My favorite YouTube star/enigma of the moment, Tay Zonday, was on Jimmy Kimmel Live Wednesday night, showering the late-night show host and his audience with a deluge of "Chocolate Rain." Jimmy Kimmel isn't the only non-YouTube personality who has caught on. Even singer/guitarist John Mayer caught Zonday's video, which led him to present a slightly NSFW spoof on VH1's Best Week Ever.

Still, if you don't know who Tay Zonday is don't feel bad; I only heard about him a few weeks ago when my cube neighbor, Chris Schonberger, sent me a link to the video below, of a man singing in a very deep voice. Days later, I was still astounded, sending Chris IM inquiries like: "Who is this guy?" and "Is this a joke?" Usually, Chris seemed as clueless as I did. Hence:

Me: What is "Chocolate Rain" about?

Chris: Everything.

OK, so maybe it isn't about everything. This L.A. Times article (believably) points to racism as the song's subject. But it takes a while to get past Zonday's low voice, and the awkward way he leans away from the mic about 40 every seconds (to breathe in, he tells us). Did you notice the reactions from Kimmel's audience? They range from utterly confused to hysterical.

But with more than 4.5 million views recorded, perhaps people have listened to "Chocolate Rain" enough times to realize it's more than just an Internet joke.

This got me thinking about YouTube celebrities like Esmée Denters, the Dutch teenager, who got Justin Timberlake's attention from videos of her singing songs like Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable," Alanis Morissette's "Ironic," and Mario's "Let me Love You." JT has signed her on his new label and will be bringing the Internet phenomenon on tour with him this summer. (Really, who needs American Idol when you have YouTube?)

Even the foul-mouthed shoe-fetishist Kelly (a.k.a. Liam Sullivan) has a viable YouTube following, not to mention, follow-up. Watch Sullivan's brand-new (and still NSFW) clip, in which Hollywood execs try to make Kelly a household name.

Well, can they? Do those "Hollywood execs" stand a chance with Kelly? Can Tay Zonday make a lasting statement about racism (or anything else) from his low-budget recordings? Will Esmée Denters have a career after Justin's tour ends?

Sound off below. Answers in the form "Chocolate Rain" renditions are welcome.

It seems like every year we have an EW.com roundtable discussion about the songs of summer, and they are always in the vein of "Fantastic Voyage," "Hella Good," and this year's "Umbrella." Those songs are just fine to head-bop to during those steamy months, but this week it occurred to me that maybe we individually have our own summer songs that are not what the Top 40 radio stations are spoon-feeding us.

My official summer song of 2007 is Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators' "If This Ain't Love." Already popular in Europe (and all over the Internet; watch the video below), Willis' track has tapped into a mod soul sound (that you may find similar to Amy Winehouse), full of beautiful retro R&B orchestrations and string arrangements. Bonus points for the happy baby coos at the end, a-la Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely." The lyrics are upbeat and dreamy too; no umbrella or trip to rehab required. I NEED to hear it at least once a day!

PopWatchers, what's your official song of summer 2007?

Willem Dafoe. Will Ferrell. Andy Richter. Ana Gasteyer. And "a big, sloppy, dripping piece of happy pie!"

Okay, we have to ask: If this were real, which song would you choose for yourself? Or (shudder!) do you already have a tune stuck on endless loop that you can't purge from your brain?

Disney's squeaky-clean tween queen may be helping your kids download porn or worse. The virus and spyware experts at McAfee did some research to find the pop-culture search-engine queries whose results are most likely to lead unwitting users to the most infectious pages, and they found, for instance, that the most dangerous search query among currently popular songs is for "Life's What You Make It" by Hannah Montana (Miley Cyrus, pictured.) Kids who type that into their search engine in the hope of finding downloadable music, photos, and ringtones are most likely to wind up infecting their PCs with redirects to porn sites or data-stealing spyware that enables identity theft.

McAfee research analyst Shane Keats tells PopWatch that scammers closely follow popular culture in order to target kids and other naive and inexperienced Web surfers. "When they first get to an offer for a Hannah Montana screensaver, they just click yes. Three or four clicks later, they've got a single image of Hannah Montana that may or may not be legal, and they're also going to give themselves porno pop-up ads." Of the scammers, Keats says, "You've really got to wonder how they sleep at night. It's one thing to do that to a grown-up, another to do it to a kid who just wants to show their love for their favorite singer." He says he won't let his own kids, ages 5 and 8, surf the 'Net. "There's just too much chance that they'll see an image that they'll never forget."

Other dangerous pop culture searches, Keats says, include rap tracks (Three 6 Mafia attracts some of the worst, he says; guess it's hard out here for a datapimp.) Less risky are country acts like Toby Keith, Tim McGraw, or Kenny Chesney (Keats says he doesn't know why that is, given how popular they are) or celebrity couples (such as TomKat, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, or Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner).

To protect your computer from pop-culture parasites, Keats suggests three tips: First, stick with the official sites; it's safe to visit Disney's pages if you're looking for Hannah Montanabilia. Outside of the official sites, any free offer that sounds too good to be true probably is. Second, among search results, the engine-generated links tend to be safer than the sponsored links placed there by advertisers. Third, get some good security software; naturally, Keats recommends McAfee's free browser plug-in SiteAdvisor, but he says the competition's products are worthwhile, too. "Otherwise," Keats says, "it's like surfing naked."

