YouTube

How weirdly, infectiously popular is the clip? Stephen Colbert has delighted in it on "The Colbert Report," and after winning his Academy Award, Christoph Waltz appeared on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" this week in his own hauntingly unnerving rendition. And Waltz is far from alone -- there are dozens of homage versions, look-alikes and remixes out there.

But Khil himself, like the meaning of his song, has remained until now something of a puzzle, a mystery lost perhaps forever underneath a fallen iron curtain. Yesterday, however, he at last came forward to respond to the hoopla. For an interview for Russian television, the 65-year-old, still smiling, still wearing the widest tie this side of Minsk, dryly critiqued his imitators. He declared that Waltz's rendition "almost reaches" and named himself "the main parodist." He also, to his infinite credit, saw the good-spirited fun in it all, noting how "full of feeling" his Khil wannabes are, calling the whole business "benevolent parody." Watching Khil watching the videos inspired by people watching his own video is surely the most pleasurable bit of meta you'll get today; and the payoff, in which Khil reprises his star-making hit, is sure to put a rictus of joy on your face. We cannot WAIT for the "Glee" version.

The homage video is a Web classic; someday, entire college courses will be devoted to all the versions of "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)." (Post-feminism in the age of air-punching gyration: Discuss!) But for parents, there is something about the sight of a child cavorting around to a song that celebrates drunkenness, fighting and over-identifying with Diddy that gives one pause.

Suggestive lyrics and little ears are nothing new, and I say that with all the authority of someone who could do the full 17-minute version of "Love to Love You Baby" at 9. Anyone who's grown up any time in the pop era and anywhere outside of Amish country probably has a similar story, and there's a pretty good chance it involves a Prince song. Ergo, just like Avery, my own 10- and 6-year-old daughters can belt out the inappropriate dance hits with the best of them. Just yesterday they stopped me in my tracks at the supermarket by warbling along to "Sexy Bitch." (We keep it pretty real at my supermarket.)

But where once the beyond-your-years pop culture aptitude merely mildly scandalized parents, kids now have the option of entertaining and/or appalling the multitudes. Anyone with a laptop can become a star -- and that's where it gets complicated. Is toothy, unself-conscious Avery's lip-synced "TiK ToK" kind of adorable? Absolutely. Is it also a little disturbing, knowing a) her bedroom antics are out there for the world to see and b) her parents had to consent to this? Yep, that too. By putting herself out there, Avery is open to the geniuses who comment that "Wow you are a fucking annoying ugly brat" and "You know you want my cock."

Based on her other videos, wherein she enthuses about the books she loves and does a full-on homage to farting, Avery seems a pretty grounded, funny kid. She's like a lot of girls, including my own, in her exuberant eccentricity. Her vogueing for the camera bears little resemblance to Ke$ha's grown-up, celebratory skankiness.

And that's why her video is so unnerving, so surprisingly bittersweet. It's not that she's singing about brushing her teeth with a bottle of Jack; it's the innocence with which she does it. (Though if you're looking for disturbingly sexualized young video queens you don't have to look far.) While Avery is self-aware enough to do a video hanging out alone in her room titled "Get a Life," she -- like every other little girl busting a move on YouTube -- will soon be a young woman. By then, she'll have already long figured out that she's not just performing for herself here. She'll understand that she is being watched, being scrutinized for her looks, her clothes, her glasses, her allure or her perceived lack thereof. Welcome to the rest of your life as a female, kid.

For now, though, she's still just a little girl, playing in her room and blowing her speakers up. On her YouTube bio, she writes with heartening sagacity that "95% of kids laugh at other kids because they are different. Post this on your channel if you're part of the 5% percent laughing at the other kids because they're all the same." Ke$ha may not be the world's great role model, Avery, but every minute you keep laughing, you are.

Adolescent girls and fighting have long gone together like fake nails and clawed flesh (as those of us who survived Catholic school in New Jersey will attest). But the ease with which an adolescent brawl can become an unlikely hit became apparent last month after a Baton Rouge altercation between two high schoolers appeared on YouTube. In the clip,  14- and 16-year-old girls smack each other around while two adults stand by apparently goading them on. It's no "Thriller" flashmob, but it garnered thousand of hits – and the attention of the authorities. (The adults were subsequently arrested.) A few days later, a similar girl beatdown, this time from Lowell, Mass., popped up on YouTube as well. Suddenly, a feisty little genre had become every parent's nightmare.

But these two high-profile cases are just a taste of what's out there. In a CBS news report this week, a New England district attorney claims that 80 percent of school fights in his area are now between girls -- and national crime statistics bear out a rise in assault arrests among girls. (In related and marginally less depressing news, the legitimate field of female cage fighting is seeing a similar surge.)

But it's not fighting itself that's really skyrocketing; those same crime stats show no real increase in serious violence among girls. The recording of it, however, is another story. A YouTube search on girl fights yields hundreds of thousands of results, and that's not including the separate Web sites devoted to the action, where one can watch Brawlin Black Girls, Girl Knockouts and plenty of Ghetto pummeling. (I'm not providing the links. You want it that badly, find it yourself.)

It's true that many of those so-called fight clips are giggly affairs, obviously staged for an adoring audience of Internet degenerates. But just as many sure look like spontaneous acts of brutality. So what's grimmer, teenage girls playing fight club in the hopes of getting page views, or bystanders turning real violence into mass entertainment? And what's more demoralizing, knowing that somebody – or sometimes several rubbernecking, camera-toting somebodies -- had to coolly record and upload a face pounding, or reading the comments on how awesome or boring it turned out to be? I'll call it a draw.

The claws-out, hair-pulling fisticuff is, of course, a venerable genre. But this girl fight trend is distinct from its Russ Meyer and "Kill Bill" predecessors in a number of ways. First and foremost, it involves kids. We can, as the CBS report did, ponder aloud the issues of teen violence and bullying, but an equally troubling question is, who's watching this stuff? Well, those comments pointing out the "porno shot" moments might provide a tip-off, and the fact that the videos are often labeled as "hot sexy teen girls" beating each other makes at least one of their intended effects pretty clear. And getting to harsh on "stupid bitches" who "can't even fight"? That's a bonus. But it's not just the spelling-challenged mouth breathers out there fixing for a dustup. Even CBS News leeringly referred to the phenomenon as "girls gone wild," while AOL teased with a headline about "girl-on-girl fights." It's funny: I've never heard a news report  about guys kicking each other's asses referred to as "dudes gone wild" or "man-on-man" action. Behold this terrible problem, America. PS: Mrrrrow! And maybe that's the simple reason for the spike in these videos right there. Blood lust plus underage girls -- it's angry and violent and so easy to snark on and just a little bit gay! The titillation factor is just too irresistible, whether it's a jerk with a cellphone or a major news network.