ALO Loves Bunny

It’s valentines day and this year A Life Online wants to recognize someone special. ALO is pretty choosy so the list was short but by virtue of that fact that she thinks A Life Online is “Cool!” (wink to Melissa ) we set our sights on Bunny. Now obviously Bunny has a boyfriend but ALO is willing to overlook that and the fact that she was willing to sell her box to the highest bidder (Girl Sells her Box for Charity) on the basis that, like Spring Break, “What happens online, stays online!” And hey, if it doesn’t work out, maybe she can hook us up with her sister. So how about it Bunny, be our valentine?

Tag Surfer

a.k.a. “Tag Surfer – you better believe it’s beta”

 So I noticed a while back the new Tag Surfer feature on WordPress which is supposedly ”a collection of posts … from people talking about the same stuff that you do.” Except it’s not. I checked it out a few weeks ago and something like 13 out of 15 recommendations were hardcore political blogs despite the inverse proportion of posts being political here at ALO and there was not one mention of anyone else with ‘A life online’ despite devoting most of January’s posts to that subject.

I don’t normally trash services in beta but I left it a few weeks and checked again today: this time round most of the reco’ real estate is taken-up by 4 huge posts from the same blog (monavoir.com) which seems to be about life after divorce, there’s only 5 political blogs so that’s an improvement and there’s a few travel related posts which is in the right direction.

 Now as I mentioned, I know Tag Surfer is beta so the only reason I bring it up is because this could be a really useful feature and is EXACTLY the kind of thing Google could do really well so WP may have to work hard if they don’t want Blogger to steal a charge in this area. Anyway Tag Surfer just isn’t working for me right now and I wanted to bring that to the attention of the world. Let me know if it works for you.

Real World Damages Internet Success

Ok so it may look like I haven’t had much of ALO this month, the problem is the whole ‘real world’ thing has been getting in the way. Don’t builders and accountants realize people have blogging to do? I have actually managed to write a half-dozen entries but have yet to post them as I haven’t had time to proof them yet, let’s just say they’re tied-up in the legal dept. Anyway I’m sure the rest of the Internet has kept you busy in the mean time, what have I missed?

Star Wars Kid

I wasn’t going to post about Star Wars Kid as I didn’t find the original video that entertaining. Perhaps some of the remixes are, but apparently he’s the most watched viral of all time so for completeness of this mini-series on those with a famous life online, here’s the story. Way back in 2003, a video of 15yr old Ghyslain Raza swinging a golf ball retriever like it was a weapon started making rounds on the net. Yup, notch another one down to “chubby kid messing around.” An undisclosed out-of-court settlement was reached with the ‘friends’ who uploaded the video.

Who knows what the Star Wars Kid is up to now but it’s been reported (by a marketing agency) that the footage has been viewed 900 million times and there are over 100 modified versions. As an update to the last post, the same company estimates Numa Numa has been watched 700 million times. Watch some of the clips after the jump.

Numa, New Numa & Gary Brolsma

Ok, so getting back to business here, there may have been others before and there sure have been many after, but Gary Brolsma and his Numa dance is what got me interested in YouTube. It may have dated a little but when it was released on to the wild world wide web I like many others followed the translations, tributes and other related videos. Essentially more proof that ‘fat guy dancing’ is a timeless comedy routine, back in 2005 Gary sang-a-long to “Dragostea Din Tei,” a song by Romanian pop band O-Zone, in front of his webcam.

The name “Numa Numa” comes from the words from a refrain of the song, “nu mă, nu mă iei”, meaning, roughly, “(you) don’t want, don’t want to take me”. That was just about all most people could make out from the song, however it was incredibly catchy and post Gary’s new-found popularity the song was re-released and went on to chart well internationally. It was a surreal moment for me when I was sitting at an American theme bar when the Numa song came on and everybody in the place was dancing and singing along.

Originally Gary was quite upset with his burgeoning fame but eventually made appearances on ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s The Tonight Show and VH1′s Best Week Ever. The New York Daily News said “chubby New Jersey teen” Gary was the “hottest sensation on the Internet” while only 2 1/2 months after the video was first posted, the NY Times reported he had become an “unwilling and embarrassed Web celebrity.”

There are now many Numa fan sites, parodies, tributes, remixes etc. even the crew of the USS Enterprise got involved. The story continues as a $45,000 contest has been launched where contestants have to remix a New Numa YouTube video. The original has been watched on Newgrounds.com over 10 million times and Wikipedia has it as the 2nd most watched viral video after Star Wars Kid.

And as a special treat, here is what happened when Matt met Gary.

New Orleans hit by 2nd Hurricane as Bears storm to the Super Bowl!!!

You heard it here first, the NFC Championship Game isn’t over yet but i’m calling it now and that headline is mine! 2 weeks to go to Super Bowl XLI.

