*Tay Zonday's "Chocolate Rain" phenomenon lives on with its recent win for best music video at the second annual YouTube Video Awards, recognizing the site's top user-created clips of 2007.
"It's the new Emmys," Zonday, 25, said of the video-sharing site's awards in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "It's the next Oscars. The next People's Choice Awards. It'll be interesting to see what happens five years, 10 years (from now)."
Zonday's video, which went viral last year, featured the baritone singer crooning his original song to a video camera set up over his keyboard. He says he's flattered by the online explosion of "Chocolate Rain" parodies.
"A lot of people see political commentary in (the song)," he said. "A lot of people find humor in it. A lot of people, they say their 2-year-olds can't stop repeating it at bedtime, so lots of people get different things out of the song. And I think the greatest consequence and the greatest mileage it can have is to get people asking questions."
He hopes his notoriety can assist him in earning "a living making art and producing music." He's also pursuing a voice-over career.
YouTube users voted on six nominees for each category: music, sports, comedy, instructional, short film, inspirational, commentary, creative, politics, series, eyewitness and "adorable."
The Obama Girl, aka Amber Lee Ettinger, whose "I Got A Crush On Obama" clip has been seen more than 7 million times, lost in the politics category to the serious-minded "Stop the Clash of Civilizations" video by the global organization avaaz.org.
"The (political) video that actually won in an election year wasn't one that had anything to do with the election itself," said YouTube spokesman Aaron Ferstman. "(It's a) video that deals with ... serious issues like discrimination, and that video's done in kind of a neat way that speaks to young people."