SIDE SALAD - Everything crunchy is good.

MA-IA-HII,
MA-IA-HUU,
MA-IA-HOO,
MA-IA-HAHA

You might remember the posting here of a video clip of a guy lip-syncing on his Web cam to "Dragostea Din Tei."
Well, the New York Times takes a look at the phenomenon his video caused.
What phenomenon? Well, the video was shown on "Good Morning America," for one. Then The Today show got into the act, getting the group that sang the song, Ozone, to perform it live. (They sucked severely.) And as a sign you're message has saturated the net, someone did a Lego version of the tune.
Oversaturation hasn't stopped entire classrooms from dancing along and singing with the clip while sitting in their computer lab desks. It's almost too creepy and cultlike for words.
The best part of the Times story examines the price of Internet fame.
Turns out the singer/dancer in question is just a 19-year-old A/V geek from New Jersey named Gary Brolsma. And he'd really prefer that everyone leave him alone:

He has now sought refuge from his fame in his family's small house on a gritty street in Saddle Brook. He has stopped taking phone calls from the news media, including The New York Times. He canceled an appearance on NBC's "Today." According to his relatives, he mopes around the house.

What's worse is that no one seems to understand.

"I said, 'Gary this is your one chance to be famous - embrace it,' " said Corey Dzielinski, who has known Mr. Brolsma since the fifth grade. Gary Brolsma is not the first guy to rocket out of anonymity on a starship of embarrassment. There was William Hung, the Hong Kong-born "American Idol" reject, who sang and danced so poorly he became a household name. There was Ghyslain Raza, the teenage Québécois, who taped himself in a mock light-saber duel and is now known as the Star Wars Kid.

In July 2003, Mr. Raza's parents went so far as to sue four of his classmates, claiming they had placed the clip of him online without permission. "Ghyslain had to endure and still endures today, harassment and derision," according to the lawsuit, first reported in The Globe and Mail of Toronto.

Mr. Brolsma has no plans to sue, his family said - mainly because he would have to sue himself. In fact, they wish he would bask a little in his celebrity.

"I don't know what's wrong with him," his grandfather, Kalman Telkes, a Hungarian immigrant, said the other day while taking out the trash.

Posted by Jeff at February 27, 2005 11:46 AM