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The Strange Case of Mahir Cagri 160

Posted by Hemos from the one-page-to-bind-them dept.
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. "
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The Strange Case of Mahir Cagri More

The Strange Case of Mahir Cagri

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  • This was featured here, too, in Scary's wack links section last week:

    http://www.3dshack.com/shack_stu ff/wacklinks.shtml [3dshack.com]

    Finally, a journalist breaks the story first :)

  • Let's face it the hamster dance version of Mahir said it all!

    This was at least kinder than all those Turkish jokes the Greeks and Cypriots tell.





  • that is like the fourth version i've seen of that page in the last few days.
  • You mean Mahir didn't really kiss me? Sigh.

    somehow I feel vaguely relieved.

  • Why? (Score:1)

    by Ripat ( 19963 )

    So... what's so very special about this page? It's not as if this is the first homepage on Internet.

    I don't see the point of it...

  • Once again, I am surprised by the total wackiness of the Web. It flew around my office like wildfire, and we all are still saying "I kiss you" to everyone we know. It is just another example of how something that could be considered totally useless in the physical world brings happiness and craziness in the digital realm. Let the man have his 15 of fame, and let him deal with it as he sees fit. I laughed my ass off. So did a lot of other people who were having a bad day.
  • i dont get it. what is this about? (yes, i did visit the links) -nick
  • Thanks to Hemos, he'll get a billion more. What a cheap way to get publicity.

    Is it just me or this story is unappropriate for slashdot?

    HASDI

    First post? First post??!!
  • ...I didn't know Slashdot reported on Internet crazes before. It's the first time I see the Useless Homepages [go2net.com] beating Slashdot to the punchline!

    My opinion on this claim of Mahir's is that he's trying to backpedal after all the attention he got. He's trying to say his page is his, but that someone else pirated his site to write 'I like sex'. Yeah right. Mind you, when a million people are looking at your embarrassing little web space, you're bound to deny it en masse.

    First it was the 'Mr. T Ate my Balls' pages spinoffs, then the dancing baby, then the dancing hamsters. Mahir sounds like a misguided, naive man trying to look for love in all the wrong places, but the users themselves who buy into this and start fan clubs are just your run-of-the-mill idiots who not only flog a dead horse but make sure they run over it with a steamroller.

    And the media who buy into it and give it more publicity (and I'm sorry to see Slashdot join the fray) are just spoon-feeding the masses with the filling junk news they wish for.

    So now we're going to Slashdot Mahir as well?

    "The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."

  • Not only was his website supposedly hacked - now it looks like it's been slashdotted, too!

    I saw it earlier this week - I guess I just don't get what the fuss was all about. Maybe I'm just an Old Fart, but I've seen a lot more interesting candidates for net.phenom. Oh well. To own their each.

    - -Josh Turiel

  • It's not just you.

    HEMOS: What's your point????

  • The Amusing Forigner Concept (Score:4)

    by Skyshadow ( 508 ) on Friday November 12, 1999 @06:59AM (#1538828) Homepage
    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...".

    ----

  • All fun aside, it is facinating the way the word gets passed around about a certain site on the web, and bang!, everyone is checking it out. It makes one wonder what triggers such sudden rushes. If anyone figures it out, please tell me. I'd like to a million hits on my page too.
    Mike Eckardt
    meckardt@yahoo.nospam.com
    http://www.geocities.com/meckardt
  • ...for /. to pick up on this story.

    This page made the rounds at my work about 3 weeks ago. I was susprised I never saw it here - I assumed they knew about it but decided not to post it since it's so stooopid!

  • Oh no-not at Slashdot! (Score:3)

    by TurkishGeek ( 61318 ) on Friday November 12, 1999 @07:01AM (#1538832)
    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.
  • True enough. But purely fyi, the reference has already been archived here [3dshack.com].

    I love the web. It's like a blackhole of compressed silliness from which productive time cannot escape.
  • ...which was (so far as I can tell) perfected in the late 1980s...

