Meet the man behind 'Mean Kitty Song'
Songwriter creates a hit via Internet
By Eliav Appelbaum eliav@theacorn.com

Corey Williams, or Mr. Safety as he's known to his legion of fans in cyberspace, has struck gold with "The Mean Kitty Song."

The Thousand Oaks resident is a pioneer in the Internet video blogging world. His most recent inspiration debuted last week on www.youtube.com, and after five days, the comedic video song he wrote and directed was viewed more than 1.5 million times.

"I've done a lot of other things, but this one thing has blown up overnight," said Williams, 26, who founded YouTube Gatherings, a forum for YouTube bloggers to hold public gatherings to celebrate their shared hobbies. YouTube employs Williams to make videos and post them on its site, paying him a salary and giving him a bonus for every 1,000 hits.

"The Mean Kitty Song" is about Williams' cat, Sparta, a rambunctious Egyptian Mau that runs amuck and drives its owner berserk. Williams said one of the reasons for making the video was to show his friends in Turlock, Calif., his new home in Thousand Oaks. He moved to the area last month.

Williams' primary job is hosting "The Fizz," a national television show on DirectTV 101. He also does consulting work for an HBO Labs project called the Run Away Box and is the owner of SMP Films. In addition, the Central Valley native will make his feature film debut, although he couldn't disclose the name or nature of the movie.

Before the YouTube phenomenon, there was myspace.com. But even before that phenomenon, Williams made his mark on newgrounds.com, where, in March 2005, he was one of the first people anywhere to post video feed blogs. He got 30,000 hits for some of his clips on newgrounds.com, "which was unheard of back then," he said.

Williams found his passion for music when he was 14. His uncle Dan Hogden, who lived in Thousand Oaks at the time, worked for Sony in Culver City and gave his nephew a tour of the building.

"Something snapped in my head, and I said, 'I'm coming back here.'"

Starring in high school plays, Williams found acting natural. Before too long, he started singing and writing his own music.

After graduating from high school in 1999, Williams bought his first camera and started making short, goofy videos. Eventually, he showed these clips to his friends, who wanted their own copies.

"I couldn't believe it; I did this just to do something dumb," he said. "My friends were like, 'No, no, no. This is hilarious.'"

Williams made copies of his songs for his friends. When myspace came around, Williams put his songs online, but there wasn't a place to post videos yet. Even so, the response was positive, and myspace began paying Williams to perform around the country.

In 2005, YouTube was a tiny entity, but Williams liked the format so much, he began posting his videos. Soon YouTube became a bigger entity than myspace, and Williams' fans followed him to his newest venue.

Then "The Fizz" came knocking on his door.

"They just noticed I was really into the community on YouTube. I was the one person going around, working with everyone. I was all about collaborating," Williams said of the show, which has been running for about a year.

"It's funny- Internet people don't like the show. It's geared toward people who've never seen videos on the Internet, which is the majority of the population today."

As a result of all his success, Williams has rubbed elbows with celebrities, making appearances on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and "Scarred" on MTV.

Williams thinks the potential for growth on the Internet is boundless. In fact, he proposed to his fiancee, Stephanie Roby, on the Internet, and the touching moment was witnessed by more than 200,000 people on YouTube.

"It's a whole different world," Williams said. "What I've been learning recently is that the Internet is so new and Hollywood is afraid - deathly, deathly afraid - of the Internet because of the fact it's so new. Everything off the Internet is cutting edge, and Hollywood wants so bad to be unique, but they're scared of the Internet because they don't understand how it works.

"I'm lucky to get on when I did. I took a risk, but I feel like maybe I helped it grow."

Williams wants to continue writing his own songs and posting them online. He'd also like to venture into television and be a writer for his own show.

In the meantime, Williams and Roby will try to make new friends in Thousand Oaks.

"I don't know anybody here," Williams said. "I don't have friends here, but I've got a gazillion people watching me and laughing online."

Sitting at home, Williams still found something to keep him busy.

"I'm writing another song right now," he said, "about how I don't know anybody here now . . . but I will soon."