How do you go from being a small town Pennsylvania pharmacy clerk to reaching the No. 1 spot on the Japanese YouTube rankings.
Mark Schilling tells us how this happened to a diminutive video blogger in Introducing Magibon, Japan's YouTube darling (Japan Times, December 18).
He credits her success to her on-screen persona which he says "was reminiscent of a Japanese teenage idoru (manufactured entertainer)."
Her Japanese audience, Mark Schilling notes "males especially, found her American Zen idoru act funny, charming and kawaii
(cute) — and made her a YouTube star. As her view-count soared, the
Japanese media took notice and in April, October and November of this
year she was flown to Japan for Web, TV and print interviews and live
appearances."
Her videos collected some 4,2 million views so far.
As Mark Schilling mentions, she gets sneered at by many US comments.
They range from Magibon's Evil Cuteness (Due East) to Magibon is a Fake (Tasty Blog Snack) and I guess these are the more polite.
Is it because she flags the Peace Sign at the end of each appearance as in 'Disneyland' (above)?
We don't learn much from her profile on the Magibon Channel.
Is she a media creation?
Does it matter?
Everybody's in Showbiz, Everybody's A Star as Ray Davies (The Kinks) was singing back in 1972 .
Japan Lite for Tokyo Thursdays # 69
Last Week on Tokyo Thursdays: Mercury Poisoning: 20th Minamata Disease Exposition in Chiba