    Late 1970s actually. Andy Kaufman as "Latka". All the rest was derivative.
  • Yeah, but at least he tried to salvage it into something slightly worthwile, what with the preaching at the end. But look! It was made with a tool of the Devil [microsoft.com]!

  • The Greatest (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Mahir is a true hero! He has created the best homepage on the whole f. WWWW. He goes for the basics: He likes women, he likes sex. He is not ashamed. The rest of us can sneak around, try to be nice, buy them beer, Mahir is our hero. He screams: I want sex. Apparently that enough for greatness. Never mind that he denies the whole story, everybodys got a hangover sometime. Mahir: I kiss you
  • Interesting story. But the end was the best. You're just reading along about frivolous stuff, the WHAM, moral commentary. That was a great "reel 'em in then sucker punch 'em" routine to get his message out...
  • By the way, it is also hilarious that Mahir Cagri translates to "Skillful Invitation" in Turkish, don't you think? (It is a perfect translation, and the guy's name is real).
  • No accounting for taste, random noise in the culture-sphere... if you have to ask why, you just don't get it. :)

  • My only question is: Why hasn't this guy slapped up a few money making banner ads? :)

    (Yes, yes, I know, if he made a page like that, he prolly doesn't know what a banner ad is or how to make money from them...)

  • Andy Warhol was right... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    except that on the Internet, everybody will be famous for 15 seconds.
  • Perhaps it's gone for ever now. I'm getting a page does not exist page from xoom. Could it be that slashdot has ruined the fun by bringing too many people to the site.

    I love the I Kiss You guy :) I like him a lot more before he changed the page though.

  • I hate to break it to you, but that's not an exclusive American concept. I know the Canadians, the British and the French, among others, make a habit of making fun of American antics and poking fun at their culture. (Or "culture", as they would put it, I guess!)

    I'm sure there's many others, but the point is: everybody pokes fun at everybody else. The Americans are the butts of foreigner jokes because they're so present on the international scene. Foreigners just don't do it often in Americans' faces.

    So, in good humour, here's a little joke on Americans:

    An American tourist comes into a Montreal library and goes to the counter:

    "HELLO MISS," he says out loud, "I'D LIKE A HOTDOG AND A COKE!"

    "Sir," whispers the librarian, "this is a library!"

    "Oh," answers the American, whispering. "I'd like a hotdog and a coke..."

    "The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."


  • Humph. I'm from an entirely different planet, have interesting and bizarre quirks, often speak in an inscrutable tongue, and for a while my homepage said "I fart in your general direction". Why aren't I famous too?

    ======
    "Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16

  • female friends, here is the low down they have sent me....

    Basically the original page was set up as a practical joke by one of his friends. The details are metioned on Salon [salonmagazine.com] some time back.

    Another friend sent him a joke email saying she thought he was a stud and he replied back in a serious manner which would suggest it wasn't a joke.

    Personally I think you should check out the Brandon and Rick never get laid [aol.com] it's much more funnier. Or if you want to make a bit of cash, check out the 10K for a wife [10k4awife.com] page.

  • Yeah, but at least he tried to salvage it into something slightly worthwile, what with the preaching at the end.

    Yeah, can't say that much about Mr. T Ate My Balls. :)

    "The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."

  • http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/63/mahir_cagri.htm l

  • Odd.. (Score:1)

    by MikeFM ( 12491 )
    I've made way more useless web pages than that and my English wasn't much better (though it's all I speak) and hey I like sex and traveling and elt anyone who asks stay with me and my web pages never got more than a few thousand hits. My favorite was my contest to dress in drag and post the pics on my web site if 500 women sent me their panties. That got me a lot of date offers but not many web site hits. Darn. :)
  • Through some freak incidents, one lone, single man in the country of Turkey suddenly is becomming known throughout the world!

    Doesn't anyone understand what in the world is going on? I mean, it's like someone just started spinning a globe, and stopped it with his finger, and that finger landed on TURKEY, of all countries!!!

    ...and the rest, they say, is history. Bada bing, bada bang, bada boom, this guy's famous. All because someone decided to "tinker" with his web page.