Impossible Is Nothing – Vayner Strikes Again

This follows on nicely from our last couple of posts on “How the Internet changed my life.” Today I stumbled across an Adidas marketing campaign Impossible is Nothing. Whether this has anything to do with Yale student Aleksey Vayner is unknown, but it made me remember the saga played out after Aleksey included a video of his ‘inspirational’ self with the CVs he sent out while applying for jobs on Wall St.

I followed the story on IvyGate, go there and start at the beginning to catch-up if this is the first you have heard of the story. Basically the video shows Aleksey weightlifting, dancing, breaking bricks, playing tennis and purportedly skiing – although Aleksey now acknowledges that may not be him. In addition Vayner created a fake charity, named himself CEO of a non-existent investment firm and plagiarized a book on the Holocaust. Other reports have included claims he “KILLED 24 people in the caves of Tibet” and is “qualified to handle nuclear waste.” There’s much more to the story and it looks like Aleksey got busted in 2002 too, all of which means this gets catalogued as infamy via Internet rather than going in the fame pile.

The best way to get a handle on this is to watch the video:
http://www.veoh.com/videos/e1336748NgyMqyG
WordPress won’t let me embed Veoh video.

Who the Hell is Matt

Following yesterday’s BoxInABox video, today ALO presents you with another viral hero: Dancing Matt from Where the Hell is Matt.

Matt was a  30-year-old self-confessed deadbeat from Connecticut – then he quit his job and decided to travel the planet until his cash ran out. A buddy gave Matt the idea of dancing everywhere he went and recording it on his camera. You can see the result below, over 4 million others already have. There’s a pretty good FAQ on his website should you want to know more.

Now I’ve done a fair bit of travelling in my time, but Matt gets around a lot. In a good way. He takes simple pictures in amazing places and in my opinion the resulting video clips offer a lot more than the ‘picture of myself every day for x years” videos that float around the net. He’s got sponsorship and stuff now but that just seems to provide the opportunity to do more travelling and dancing and custom audio.

I’ve been meaning to do a post on the joys of the Internet for a while, and one day I will because there’s a lot of good things you can do with it. Matt says “There’s almost nowhere in the world that doesn’t have internet access. Free wi-fi abounds in cities all over the globe. Borneo is rife with net cafes. I could send email from the ship’s satellite in Antarctica.”

“The world has changed very quickly.” I tend to agree with him.

Matt also told me that VH1 are doing a ‘Top40 Greatest Internet Superstars‘ so I guess this part-time series of posts is semi-redundant, but it’s not out yet so we’ll press on!

MyBoxInABox update:

The clever boys and girls over at IvyGate received a tip-off on our beloved BoxInABox Bunny and reveal her as Melissa Lamb, a sophomore at Penn. They even give you a quick rundown of the steps involved in the SNL parody.

Step one: Watch “Dick in a Box.”

Step two: Fall in love with the box.

Step three: Spoof it “Box in a Box.” 

On her blog today Bunny disputes the IvyGate expose and says, “Who knew you could make something for $400 and it would reach 5 million people?” $400? What does that go on, stunt boxes? Still, cute college co-ed finds fame? I bet Playboy is trying to get her box out of the box right now.

How the internet can change lives – MyBoxInABox

I think the video below is proof that the Internet, and in this case YouTube in particular, can still launch careers and change lives. This might be the start of a series of posts about those with famous online lives, so stay tuned. But for today let’s take a look at what MSNBC called “a racy internet satire of a racy internet satire.”

The story starts, as others have before, with a skit on Saturday Night Live (SNL) with Justin Timberlake, “My ____ in a box”. Apparently many found this hilarious and it quickly became the talk of the town. Two weeks later, Bunny, a 20yr old from NY released her parody of the skit. Having seen both videos, I found “My box” the best and liked the well-produced but amateur feel. Of course being young, cute and having a penchant for low-cut tops helps but 500,000 YouTube views and counting say something. Not to mention over 2,000,000 plays on radio and TV.

I’m sure it won’t be long before some media hotshot with an ear to the ground wraps this future talent up with a contract. Carson Daly seems to be at the forefront of the TV/internet media crossover, having already signed-up Brookers and recently launched ItsYourShow. Carson used to be the man. He was funny, he was hip, girls thought he was cute, we looked-up to him. Will Carson continue to be ‘the man’ and support indie artists looking for A Life Online, or will he become ‘The Man’ by controlling them. You know, as in ‘The Man’ in School of Rock, the Google of crossover media. Only time will tell, but now:

A video clip is worth many words so with further adieu…

The ‘rude’ Timberlake version can be found here. Find out more about Bunny and follow the story at myboxinabox.com

Bunny, your life online is just starting out, here’s hoping it’s a good one. My box is just for you readers.