What started out as a few good friends setting out to create a memento of their summer getaway on Fire Island has turned into an Internet sensation that has been simultaneously racking up thousands of hits on YouTube and lighting up the blogosphere.

When New Yorkers David Fudge, Ted Donath, Colin Stark, Brian Davidson, Richard Davis, Ryan Slyper, and Justin Garlinghouse decided to take a Flip mini digital camcorder and hit the beach to make their own summer party video, using Miley Cyrus’s new single “Party in the USA” as their soundtrack, they had no idea so many people would pay attention.
But that is precisely what happened.

Only one day after the video hit the Web, gossip scribe Perez Hilton had already posted the video on his website and teen pop diva Cyrus had tweeted that she was “obsessed” with the feel-good parody of her latest hit. Even more telling is the fact that, as of Wednesday morning (three days after its debut), the video had garnered over 150,000 views -- and David, the mastermind/director behind the clip, had scored nearly 1,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel. All of which suggests that the video -- which is humorously titled “Party in the FIP” -- is not simply a sensation, it’s a smash hit.

“I never imagined that this video would get so much attention, especially in such a short amount of time. And not just in the U.S., but all over the world,” David told Advocate.com, seeming a bit bewildered by the video’s popularity. “It started out as just a fun project, and now we have hundreds of people asking us to make more.”