    And what next? Well, let's use the all-popular dancing baby AVI as an example. A cute little AVI file, distribued by E-Mail, suddenly became a symbol of the ever growing internet and is received fame as far as appearing on T-Shirts and dancing with Calista Flockhart on Ally McBeal!

    So, what's in store for this guy? I'm thinking something along the lines of his own TV show titled "Me Kiss!" and receiving a place in the Oxford dictionary with his picture next to the phrase "Me Kiss," meaning "A kind greeting, originating from Turkey."

  • [humor]If you can't get your kiss, you can see the man dance here [xoom.com]!
    That man can groove like nobody. Get down! Man, thats one funky beat.

    He's got a fan club [yahoo.com] you should join too gnarphlager![/humor]
  • Remember the "doubly-translated Madonna interview" that appeared here a few weeks ago, and turned out to have been made up by Gary Trudeau?
    --
  • no text (no no, don't moderate this! the top one)
  • Remember, Americans are the only ones to go to another country and call everyone else Foreigners.

    Foreigners just don't do it often in Americans' faces

    This is the main point about Americans. We will say it to their faces ;)


    Steven Rostedt
  • I personally don't think its sad that the website was a hoax. It seems to me that the addition of Mahir's retraction is one of the best parts of the sites. It makes the whole thing. The fact that these unexpected turn of events for some random man lead to such acceptance and willingness to do good for the world is simply wonderful.
  • I think one reason this page is so popular (anyone got a mirror? The page is now in the happy place we call the Slashdot Zone) and *funny* (well, to most people anyway) is because it's an infovirus (I think the proper term is meme).

    Read Stephenson's Snow Crash to get an idea of what the heck I'm talking about.

  • CNN has asked him for an interview, and he demanded $50,000

    Hm, Mahir suddenly sounds like a clever guy. :-) Does anybody have a link to the real Mahir's page handy -- I couldn't find it?

    Maybe there is a (very!) weak /. point in here about how to get rich and famous on the internet? But (a) I think we would all rather take a different path (somebody already did a journaling filesystem for Linux, so I guess I have to think of somehting else now) and (b) there are probably better ways to introduce it. Or maybe TurkishGeek is on to something:

    Still it is a fascinating example of how the Internet has changed the world.

    (Come on, everybody, we've got this thread so let's make the most of it:) How did the Internet change the world? I seem to remember a guy in England who put a shark up on his roof and got instant fame and interviews. How is that different from the fame of Mahir? People have always done stunts for publicity or otherwise. It is not clear to me that anything except the speed of communication has changed.

    Not every stupid web page gets a million hits. What does this show, except that people are as silly as ever and still follow the herd, wherever it leads?

  • ... is this [angelfire.com].

    A (fake) site in which a girl proclaims her love for her boyfriend, and goes on to describe his genital and anal warts. I initially thought it was real.

  • This is why this story is interesting. It's not because it was a goofy home page that may or may not have been spoofed or anything like that (apparently a lot of people are missing this point and flaming /. for posting the story). There's some sort of phenomenon going on here. I think we need a Katz article on this! "Something Something in the Post-Mahir Era"

    -beme

  • This should be on the exam: (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    See The Final Exam [slashdot.org]
    Question #12

    You are an idiot who does not know the difference between the WWW and the Internet. You put your phone number on the web along with some horrid pictures of yourself in a pathetic attempt to attract desperate members of the opposite sex. Someone who has been using the Internet far longer than you decided to show you how stupid you are by making a copy of your page and spelling out what was written between the lines all along. You have already tried whining to the police and to various clueless lawyers. What will you do now?

    • the Texans deserve it, IMHO
    Fine. We'll just take our toys and go home. I home you won't miss Stevie Ray Vaughn, Edie Brickell, Tex-Mex cuisine, films like Rushmore, Lonestar, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Sports fans will undoubtedly miss the Dallas Stars, the Dallas Burn and the Dallas Cowboys (defense lawyers will also miss the Dallas Cowboys).

