I am the Internet…and a bit loony!

Bold statement, isn’t it? You have to be pretty ruthless, stupid, or especially famous to make such a statement, especially online where people have the ability to smack you from your pedestal with a single sweep of viral malice. So what would you need to qualify such a statement? Ideally, you would have your own blog to start off with, right? Not enough? What about your own Youtube channel? Yeah fine…anyone can do that for free.

So what is it then? Let’s see…I’d say about 235 342 followers on Twitter (now on 277 509), 458 412 views on your own personal Internet video channel, 5,102,468 views on someone else’s video channel (huh???), 66 567 subscribers to your Youtube channel, the maximum allowed amount of 5000 friends on Facebook and a modest 49 568 friends on MySpace.

Add to that a profile on Wikipedia, a couple of hundred thousand views on revver.com, another couple of hundred thousand views on vimeo.com, thousands of friends / subscribers / stalkers / perverts on social network sites I’ve never even heard of, a couple of fan sites dedicated to you and finally, 1 020 000 search results on Google for your name. Statement not that bold anymore, now is it? (Of course, having a pretty face and being a bit loony helps too)

Thing is, if you don’t know Justine Ezarik, aka iJustine aka iJ, you probably don’t know all that much about the internet. Her famous signature “I am the Internet” is now about as popular as the video clip that catapulted her into stardom…and into the hearts of Steve Jobs and the entire Apple fraternity.

You see, during the launch of the biggest publicity sensation ever, the Apple iPhone, iJustine produced a single 1 minute video when she received her first (itemized) AT&T mobile phone bill. All 300 pages of it (Yes, there’s a Wikipedia page for this). The viral video earned her international attention and celebrity. The bad publicity (because she cleverly added an environmental twist to it) that AT&T earned as a result of her video featuring her reviewing the bill and similar stories coincided with the announcement that detailed billing would become optional for iPhone users.

The 300 page iPhone bill video (covered by Forbes among other) had been viewed more than 3 million times on the Internet a mere ten days after it was published, so it is obvious why iJustine never took the time to look back after that (and why Steve Jobs probably dreams about her at night). These days, capturing a video of iJ wanting to order a cheeseburger accumulates 600 000 views on Youtube in a week. Seriously… (Currently on 1 228 286 views)

So, from a business perspective, you may deem all this information entirely useless. Well, except for the fact that she’s very easy on the eyes and if you’re a male, there’s plenty of her all over the internet. (Not business related? Fine…)

Well, there’s just one more thing. iJustine has a borderline obsession with Apple, owner Steve Jobs and anything Mac in between…except for MacDonalds I think. In fact, a Google search for “iJustine” and “iPhone” returns a mammoth 156 000 search results and a search for “iJustine” and “Apple” returns close to 100 000. Actually, her videos are about Apple so often that many people rightly wonder just how much ol’ Steve forks out on this chick. Of course, iJ denies pocketing a cent.

So, in business terms imagine you had someone that cares so much about your brand willing to go to these sorts of lengths to promote your products and services, just because she likes too…for free apparently.

She’s out there methinks.