When New York Times music critic Kelefa Sanneh saw Lil Wayne and Robin Thicke team up for an impressive version of the song "Shooter" on The Tonight Show, he was inspired to write an article about what he terms "cross-under hits." As Sanneh sees it, this is one of many music videos that start out as part of big-budget television, get picked up on the web, and "return to life as underground hits." But he misses the point.

To underscore his idea, Sanneh points to two other examples. (Remember, in journalism, three's a trend.) He mentions the scene from Trading Spouses in which Marguerite Perrin goes apeshit about ungodliness (iFilm) and the so-popular-it's-not-even-cool-anymore Lazy Sunday rap from SNL (YouTube).

Sanneh overlooks that Perrin's rant isn't a music video at all, and that the guys behind the Lazy Sunday rap were hired by SNL precisely because of their underground success at The Lonely Island. (You can read more about them in last month's Wired). He still seems to think that there can be a top-down method to creating viral videos. "A few years ago, a music video might have crossed over by going from a bootleg Web site to a slick television show," he writes. "Nowadays that process often happens in reverse."

But that's wrong. Clips—music videos included—become popular because they're hilarious or bizarre or gross. People don't care where they come from or who produces them. "Shooter" has become a hit because it's an absurd mashup of crooning and rapping—you can see it on Thicke's website—not because it aired on Leno. And while it's great that television execs are finally starting to realize that there is money to be made by booking original acts and airing ridiculous rants, let's not give them credit for jumping onto a bandwagon.