Mar 07
6
Viral Evolution from Mahir to Borat
There is a long tradition of web sites featuring people so far out, odd, or clueless that one can hardly believe the people are real. For those who were finding their entertainment online back in 2000, you should be familliar with the legend of Supergreg, as seen below:
This was one of the first intentionally viral ad campaigns that I can recall. Supergreg along with Rubberburner and Born to Destroy (sorry can’t find a mirror for this one) were part of a campaign for Lee Jeans done by ad agency Fallon. While this campaign scores pretty low on the transparency scale, I still think it was brilliant. I expect Collin at Radicaltrust will likely have some issues with it, but I must remind him that it was a different time.
The genesis of this campaign can likely be traced back to the massive influence of the unintentionally viral Mahir (aka the Turkish “I kiss you” guy) in 1999. A wonderfully naive site that according to Mahir Çağrı himself was hacked to look as pathetic as it appeared when it went viral. However considering the raw material the “hacker” had to work with, I would imagine that few edits were necessary.
The lines between Mahir and Borat are well-documented and frankly obvious, but the Supergreg connection is less well-known, that being that Sascha Baron Cohen played both Borat and Supergreg. I think the Borat concept is brilliant and he has taken the idea way, way past the original influence. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Mr Cohen as unlike most character comedians, he can’t step out of character when they are re-loading the film.
Hopefully this short trip through viral memory lane reminds us all there is rich ore in the so-bad-this-can’t-be-real mine, but with each core drilling in this territory the audience gets a little wiser, a little more skeptical and a little more jaded. Mine with caution.
[tags]Borat, Mahir, Supergreg, Rubberburner, Viral[/tags]