    Becuase "possession is nine-tenths of the law," we also lay claim to Bob Mould, Ministry, and Sandra Bullock.

    Finally, Walker: Texas Ranger may be a lame TV show, but do you think anyone would watch Walker: Wisconsin Ranger?! Not likely.

    Now, I know what you're going to say, but we can make our own damn cheese.

  • I also agree we all have other stuff to think about now (Transmeta is finally telling the world what they have under the covers, for one thing!), but thanks for opening this up.

    Not every stupid web page gets a million hits. >What does this show, except that people are as >silly as ever and still follow the herd, >wherever it leads?

    From what I have seen, this Web page was first and foremost a craze in Turkey before it spread out to the world. I can't be sure, I work and live in the States. But the type of guy portrayed in the Web page spoof (loser that can't get laid no matter what he does) is also a very funny thing in Turkey, and it is most likely that it's the same person who defaced Mahir's original site who started this. It just grew like wildfire after then. The fact that the English is extremely broken in a very hilarious way, and the desperate invitation to the opposite sex, which is a very foreign thing to Westerners because of the more relaxed, and natural state of male-female relationships there; made the page even funnier for people abroad, and hence we have Mahir even on Slashdot.

    Is the page funny enough to warrant even temporary interest of more than one million people? Probably not.

    I and many of my friends have been very angry at the guy who defaced Mahir's original page and started this stupidity. But I have been equally pleased that Mahir, no matter how stupid he may seem to you guys (because of a plea for sex he did not do in the first place), have given things a positive turn and changed the incredibly popular page to mention the tragedy in Chechnya at the bottom. It's a pity that his English is bad, and he can not convey his ideas properly. I hope his point gets taken, and everybody who hits Mahir's page in hope of seeing the hilarious, horny Turk reads the fine print and notices the word "Chechnya". Taking a hint from the effectiveness of air power over Kosovo, Russian forces are bombing the daylights out of innocent people there, just because the Chechens beat their miserable ground forces a couple of years ago.

    Kudos to real Mahir for at least making a fair effort to get the message across; and coping with the incredible insult to his personality caused by the defaced Web site. Had the same thing happened to an American, he would have contacted FPI to track down the guy, start a lawsuit against him, and filling up the page with banner ads to make a quick buck of the situation. Now I hope Mahir doesn't screw up, influenced by the hordes of people from all over the world reported to be contacting him with various schemes to profit off the incident.

    Just my 2 cents.
  • you forgot parsin... =)

  • Re:The Amusing Foreigner Concept (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's hardly a new concept to make fun of, or find amusing, others' differences. "Pollock jokes", nationality jokes...heck, any joke that finds unshared characteristics amusing is an example.

    Here's a couple, meant with no disrespect to the nationalities portrayed within...


    A British fellow was touring an orchard in America, and the tour guide was explaining what they did with all the fruit. "We eat what we can, and what we can't we can."

    The British fellow thought that this was just so amusing that he had to go and tell his friends about it first thing when he got home. "You see, they eat what they can," he told them, "and what they can't, they put up!"


    Q: If someone who speaks two languages is bilingual, and someone who speaks three languages is trilingual, what it someone who only speaks one language?
    A: American.


    A fellow in Arkansas was sitting on his porch one day when he noticed a hillbilly walking along with a herd of pigs. "Hey, stranger," he asked, "where you going with those hogs?"

    "Takin' 'em to market, up Springfield way."

    "Walking?"

    "Yup."

    "But...that'll take two weeks!"

    "Hell, stranger," the hillbilly said, "time don't mean nothin' to a hog."
  • My wife cooking so bad, ees TERREEBLE!
  • rofl...

