On the first day of 2018, Emily Ratajkowski’s 2017 LOVE Advent film reached the 1 million view milestone.
As of press time at 3:40PM ET Monday, the film boasts a view count of 1,000,426.
It is LOVE Magazine’s first 2017 advent calendar film to cross the 1 million view mark.
Granted, it was also one of the first videos released this year. The film was issued on December 3 — and was the second model-specific video of the year.
Still, it is obvious Ratajkowski’s popularity played a huge role in driving the achievement. No other video from the opening week has even reached 800,000 views.
Buzz — and criticism — over the film also played a role. The LOVE series attracts a degree of criticism each year, but detractors seemed to specifically target the Ratajkowski shoot.
The model actually responded to the criticism in a Tweet earlier this month: “Lol never said my love video was a feminist statement. But now it’s worth saying that telling women what to do with their bodies & sexuality is actually just classic sexism. I can have opinions about feminism & also do sexy photo shoots k thanks.”
Beyond the sexual nature of the film, some took issue with the concept. Whereas most of this year’s LOVE Advent films involve exercising in sexy lingerie, Ratajkowski’s video finds the model smearing pasta all over herself.
The theme of the film is “carbo-loading day.” Such days are valuable from a fitness standpoint, but the concept is also a specific reference to the fact that Ratajkowski “doesn’t exercise.”
Confirming the contentious reaction, Ratajkowski’s film boasts an especially low 2:1 like-to-dislike ratio on YouTube.
As a point of comparison, Alexis Ren’s film — the next-most popular in the series — has 3,000 likes compared to 227 dislikes.
Watch the Ratajkowski film below:
