New Numa?

I am constantly fascinated by odd cultural phenomena that could only happen on the internet. One of those is the Numa Numa Guy (Gary Brolsma). Is there any way that a kid with a camera and a habit of videoing himself lip-sync'ing could become world famous without the internet? I don't think so. Millions of people know who this guy is.

Gary's rise and fall are chronicled elsewhere on the net. Wikipedia's a good place to start. It's probably hard to deal with the fact that you're relatively famous in a way that you can't really make any money from.

Did anyone else know that Gary's back?

Looks like someone's figured out a way to make money on this after all. There's a New Numa site with a New Numa song and video. I'm wondering why there's no mention in the site anywhere of the original video and music. Maybe a rights issue with the label that put the song out? It looks like Dan Balan was at least a little bit involved in what's going on this time so maybe the New Numa song was made especially for Gary and the New Numa site.

It looks like it's pretty well sponsored. There's some merchandising (headphones, ringtones, shirts and mugs). There's also a contest with $45k in prizes.

I think it'll be interesting to see what happens to the Numa Numa guy in round 2. Here's the new video:

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