    That [xoom.com] is one of the most wacked out things I've seen in ages. (I'll have to archive that when I get home.)
  • Yes that was genius. I though the site was OK not anything really funny. But that song made the funniest thing since sliced white bream
  • really? i always thought the baby came about *because* of Ally McBeal?!

    did it oogachaka in the .AVI?
  • I don't think it's scary at all. I think it's a good example of how the net is still at least a little wild and immature relative to the homogenized blob of other mass media. Sure it's cute and pathetic, but I think the popularity is deserved because of the way it speaks of naivete rather than being a polished attempt at exploitation. Regardless of the truthfulness of it, I'm still glad to see things like this be just as popular as (PORTAL SITE X), even if just for a couple of days.
  • aaah, you mean a skillful invitation from xoom to get their banner clicks through the roof? thats the first thing that came to my mind.
  • IMO, you can keep those toys (esp. Rocky Horror)...

    I thought you were gonna say something about the size of Texas with that "possession" bit. That reminds me of a Galleger(sp?) show from a stop in Texas where he had an air-horn (you know, from a semi) "'cause ever'thing in Texas is BIG."

    Walker: Wisconsin Ranger? Do they have Rangers in Wisconsin? Who are they supposed to be protecting us from, Canadians? (*grin* we let them in without a passport.) Of course, "we" watched Picket Fences.

    And Texas grows their own hamburger, what's your point?
  • "A Canadian is someone who hates being called a foreigner by Americans, and an American by foreigners." -- The Globe Challenge
  • Omigod, that's the funniest...

    mp3's from mp3.com:

    low-bandwidth stream [mp3.com]

    high bandwidth stream [mp3.com]

    download the whole wad [mp3.com]
  • Your threating us with Edie Brickell?

    Thats almost as bad as a Canadian threating to silence Celine Dion.

    You can keep all those sports teams too.

    I think we should spin off Texas and replace it with Guam...to keep the flag at 50 stars.


  • The Concept of Maganda (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Let me tell you that the page took the Turkish online community by storm more that the rest of the world. This really does not have to do with the amuzing foreigner concept, at least outside the US. It's a part of Turkish elite nastiness, if you want to know it. The kind of Turkish people that would have access to the web do have a slight mocking attitude and contempt towards simple, villager types from the East. There's even a term for it: maganda. Mahir would be typical. That's the sociological tidbit for today.
  • Reminds me of the Kurt Vonnegut "Wear Sunscreen" nonsense.

  • A girl (engineering student) put at what the time seemed innocent enough page about how her lovers did in bed. On the page she posted the name and gave them stars from 0 to ***** on their performance. This list was quite long, and included members of both sexes, both singles (?) and couples. In few weeks, this list had given her national fame, and in the end ended up in the printed version of one of the newspapers. Where it was actually readable. The poor girl received mail from countless horny males, and got flamed from few. Now, I suspected that this list was fake, and in the end, after she had been abused (not physically, btw) her phone and home address posted on irc and other places, she put up a page where the whole thing is explained. The list was mostly fake, with only few real names (lovers?) and only put there for humour, probably very local.
    I hope that she and the people who distributed the url (I'm guilty too) will learn from this and people should always think twice about what to put on the web, and those who distribute the rumours to really think if the 'owner' of the information would want to have gazillions of people to read it. (Of course if you don't want anybody to read don't put it on the web, in the first place!) ;)
    In short, please be nice! :)
    Just wanted to share this with you
    Jón R.
  • You have to be impressed with a guy that gets a /. article written about him.

  • I hate to piss on the party... (Score:3)

    by DoktorMel ( 35110 ) on Friday November 12, 1999 @09:15AM (#1538889)
    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.
  • ...id software. You might have heard of them. Games like Doom, Quake. Sometimes people play these games on "computers", over the "Internet", course, I'm from Texas so I'm obviously too stupid to comprehend anything outside the oil and cattle industry.

    Jealousy is a dangerous thing, just because your state didn't have the balls to be it's own Nation doesn't mean you have to whine about it. ;-)

    I think the San Antonio Spurs are a basketball team, they might have recently spanked some hoodlum coach-choking yankees recently for some type of world championship, but I've learned to be distrustful of the media...
  • I am not sure how much of this is a hoax, and how much is real... but how many of you read the supposed letter from Mahir?

