Edit: By the time we published this post (and the lipdub video) and now (Feb. 2009), YouTube has decided to recall it (this occasionnaly happens to video including music by welll known bands). We’re sorry we can’t show it to you anymore (except if you pass by our corridor) but the post is still worth reading!

I wonder, dear reader, if, one way or another, the Web Communication lipdub production of the Cure’s “Friday I’m in Love” has come to your attention yet.  If not, you can watch it on YouTube here.

What’s interesting is how this video acquired a second life thanks to YouTube.  It had been on the internet since before Christmas, where it has slowly accumulated views and generally positive comments on the video sharing sites vimeo.com and officelipdub.com.  To tell the truth, we were being deliberately discreet, as we weren’t quite sure what kind of reaction might be coming our way if we were identified as the European Parliament.  Well, now we know.

A member of the gang, opening scene guitarist Andrea, took it into his head to post the video on YouTube.  He did so without identifying us, but that didn’t make any difference as the comments from colleagues who recognised us, especially in the Commission, came rolling in.  A little gentle, and slightly envious, joshing about what a great time we layabouts in the Parliament seem to have at work (“if that’s what you call it” etc.), quickly led to one or two violent polemics from the “overpaid and over here” anti-EU brigade in Belgium.  We ended up being held almost personally responsible for the iniquities of the Belgian socio-economic system and the working conditions of till girls in local supermarkets!  I jest not.  Small matter that we did this in the evening with our own resources (“hahaha”, said one), made no claim to be representing the Parliament, etc., etc., we had an ongoing dispute about the luxurious lives of EU and especially Parliament officials raging in the comment column.

Oh dear…  But then something interesting; the whinges were simply drowned out by other comments from people who liked it.  We’ve had fan mail galore, get recognised by strange people in the street and were tonight even invited as guests of honour to a Commission interns’ “Friday I’m in Love” party…   I even heard that a senior colleague in London had sent it to a friend in the LSE careers department, as he thought it might encourage UK graduates to apply for jobs in the EU!  Since then I have given an interview to a online graduate recruitment magazine in the UK, to encourage Brits at least to consider a career in Europe.

So all in all we feel encouraged that maybe after all we can hit the internet in this sort of way professionally too.  Even if we get reined in, the team building value was way beyond what some fancy consultant might provide.  Meanwhile, global internet stardom, in one small part of Brussels anyway, is assured!