The Strange Case of Mahir Cagri

Mart writes "Mahir Cagri, from Izmir, Turkey, was projected to instant fame when news about his homepage spread among internet users . Entitled Welcome to my homepage!!!!! I kiss you!!!! the page contains pictures of Mahir and describes his lifestyle in broken English: "I like to take foto-camera (amimals , towns , nice nude models andpeoples)....." Mahir's homepage has received over a million hits. It has been featured in Salon magazine, and is covered in this week's edition of The Onion under the headline "Turkish man Kiss You." Sadly the homepage wasn't real. Mahir claims that his home page had been pirated and that his worlwide fame, or infamy is undeserved. "

The Amusing Forigner Concept

This is an interesting incarnation of the Amusing Forigner Concept, which was (so far as I can tell) perfected in the late 1980s with the rush of shows like Perfect Strangers and the appearance of that one Russian guy (Yankof Smirnof, or something like that) on Night Court.

Pretty simply: There's something we in the US find amusing about forign concepts -- in the enlightened United States, the concept of a man kissing us as we access his web site to be a hoot rather than a cultural insight of any kind. Those crazy backwards forigners!

Obviously, the more you can drag it out the better -- that's where the broken english, etc. come in. Interestingly, this concept can also be applied to sub-groups within the United States. For proof, look at Fargo, Raising Arizona, the Dukes of Hazzard or any episode of the X-Files involving the midwest or Texas (note: the Texans deserve it, IMHO).

I feel that this will only be the first of a slew of web sites dedicated to cashing in on this interesting concept. In fact, I'm working on my own "Stupid Midwesterner" web site as we speak (well, as I type). Oh yeaa, doncha know. We here in Wisconsin are enjoyin' this whole Microsoft kit-and-kibootle. Look for it to start hauling in the hits -- I'm looking for a high-paying banner ad agreement as we speak. Maybe I could even do the MP3 web site thing; "To see more of the wacky Wisconsinite's site, click on the first three banners and get the first word of the second paragraph of each site that pop up in the new annoying windows...".

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Oh no-not at Slashdot!

Great. After days of generating terrible publicity for our country for at least two weeks, the unknown idiot who has defaced the poor guy's Web page (The page is NOT created by Mahir. He put a personal Web page at an ISP in Bulgaria, and some idiot was amused with his physical appearance, and came up with the piece of crap that has been filling up mailboxes worldwide in the last two weeks.) finally made it to Slashdot.

Get over it, people. This is a bad joke. The guy is an ordinary teacher, and did not prepare the page himself. Still it is a fascinating example of how the Internet has changed the world.

Mahir is on the front pages of Turkish papers, and has been mentioned in a couple of other papers too, most notably Sweden's Aftonbladet and UK's The Observer. CNN has asked him for an interview, and he demanded $50,000.

I hate to piss on the party...

But did anyone bother to read Mahir Cagri's entire response?

Don't get me wrong. I found the faked Mahir page hilarious. However, the real Mahir

a) Speaks somewhat better English.
b) Seems like quite the insightful character.
c) Has the good sense to question what this kind of thing says about _our_ cultural values.

Personally, I'm not afraid to say that should I ever visit Turkey, I'm going to email Mahir and take him up on the offer to guide me around. He seems like a decent person who's had all kinds of weirdness dumped on him in the last week. Show him the respect of taking the time to read what he's said.