    OK, so the first 3/4 is cute, and the amateur english from the website continues, but what the hell is all the PC (polically correct, not personal computer... geeks) crap!?

    It was obviously written by someone completely different than whomever wrote the first 3/4. It just did not fit in at all. The English and grammar are completely different.

    Just struck me as really odd.
  • dunno, if I should share this, but well, try not to LOL [xoom.com]
  • http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/63/mahir_cagri.htm l

    Check this out, it's his first hit single. This is really the icing on the cake for this phenomenon. I thought the rest of the stuff was slightly humorous, but this made me die laughing.

  • There you go, meckardt. I did my part and gave your site one hit!
  • I dunno, we thought it was funny. He listed his favorite things and included 'sex'. Not 'sex with beautiful, exotic women in romantic surroundings' but simply 'sex'. I guess that conjures up images of the various interpretations available. Plus the stuff about being a globe-trotting playboy in cheap Turkish suits seemed kinda funny. I guess I wasn't laughing so much at his ethnicity, as I was the improbability that some woman would see that page and contact him to go stay with him in Turkey.

  • Most of Europe hugs and kisses as a greeting. I was raised with this as a custom, and to this day (I'm 24) still kiss even my father hello and goodbye, and greet my friends and relatives with a hug.

    "Csokolom" (with umlauts on the o's) is a typical Hungarian greeting... meaning literally "I kiss you".

    I don't think this whole "uproar" has anything to do with *language* getting lost in the translation, but more with amerikans losing *culture* and *beauty* in the translation.

    Flame me if you wish, but I thank God I live in Canada, which is *so* much closer to Europe, and so much more *human* than you people could ever realize.

    Personally, this kind of "humour", as it was called, is on par with South Park: Disgusting and juvenile.

    mindslip
  • Here are a few lessons to learn from Mahir.
    1. Never put your personal phone number on your Web Page. I wouldn't even do it for on-line resumes. an email is fine.

    2. The same for home address. You might get some Slashdot type showing up at your door. ;)

    3. Mahir did a great job of tracking the culprit. Especially since he has little or no computer experience.
  • 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 don't know how it is in Turkey, but here in the US of A all of this publicity could be negative for a teachers career.

    "Mr. Smith's web page - I pictures take of locker room naked girls!"

    -
  • Aspera means "hard work"
  • 1970 (71?), Monty Python's Flying Circus. Hungarian Phrasebook sketch. "I will not buy this record, it is scratched." "No no, this is a tobacconists--" "Ahhh... I will not buy this *tobacconists*, IT is scratched".
  • To quote Hank Hill...
    "Why do you want to go to Dallas? There ain't nothing there but crackheads and debutantes. And that's just the football team!"

    :)

    Yeah, I'm from Wisconsin too. Pbpbpbbbttt.
  • My last comment got posted accidentally. Damn Netscape. Anyway, he DID kiss you. The only things he didn't say were "I like sex" and the thing about the nude models. Or such is my understanding.
  • guess what. id Software started in Madison Wisconsin. heheheh. we rule.


  • haha (Score:1)

    by supz ( 77173 )
    For being exploited beyond anyone's wildest dreams, this guy took the whole thing rather well. As a matter of fact, he even went and turned [xoom.com] it into a "Make the world a better place" thing.

    I can't get over how he didn't get pissed off over this, or at least he didn't mention it in the story [xoom.com]. And to further prove that this world has not yet turned into a pulsing blob of shit, alot of people sent pictures [xoom.com] to him, with various humorous messages like "WE LOVE MAHIR" or "WE KISS YOU TOO!".

    Nice little story that shows that one person can make a difference ;)

    -

  • A fellow in Arkansas was sitting on his porch one day when he noticed a hillbilly walking along with a herd of pigs. "Hey, stranger," he asked, "where you going with those hogs?"

    "Takin' 'em to market, up Springfield way."

    Thanks for the joke! I live in the Springfield in question (Missouri, just north of AR) and hadn't heard that yet. Thanks!

