Tassie YouTube star calls it quits
Louisa Hearn SMH
August 28, 2006
"Emmalina, an 18-year-old YouTube hit from Tassie, has bowed out of internet stardom
for good after her computer was hacked and her privacy invaded, sparking fears
for her own safety.
The chatty video blog entries recorded from her bedroom first began to appear
in the "most viewed" rankings on the popular YouTube video in June and some
of her more controversial posts attracted more than 300,000 views. She even
has her own Wikipedia entry.
Emmalina's video blog, however, came to an abrupt end earlier this month when
she stripped her profile and all of her video content from YouTube. The explanation
for this, written on YouTubetalk, was that someone had hacked into her computer
and obtained recent pictures and videos from it that had never been posted online
as well as "incredibly private files".
Although she operated under a pseudonym, another determined follower had
uncovered her personal details and circulated them online.
Emmalina declined to be interviewed by us this week because she said things
had already got way out of control.
"People forget that I'm a real, normal young girl with a life, feelings and a right
to privacy," she said.
Her spectacular rise to internet fame gave rise to a multitude of YouTube
dedications, spin-offs and spoofs, as well as a rap song dedicated to her popularity.
But, as many new-found celebrities discover, along with the adoring fans came
the critics and the creeps - a fact that Emmalina admitted to us, in an interview in
June, that she was struggling to accept.
She said at the time: "When you put something on the internet, it's there for
everyone to see. But the nasty comments are pretty discouraging and you do
get a lot of them."
Max Markson, managing director of celebrity agency, Markson Sparks, warned
that the openness of the internet represented a double edged sword for those
seeking notoriety.
"If you put yourself out there on YouTube or MySpace you are moving into
open area and giving your privacy away. If all of a sudden fame comes upon you,
all the negatives as well as the positives come with it," he said.
Part of Emmalina's appeal was her lack of pretension and the witty, self
deprecating captions that she dotted throughout her video blog. Although
her focus was on everyday and sometimes mundane topics ranging from
her pet guinea pigs to her interest in yoga, her occasional raunchy dance
routines often ranked highly among viewer ratings and attracted a lot of
public commentary.
In some of her most highly viewed posts, she boldly took some of her
critics to task, chiding the email responses to her videos from those she
described as "haters" and chastising the "creepy old men" who posted l
ewd messages on her own and other YouTube videos featuring young
women.
However things eventually became too much for Emmalina and she
claims there was no choice but to leave YouTube once her personal
privacy and security had been breached.
"Every day I logged in and discovered more and more cruel spoofs,
harassing videos, death and rape threats, incredibly nasty comments
and God knows what else. I can't take it anymore. YouTube 'popularity'
is hell unless you're a f---ing saint with nothing to hide, or you have
indestructible confidence," she wrote in her last post on YouTubetalk."
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