Did you know that if you type “lip sync” into YouTube’s search function, you get over 45,000 results? And yet, the phenomenon of filming yourself getting funky with your favorite tunes has produced surprisingly few Internet stars. So how can you make it big? Well, you could start by being Chinese, putting on an Adidas tracksuit, and rocking the cream cheese out of the Backstreet Boys’As Long as You Love Me. ‘Cause then you’d be the Back Dorm Boys. And then you’d be awesome.
High school friends-turned-art school roommates Wei Wei and Huan Yixin first got the idea when their school was relocated from downtown to the outskirts of the city. Off-hours entertainment had become a little hard to come by, so the boys decided to make a video to amuse their friends. In it, they emote and bop around with Muppet-like enthusiasm, their roommate Xiao Jing in the background with his back to the camera. The video was a hit, first with friends and eventually with the world at large.
More videos followed. At first, the BDB stuck with songs from their original muses, the Backstreet Boys. But soon they were getting dramatic with the Blackeyed Peas, rocking us with Five & Queen, and even receiving the ultimate honor when Jessica Simpson linked directly to their video of her song, A Public Affair, from her web site.
Since then, it appears the sky’s the limit. While still in school, they were drafted for live “performances” and tapped as spokespeople for Motorola in China. After graduation, they were signed to a five-year talent management contract with a major agency. They moved to Bejing, started studying singing, and released their own original single last year. (With both a traditional and a BDB-style video.)
Sure, imitators come and go. But the Back Dorm Boys…they’re something special. That’s probably why they’re famous, and these guys are not.
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