    P.S. No, I don't know if we're the Springfield from "The Simpsons".

  • Dunno if you've seen them all yet: The Original: http://members.xoom.com/_XOOM/primall/mahir/index. html The Tribute: http://216.169.122.124/rayn/turkstud.shtml Mahir-Mania: http://members.xoom.com/mahirdance/getdown.html
  • Perhaps you will have noticed this other URL [xoom.com]. I studied some Turkish some years ago, for a trip there, and while I can't read it, it does seem to me to be a close counterpart to the English version, and contains all of the same political and social commentary.

    I agree that there is a good deal of stylistic variation on the English version. There are also differences in transliteration of Turkish words (Türkiye comes out Turkey some places, Tirkiye, in other places), etc. The most likely explaination is tht Mr. Cagri wrote the text in Turkish, and several different people helped in the translation to English.

    The fact that there is a Turkish version which looks to be well composed, seems to be a good indication that this is not a hoax.

  • Let's try it with some formatting this time :)

    The Original: http://members.xoom.com/_XOOM/primall/mahir/index. html

    The Tribute: http://216.169.122.124/rayn/turkstud.shtml

    Mahir-Mania: http://members.xoom.com/mahirdance/getdown.html
  • I'm not sure about the roster, but I want you to point out to me how many people in the Spurs organization were born and raised in Texas vs how many were born and raised in some Yankee town.


    "It's Brazilian"
  • Texans really do have the stubbor pride that can only be rivaled by New York and New Jersey (nahhh...).

    I lived with a Texan for a couple years in college (in Michigan), and the nonstop argument he had with about the entire school population over "Who was a better running back?" Emmit Smight or Barry Sanders, drove me bonkers.

    Not sure how this became a Texas vs. Wisconsin thing... but I will say the beer (Macro AND Micro), is about 500 times better in Wisconsin.

    Lone Star: The National Beer of the Republic of Texas

    HA!
  • It doesn't get you a commendation from the Ministry of Education in Turkey either. I'm not sure if he's still a teacher, but he used to be one, at least.

    He won't probably need the teacher salary anymore; he's already a celebrity, and the Turkish TV channels and media are as idiotic as their counterparts everywhere(well, OK, probably not more than British tabloid press); therefore one TV channel or another will give him huge piles of cash to show up on TV. Ask any Turk you know if he/she knows who Reha Muhtar is.(He's roughly the equivalent of Jerry Springer, only purporting to be slightly more serious)
  • Sorry, the crack I was smoking there was a little potent on that inhale.

    Smith

  • *My* big question is this: Is there a "Mahir Cagri Ate My Balls" page yet? Please post the URL if anyone gets inspired.

    A "Mahir Dance" page (in the fine hamster tradition) might also be vaguely amusing.

    I kiss you!

  • I think they started the company to get enough money to leave! :)
  • As I read down the list, I see the JPV interview, and then Mahir the kissing Turk.

    I suggest the theme... "Idiots made famous for no good reason." or "Unqualified, Unloved, Unneeded." perhaps, "You defaced my website, and now I'm rich!"

    I think any of these would make a decent episode of Jerry Springer.

    ~Jason Maggard
    http://www.springerdot.org
    "14 minutes and counting..."
  • Texans drink sh*t beer (in Texas). I *loved* Lone Star in high school, but it does compare favorable,IMHO, to most schwag beers (MillCooBudLitDryIce).

    Course, now I live in Fort Collins, CO with one of the highest concentrations of mircobrews in the country. I'm within walkin' distance to more than 100 different beers X-).


  • With the text on his page as the lyrics. It can be found here: http://artists.mp3s.com/artists /63/mahir_cagri.html [mp3s.com]
  • lol yeah I agree with you. And it's not even like it's a good site, either. It's garbage. It looks like a 10 year old's first frames page or something. It's horrible.

    Doesn't anyone understand what in the world is going on? I mean, it's like someone just started spinning a globe, and stopped it with his finger, and that finger landed on TURKEY, of all countries!!!
    Yeah, that, and they chose someone's random web page (or at least attempted web page).

