Latvian internet Celebrities

By Kārlis Kocers

Internet media play a big role in our life. There are not only ordinary celebrities anymore but Internet celebrities and even in small countries like Latvia.

To be an Internet celebrity you don’t even have to reveal your real name, or go out of your house, to be well known. All it takes to become an internet celebrity is a computer, a connection to the internet, some fans or subscribers and some interesting, mostly funny, information long with a luck.

As more people go on-line, and more people try to entertain and become successful via Internet. Few have lasted long enough to become a celebrity. Usually they are one hit wonders.

There are loads of people whose Internet videos have recorded over 1, 000,000 views, but they aren’t considered to be an Internet celebrity. To become one you have to have a fan base and post your videos regularly. Most successful celebrities earn serious money through advertising and merchandise sales. It has become their full-time job.

For example, Fred, youtube.com all time hit became popular by making videos, where he appeared acting as a some kind of toddler, with a high pitched voice which sounds quite funny. It is hard to imagine his face when somebody told him few years ago that his home-made videos would reach approximately 30 million people.

It’s very hard to become an Internet celebrity if your only language is not English. But still you can become a local Internet celebrity. One of the most successful local Internet phenomenon in Latvia is werkis2, two local guys who become popular with their videos.

“For a start we just wanted to entertain ourselves and our closest friends. We never thought about how popular our videos would become” says UDZI, one of the members of the known duo. “Their success started with videos, where they wrote down, sound a like, lyrics in Latvian for Indian music videos,” he says.

“When people in Latvia noticed our videos it become an Internet meme, we got our first ratings, comments and subscribers. Also we noticed that people want to hear a lot of swear words. So, UDZI and I decided to make more videos with misheard lyrics.” says the godfather of one of the first local celebrities in Latvia, MX, other member of project “werkis2”. Their most famous made video got almost 300,000 views, which for Latvia is an unbelievable number.

The most successful video to this day on youtube.com from Latvia is “Musiqq” music video – “Abrakadabra”, which gather more than half million views. If we put in mind, that in Latvia there are only 2.2 million people, these results are astonishing. But there is a difference between internet celebrities, who gained their fame only trough internet and celebrities who uses every kind of publicity they can get.

For those who don’t have a huge resources. The Internet might be a good place to become famous.