolitical.com and barelydigital.com.

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Sorry, Weezer. But that’s exactly what I thought while watching the new version of Pork and Beans. According to Pitchfork, Re: Pork and Beans is an official remix of the video released last May, once again utilizing all our favorite YouTube stars to semi-awesome effect, but with the addition of some more Internet memes (including “I Like Turtles,” Chad Vader, Ask a Ninja, and even a bit of a Rick Roll for good measure), as well as some additional graphics and overlays.

And this might be harsh, but the end result reminds me — in the worst way possible — of what George Lucas did to the original Star Wars trilogy. Much like I never needed to see an extended Oola musical number at Jabba the Hutt’s palace or fireworks in the Coruscant sky, I never needed to see a Darth Vader helmet on the man interviewing Miss Teen USA South Carolina or digital distortion over footage of Kelly coveting shoes.

We liked the original video, and the Internet famous loved you for including them. But guess what? It’s 2009 now and we’re all wondering, Weezer, what else you got? Wikipedia is spreading rumors about a new album planned for this year; maybe by the time you get around to creating new videos for it, there’ll be a whole new realm of memes for you to riff on.

Or maybe you’ll come up with an original premise instead. Fingers crossed.

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Weezer today released a music video for the band’s new hit single “Pork and Beans,” featuring YouTube celebrities singing along with the lyrics while mimicking the videos that made them famous. Guests include Chris Crocker, Tay Zonday, the daft bodies girls (and daft hands too), Miss Teen South Carolina (that was kind of a surprise), Kelly and her “Shoes!”, Afro Ninja, the peanut butter jelly time banana, Charlie the unicorn, the dramatic chipmunk and, uh, Kevin Federline.

And of course there’s the Numa Numa Kid, Judson Laipply (the “Evolution of Dance” guy) and Eepy Bird (the Mentos and Diet Coke guys). Those fellows really do show up everywhere. Like, for instance, in a Barenaked Ladies video from a year ago with basically the exact same concept. It’s called “Sound of Your Voice”:

This whole phenomenon is like reverse product placement, though it’s probably more lucrative. And it’s not clear who’s using whom — combining fan bases to get a YouTube pop is a nice pick-me-up for bands, too. But at the same time the participation is pretty one-dimensional. It must have been a pretty boring video to direct: “Just do that thing you do” over and over again. And it must surely speed up the process toward has-been status for the stars.

That said, I don’t want to come off as negative; I’m sure it must have been pretty awesome to goof around with Weezer. And the smattering of Internet stars is actually a really good fit for the song, which is about nerdy self-empowerment.

But among plenty of other examples, you’ll also find all these characters in cartoon form in the Meth Minute’s “Internet People” and on South Park (our coverage):

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