Just some questions

Forgive me if I sound naive but

Embeded videos with autoplay don`t count as views
iFrame videos with autoplay don`t counts views

I was wondering if there is a way I could make something like this happen:
1)I create a thread in forum
2)When people enter the thread, they not only enter the thread but a new tab or new window to a YouTube video pops up as well.

I figure this will gurantee views as they are watching it on YouTube.
Is it possible to make such a thing happen?

only if you have an xss for that forum

It's very possible if you own the forum. It's hard to do without that.
But, you could simply have a link to the video within a thread and people can go and click it on their own and if they watch, you get views.