15 megabytes of fame: The new media celebrities
Bus Uncle: Failed chief executive candidate Roger Chan Yuet-tung did his part to popularise YouTube when a clip of him berating bus passenger Elvis Ho Yui-hei is uploaded to the video sharing website. Fong Wing-hang shot the altercation between Chan and Ho with his mobile phone, and soon after 'I have pressure. You have pressure' and 'this is not resolved' become popular catchphrases. A brief public debate on proper etiquette in Hong Kong ensues.
Lonelygirl15: The online video diaries of an American girl, 'Bree', drew more than 24 million views with her teenage musings before suspicious fans revealed 'lonely girl' to be fictional. Creators Ramesh Flinders and Miles Becket copped to the ruse, which stars New Zealand actress Jessica Rose, and continue to produce the series and several spinoffs.
The Back Dorm Boys: Mainland students Wei Wei and Haung Yixin shot to global fame with their earnest-yet-amusing lip-sync performance of I Want It That Way. The US audience took notice when Good Morning America aired the clip on national television. Now the pair pitch for Motorola and Sina.com on the mainland.
Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz: These 'scientists' combined breath fresheners and cola to create one of the most viral videos on the web this year, the 'Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments'. Grobe and Voltz made a cool mint as well. The videos reportedly have earned more than US$30,000 in Mentos advertising spots via Revver, a videosharing service that embeds clickable ads into the end of each clip.
Geriatric1927, aka Peter Oakley: The 79-year-old British pensioner from Leicester is an unlikely star of the internet with his video series Telling It All, a video autobiography of his life during World War II and his days as a radar mechanic in the British Army. Oakley has more than 30,000 subscribers on YouTube, placing him third on the 'mostsubscribed' list.
