Media Room

KLue September 08 Issue | 12 September 2008

MALAYSIAN DREAMGIRL
JARED SOLOMON, 30

by: Lim Su Ann

In January this year, I was approached to be an official blogger for Malaysian Dreamgirl. That’s how I met Jerad Solomon, CEO of Capxion Media and creator/producer of what would later become Malaysia’s first online model search reality show, and throughout the meeting, I kept wishing I’d thought of the idea first.

Malaysian Dreamgirl is an 18-episode reality show that pits 12 aspiring models against each other on an SMS vote-based system, ultimately crowning one girl with the title of ‘Malaysian Dreamgirl’. Think Top Model meets Akademi Fantasia.

Now, the reality TV formula of trapping beautiful model wannabes in a house to claw at each other for our viewing pleasure is tried-and-true, but the idea of airing such a show online is ingenious. Why so: Malaysian Dreamgirl is entirely broadcasted online, capturing the interest of the Youtubing generation that has abandoned the television and also shrewdly skipping past censorship laws. Putting the show online also means leveraging on the influence of the blogging community, and no one has done that better than Jerad Solomon. First, he engaged Malaysia’s biggest lifestyle blogger, Kenny Sia, as one of the judges on the panel. Then he got one of the top female bloggers in the country to be a contestant, and she later emerged to be one of the most controversial figures in the show. On top of that, he got three other high-traffic bloggers to report on the show extensively as ‘official bloggers’, in the hopes that all these factors combined would result in a big bang of wagging tongues amidst the blogosphere. And did it ever!

Engaging an entire throng of opinionated and controversy-loving bloggers was the best thing MDG ever did for publicity – every blogger wanted to be seen talking about the show. Everyone wanted a piece of the MDG pie and that gave birth to a glorious frenzy of dual-prong entertainment - on one hand, vicious contestant backstabbing as the ladies competed their way to model supremacy; on the other, relentless scathing analyses by bloggers eager to outdo each other by means of most controversial opinion of the show.

The show’s first season drew to a dramatic finish when the seemingly least-liked contestant was crowned the winner, spurring another several weeks of commentary from the blogosphere. Few local reality shows have been as widely talked about as Malaysian Dreamgirl, both online and offline, and you can bet that when Season 2 of the show rolls around, it’s going to be like Christmas time for the blogosphere once again.

Su Ann has been blogging for 6 years, and will continue to do so for a long time more because she’s too lazy for pen and paper. She is scared of Apple evangelists and has plans to open an ice cream parlour upon graduation. She blogs at www.quaintly.net.