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'Gary Brolsma' (born January 14, 1986 in Saddle Brook, New Jersey), also known as simply 'the Numa Numa Guy', gained worldwide attention after posting onto the Internet, near the end of 2004, a webcam video of himself miming to the song "Dragostea din tei" by Moldovan pop band O-Zone. It was known as ''Numa Numa'', after a phrase in the song, and became an Internet phenomenon watched by millions of people, leading to mainstream media exposure for him. He initially withdrew from the attention, but returned with a band and a new video ''New Numa'' in the late summer of 2006 and began to do interviews.
He graduated from Bergen County Technical High School in Teterboro, New Jersey in June 2004.

Contents

History

New Numa

Other media

Notes and references

External links

History

Main articles: Numa Numa

He has created variants of the Numa Numa video since it became popular. One version also contains some puns, among them pictures of feta cheese during the lyric "fericirea" (happiness) and a LEGO representation of Bob Ross during the singer's words: "sunt eu, Picasso" (it's me, Picasso). Other versions include a showdown between him and a German Kid getting angry at his computer. The video also had a brief cameo by the Star Wars Kid.

He made appearances on ABC's ''Good Morning America'', NBC's ''The Tonight Show'', and VH1's ''Best Week Ever'', but then became uncomfortable with the amount of attention. [1] According to ''The New York Times'', he was an "unwilling and embarrassed Web celebrity". ^[1] He stopped taking phone calls from the media; he cancelled an appearance on NBC's ''Today Show'' on 17 February 2005; and he did not cooperate with ''The New York Times'' for their 26 February 2005 article about him.
A story in ''The Believer'' (June/July 2006) explored the song's spread and global homogenization, while arguing that Brolsma's video "singlehandedly justifies the existence of webcams . . . It’s a movie of someone who is having the time of his life, wants to share his joy with everyone, and doesn’t care what anyone else thinks".
Gary once had a small part on ''The War at Home'' when Dave was talking about him [2], giving his 'trademark' "Allo" to a person on the phone in a short scene.
He was voted the Number 1 Internet Icon by ''40 Greatest Internet Superstars'' on VH1, beating the ''Star Wars'' kid at Number 2.

New Numa

On 8 September 2006, a ''New Numa'' video was posted on Newgrounds, and promoted on a dedicated website, NewNuma.com. Although initially unexpected, he says he had been urged to make such a move by fans of his original video.[3] The video was produced by Experience Studios (Seattle, WA). It features eoghan lyons and his garage band, The Nowadays, lip-synching and dancing to ''New Numa''. [4] The song is a repeated Russian children's rhyme and performed in Russian by Chad Russell, a singer/songwriter from Minneapolis, MN, for producer and DJ, Variety Beats, on the BeLive label.
To coincide with the video release, a US$45,000 contest, in which entrants submit their own user-created one- to ten-minute long "New Numa" music video, was launched on the website. The "New Numa Contest" [5] ended on 22 May 2007 with the winning entry "1197 Virus (Complete)" created by fan Keith3D announced on the NewNuma website on 21 June 2007. Keith3D won $25,000 for the top entry.

Other media

Brolsma recently made a video promoting the Discovery Channel's National Body Challenge, which he stated he was joining. In it, he parodies, among other things, the Atkins Nutritional Approach and ''Star Wars'' kid.

Notes and references

1. Internet Fame Is a Cruel Mistress for a Numa Numa Dancer

External links

★ Numa Numa Dance on Newgrounds - Numa Numa Dance where it was originally submitted.

★ NewNuma.com - Gary Brolsma's new site for his new video

★ Gary Brolsma's MySpace profile - Gary Brolsma's MySpace profile

★ Garybrolsma.net - Gary Brolsma Fan Site

★ Gary in Barenaked Ladies - Sound of Your Voice - Gary in Barenaked Ladies - Sound of Your Voice