As I write this, there are large corporations spending millions of dollars advertising on TV trying to get you to go and look at their website, which they spent millions of dollars developing. Websites which do nothing but provide free services on the internet have sold for billions of dollars, simply because a lot of people visit them. Companies will even spend millions bidding for the address of an easy-to-remember domain name.
Unfortunately for them one of the most popular websites of 1999 (with nearly 3 million hits as of this writing) was a free website without a "dot com" address set up for a Turkish man with little knowledge of English and a penchant for playing the accordion.
Not only is Mahir Cagri an unlikely celebrity, he was also the victim of a prank. Back in 1998 he asked a friend of his to set up a website for his snapshots. He doesn't speak English, so his friend translated it from Turkish, and a legend was born. The page begins with these immortal words:
This is my page .......
WELCOME TO MY HOME PAGE !!!!!!!!!
I KISS YOU !!!!!
Few people noticed this momentus event, however, and his site was simply another personal page in a sea of personal pages. Then, in 1999, a prankster found Mahir's homepage and played a little joke on him. The prankster set up a copy of Mahir's website at a different address and added some new text. Right after the next part of the page, which reads:
I like music , I have many many musicenstrumans my home I can play
I like sport , swiming , basketball ,tenis , volayball , walk .........
The prankster added a little gem of his own:
I like sex
The prankster also added a bit at the end about liking to photograph "nice nude models" and added the classic line
Who is want to come TURKEY I can invitate ..... She can stay my home ........
The prankster is someone who should really be hired by all these
new internet companies because in manner of weeks, he turned Mahir
from an anonymous Turkish journalist and ping
pong player into a superstar, and it all happened by
word-of-mouth.
By early November, the "prank" site had hundreds of thousands of hits from people who had heard about it from friends, and from there it only escalated. Mahir had posted his phone number on the original website, and his first indication that something was afoot came on November 4th when his phone wouldn't stop ringing. He writes on his new homepage, "Many people from Turkiye and all over the world were calling me to tell their thoughts about my homepage at internet. Many of them were congratulating me for my page saying it was good; some congratulated me for my courage; and a small group from Turkiye criticized it. There were even some people criticizing my English. I was confused of what was happennig."
Soon, Mahir had a large following around the world. There were fan clubs, message boards, tribute sites and parodies by the dozen (there was even a website called mahircentral.com to keep track of them--one of the best parody sites has the same text but pictures of Bill Clinton). There was a song called "She Can Stay My Home" posted on the MP3 website (essentially a reading of his website accompanied by cheesy electronic music), animations, and artistic statements. In a matter of weeks he was a genuine news item around the world. He fielded a movie offer and made a tour of the United States during which he was recieved as a celebrity. He attended the premier of the movie Man on the Moon and appeared on Roseanne's talk show.
The explosion of his popularity also had a negative side--many, many people saw money to be made and tried to make it. Merchandise suddenly appeared with his image (supposedly proceeds would go to Mahir himself, or to charity, but I kind of doubt it) and people trying to get a piece of Mahir's fame made up their own parody websites and set out to ride his glory. Many businesses also saw a chance for free advertising and would send Mahir a picture of themselves holding signs which say "We Kiss You" and their web address, which Mahir posted on his website. Mahir himself could have easily made a quick buck off of his sudden popularity, but instead he opted to spread a message of peace and love:
-How many children are starving all through the world?
-How many children lose their families, or are violated or become disabled during the wars that they even don't know why it happened?
-How many children are being sold, or made to work and fight?
-Do you know what is happening in CHECENIA
-How many people in the world die of cold and hunger?
-How many people are prisoned or violated because of the way they think or wear?
-How many animals are being killed by the people, or how many are in the danger of extinction?
-How the environment is ruined?
-How many people are made to take drugs?
-How many guns are provided in the firms and how many people are being killed with those guns? Just think of yourselves, what do you do to solve all these problems? What do you plan to do for those people?
Why is Mahir so popular? Simply put, his refreshing honesty and awkwardness seem so out of place in the slick commercial world of the Internet that one cannot help but be touched to see someone admit that they play the accordion.
The Original Mahir Site
Mahir Cagri on Wikipedia
Gridcosm: The Mahir Borg
Kiyotei's Mahir Tribute
