Felicia Day

A music video by the creators of cult web sitcom The Guild has gone straight to number one in the UK iTunes chart, beating Black Eyed Peas and Beyonce.

(Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar was written to promote the third series of the show, about a group of people who play an online role-playing game.

The lyrics include lines like: "You’ll never see my actual face. Our love will be in virtual space."

Star Felicia Day said she was "a little bit surprised" by the track’s success.

More than 1.5 million people have watched the video on YouTube since it was uploaded on Monday, while the song itself is currently number two in the Amazon US download chart.

The reaction has been "very cool", says Day, because the song was recorded and released independently.

"We beat the establishment and it fills me with glee," she told the BBC News website.

"One of the things that drives me is to do things differently," she explained.

"Most people would be working with a label and going through a lot of hoops.

"I think our success empowers everybody who feels like they can’t get their art out there."

’Clearly masterful’

Day - who is also the creator and producer of The Guild - dreamt up the song while writing scripts for the new series, which is funded and distributed by Microsoft via Xbox Marketplace.

"We do 12 episodes per series, and we always owe an extra video for our Xbox order, and I thought ’wouldn’t it be fun to do something musical?’" she said.

"I was listening to really bad 1990s dance songs - C+C Music Factory, Stacey Q - and that was my inspiration."

After Day finished the lyrics, she called in TV scriptwriter Jed Whedon - with whom she worked on the sci-fi series Dollhouse and Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog - to compose the music. Felicia Day at the Streamy Awards The Guild won an award for best web comedy at this year’s Streamy awards

Reminiscent of Ace Of Base’s All That She Wants, the track also features an "intricate and clearly masterful" rap by The Guild co-stars Jeff Lewis and Sandeep Parikh.

The entire cast of the web series, who are normally seen on screen in their day clothes, got to dress up as wizards, princesses and knights for the video.

"I had a fun time being a rock star for the day," said Day, adding that she "called in a lot of favours" to make the clip.

"In a regular Hollywood situation it would have cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars."

"But I recorded the song in Jed’s closet, staring at his socks. It took about three weeks to get from there to here.

"It’s been crazy."