On The Marc – 21 April

Don’t touch me on my…

I’m pretty sure a coupe of years ago, you may recall an email being sent around of a middle aged guy, dressed rather awkwardly with a pair of rugby shorts, and a blue checked shirt tied up around his waist ? This “character” was randomly snapped by a party-goer at a “rave” held in Gauteng, and soon Veron Koekemoer shot to instant fame.
You may remember some of the emails with Vern being photo shopped into various pictures, and he soon became a South African Internet legend. Soon, a couple of guys caught onto the viral campaign and built up a website called, CanLikeToHaveRambo.co.za, which showcased all the pictures & videos that fans had made. This was one of South Africa’s first viral Internet campaigns, and took off like a boeing.

But last week, Vernon Koekemoer was eclipsed from the viral campaign hallows, when an E-TV news presenter, Chris Maroleng, was interviewing political analyst, Lebohang Pheko, alongside Mr Andre Visage, the AWB secretary-general. The trio were discussing race relations in South Africa, after AWB leader, Eugene Terre Blanche, had been murdered the previous weekend, and soon tempers began flaring. Mr Visage ripped his microphone off and stormed off the set. A couple of seconds later, pointing at Pheko, he said “I’m not finished with you, you don’t interrupting me (sic)”

The host of the show, then came out to defend Pheko, with a phrase, that would launch South Africa’s next Internet viral campaign, “Don’t touch me on my Studio”, getting over 50,000 hits on YouTube in the first 24 hours.

Overnight video’s and songs were created and placed on YouTube and other internet sharing sites. Radio stations around the country came up with their own parodies, and soon, everyone’s catch phrase was, well, Don’t touch me on my studio. Earlier this week, myself and a mate decided to build a website to showcase all these parodies, which we naturally called, Don’tTouchMeOnMyStudio.co.za. The response was phenomenal, and after receiving mentions an afternoon drive show on a national radio station, the site shot to fame. Within 3 days, we had received well over 10,000 hits, and loads of user submissions, and it’s still growing as I type this.

It just shows us how something so small, can shoot to fame with the Internet. We can only wonder what South Africa’s next exciting Internet viral campaign will be ?

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