Remember Holly Ho from "Hollyho1989 almost gets it right in her quest to be a millionaire..."? The latest news has it that she is actually a he. Yeah, no kidding. Some guy named Marcus Lim claims that he created a fake online female persona for viral campaign.
Oh really? Truly an elaborate hoax? Or that guy just trying to confuse the real (if such a person does exist) 'Holly Ho'?
Marcus Lim's project supervisor Ms Kathryn Shannon Sim was reported to confirm this. That is if she's not in cahoots with him...
See this is the Net, we are talking about. Anybody can make any claim. It's up to us whether to believe or not. I wonder, though, what happened to those who were really conned to donate 10 cents to this 'Holly Ho'? Heh.
TWO months ago, a doe-eyed beauty calling herself Holly Ho posted a video on YouTube and on her Facebook page.
In the video, she asked for 10 cents from each netizen.
She said she was hoping that at least 10 million netizens would respond, so she could become a millionaire without getting a job.
Netizens responded all right, but with brickbats instead of pocket change.
They called her lazy and blasted her for being a slut.
Others tried to flirt with her.
Her campaign for coins generated so much debate that it appeared on citizen journalism website Stomp in March and April, generating a total of more than 123,000 views.
But the biggest shock was yet to come.
It turns out that Holly Ho is a he.
And the video was just part of a school project by Mr Marcus Lim, 26, who is pursuing a degree in design communication at Lasalle College of the Arts, specialising in advertising communication.
He was the one who adopted the Holly Ho persona as part of his final-year project to conduct a viral marketing campaign to create brand awareness for a bank.
Mr Lim’s project supervisor Ms Kathryn Shannon Sim, 32, confirmed this.
Mr Lim’s plan was to create a suitable personality online, then start a discussion on wealth management.
He said: “The emergence of social media has changed the way people communicate.
“So it is important for advertisers to build a participatory culture to communicate with their audience.”
Needing a pretty girl to create the required “controversy”, he roped in a friend, Elyn, to be the face of Holly, whom he named after the materialistic character Holly Golightly played by Audrey Hepburn in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
He shot a video of her asking for donations, uploaded it to YouTube and waited for it to go viral.
Although the video was taken down by site administrators a few days later, it already sparked a flood of comments on Stomp after netizens posted two reports on Holly there.
Mr Lim said Elyn, 20, declined to speak to us because “she didn’t want to draw additional attention on herself”.
From DigitalOne, "He gets friend to act in video | Student creates fake online babe for viral campaign".