    I'm not seeing what draws 1million people to this page. It is because it's so bad, it's funny? Is it because, he kisses you?

    Are we all really that bored?

    Well, I know what I'm doing this weekend. No one steal my idea; I'm creating a web page with random pictures of some people I don't know and calling it, "What a nice ass you have!" Or something stupid and idiotic. And if my picture's not on the cover of Time by Sunday...

    miyax
  • I have absolutely no clue. I saw the page and was like, 'what the hell' and 5 seconds later was right-click->back'ng up.

    I think people are weird. guess theres no accouting for taste.

  • Yes. It's Friday. In Europe, everyone gets to go home at 2:30p. In the US, we stay at our desks & malinger instead.


    Geoff
  • I thought I'd just extend this idea a little.

    "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" did one of their "Talking to Americans" segments and Rick Mercer got a regular ol' Yank to say "Congratulations Canada on getting running water in all five states!" I laughed at that one for a while.

  • http://216.169.122.124/rayn/turkstud2.swf
    damn funny
  • John Carmack is from Kansas City...tarnation, I guess y'all had to import the talent to make that thar comp'ny.
  • Original (Fake) Mahir rocks. True Mahir rocks.

    Mahir made me laugh. Maybe I'm the ugly American - but Mahir "I like sex" made me laugh.

    The real Mahir is even cooler. Seriously - the mans' life was turned nuts (cup runneth over email accounts, phone ringing off the hook) - and what did he do? He put up a *new* page - explaining what happened.

    He also took his little moment in the spotlight to make me *think* about what's really important in the world. He urges me to become aware of what's happening in Chechnya and other suffering.

    An old teacher of mine would have said Mahir's a good egg.

    Seriously - how many of these ultra-forwarded sites (think dancing baby, hampsterdance) *do* anything with their instant noteriety -- other than try to hawk merchandise. Mahir's actually *doing* what Miss America's only talk about -- promoting world peace.

    Mahir - I KISS YOU!!!

    - Joe

  • Similarly, in Albuquerque, it's quite common to see a "Don't mess with Texas" bumper sticker altered to say "mess with Texas." New Mexico has lots of anti-Texan resentment. Although nobody's been able to explain it, here's a list of factors which definitely apply:

    • that damned annoying drawl
    • thinking they invented spicy food (the hottest tex-mex can't hold a candle to your average New Mexican cuisine, which is much closer to authentic Mexican - spicy and yet still tastes good, not just spicy for the machismo factor or for covering up bad cooking)
    • thinking that New Mexico is another country (come on! it's just one state over!)
    • that damned 'Don't mess with Texas' thing...
    A Nebraskan, a Texan, and a New Mexican find a lamp with a genie inside. In keeping with a polite manner, they decide to split the genie three ways, each getting one wish. The Nebraskan wished for his home state to always have rich and plentiful soil, and the Genie granted it. The Texan wished for his home state to be surrounded by a large impenetrable brick wall, so that nobody who hated the state could get in and soil it, and the Genie granted it. The New Mexican first asked some questions...

    "The wall is tall, yes?"

    "Taller than the tallest building in the state, master," replied the genie.

    "And nothing can get in or out?"

    "Nothing, master."

    "I wish for you to fill it with water."
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

  • I read his response.

    And he also mentions that he has multiple degrees from several colleges. Unless he is outright lying (why would he have reason to do that now?), he seems like a very intelligent guy. Americans sometimes fall into the trap of assuming that anybody who doesn't know English must be an idiot (hell, /Americans/ don't even know English, let alone a second or third language). I lived in Turkey quite a while, and I have to tell you Turkish people are the nicest people on earth. They, and many other people of foreign countries, are very hospitable and welcoming (as opposed to your typical American New Yorker or Texan).

    Turkey is a great country and has some really amazing archeological sites, and a great tourist industry.
  • "...as I was the improbability that some woman would see that page and contact him to go stay with him in Turkey."

    Well, actually many women from all over flooded him with requests.

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