There shouldn't be any shortage of nightspots where the bachelorettes can drink on the 11th edition of ABC's The Bachelor. That's because the man that the gals will be fighting for is Brad Womack (pictured), 34, who co-owns four bars in Austin, Texas, with his brothers. (Brad's got a twin named Chad, how cute, and another brother who ruins the rhyme scheme named Wesley, both of whom are married. Sorry, girls.) Now, I like the idea of a self-made entrepreneur Bachelor instead of the usual princes, heirs, and out-of-work actors; maybe he won't come equipped with the usual sense of smug self-entitlement (though, when a couple dozen women are throwing themselves at you, maybe you can't help but get a swelled, um, head). I just wish ABC would stop referring to him in press materials as "The Bachelor's own 'McSteamy.'" C'mon, ABC, that well's run dry. Trying to hitch your aging reality show to the Grey's Anatomy McBandwagon that way just smacks of desperation.

What do y'all think? Is this guy a keeper? Will you be tuning in to watch him generate a long list of exes in Texas when the show premieres on Sept. 24?

A PopWatch public service: Because pro football will always trump the paso doble, tonight's regularly scheduled So You Think You Can Dance results show (featuring Nigel Lythgoe, pictured) isn't airing until Monday the 13th to make way for a Colts/Cowboys pre-season match-up. But Fox is still taping the results show this evening, so the Internet is sure to be bursting with spoilers shortly for anyone who can't wait to know what's what. All right, you may all now go back to speculating on which pop-stars best get sharks in the mood for the horizontal mambo.

Someone please tell me the Discovery Channel was filming this: According to this piece from The Independent, researchers at 10 different German aquariums played sharks music for two hours a day, for four weeks, hoping to find a sound that stimulates their libidos. (The captives apparently aren't knockin' fins like they used to.) While Britney Spears fell flat at a facility in Munich, other cities got lucky: "Push It," by Salt 'N' Pepa (pictured) was a hit in Speyer, Joe Cocker's "You Can Leave Your Hat On" did the trick in Timmendorf, and Justin Timberlake's "Rock Your Body" had them courting in Konstanz.

What tracks would you recommend?

What beliefs did you have about entertainment when you were younger that were totally ? and gloriously ? wrong?

Here's why I'm asking: Last week during a meeting, EW.com managing editor Jay Woodruff let it slip that when he watched films like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, he assumed that filmmakers made convicts play the desperados and actually killed them. Editor Tom Conroy then admitted that when he watched a screen couple like Red Dust's Clark Gable and Jean Harlow (pictured) kiss, he assumed the director had shot the actors separately and then somehow overlaid one head next to the other. (In an alternate theory, presumably for lower budget films, Tom also believed that the actors would put a piece of fabric between their mouths.) Because how could you kiss someone you weren't really in love with?

As for me, I once found this Sears photo in which I looked exactly like Gretl from The Sound of Music and thought that I'd must've been so young when Julie Andrews and I filmed the movie, that that's why I didn't remember doing it.

Your turn.

Nine-months-pregnant Antoria Gillon went into labor on Monday while waiting to audition for American Idol in Dallas. According to the Fox press release that announced this Idol first, "Determined not to miss her shot at fame, Gillon sang her best while in the midst of contractions. After completing the audition and learning she will return for the next round, Gillon was taken to a local hospital, where she gave birth to a healthy son ? whom she named Jamil Labarron Idol McCowan."

Obviously, Mom wasn't thinking clearly, or she'd have capitalized even more blatantly on the built-in branding opportunity; she should've named him Jamil Labarron Ford Coca-Cola Idol McCowan.

Upon hearing the newborn's wail, Simon Cowell said, "That was horrible. The worst I've ever heard." Randy Jackson said, "I'm just not feelin' you, dawg, but you know what? You did the best you could, and that was aiight." Paula Abdul said something that only the newborn understood.

Is Antoria insane, or already the best Idol contestant ever?

Because we celebrated Whitney Houston's birth on this date last year, PopWatch sends its birthday best out to Melanie Griffith, who's turning 50 today. (Or, as our own Gary Susman says, "At least parts of her are.")

It's been a while since I visited Melanie's official site to, you know, see what her "Goddess Book Club" is reading. Somehow, I managed to forget about the "Dream Room" (accessed via the Story of Avalon link) in which Melanie has posted the following advice:

When I have questions in my life I look to my inner conscience for answers. Whether it's how to portray a character or how to deal with a crisis in my life, I've been lucky to be able to find guidance from within. Because it has been such an incredible gift in my life, I would like to pass it on to you? Before you go to bed at night write to your inner self a letter asking for answers to be revealed to you about something that you need help with. What you seek may come to you in a dream, or the answer may develop first subconsciously and then just take place in your conscious life.

Below is one letter I use:

Dear Inner Self,

If it is your will, please reveal to me

in a dream tonight the secret of my success

in order to become closer to you.

With love and respect,

-Melanie

My Inner Self is saying it's her legs. Yours?