Yahoo! announced the winner of their first-ever Talent Show contest last week: comedic music video maker Rex Hermogino.
The Yahoo! Talent Show is a contest that is new to the site, and searches for the hottest original talent on the Internet. Judges of the show said they found what they were looking for in San Diego resident Rex Hermogino’s singing, songwriting and video making talents.
Controversial funny man and judge Tom Green said “All five of our finalists were very talented individuals, but Rex just had a particular presence and ability to capture the audience that could easily translate into an ongoing show on Yahoo!.”
Hermogino, who had been writing music in his native Guam since middle school, faced stiff competition from the other four finalists, including Stanley Sowa, Jr. of Chicago, Ben Grinnell of West Hollywood, Calif., Justine Ezarik of Pittsburgh, Pa., and Renzhe Parkour of Orlando, Fla.
But ultimately it was the graphic designer’s love-seeking themed online music videos that helped to secure Hermogino’s place in online history. The most popular of the videos, “Love on the Internet,” spread virally and was viewed over 100,000 times.
Hermogino maintained the dorky love theme throughout the rest of the competition with videos including interviews on the streets of New York City inquiring as to what people’s favorite pick-up lines were.
The daily Yahoo! Talent Show was viewed by over 4 million people, and users submitted over 500, 000 videos. Users provided over 200, 000 ratings for the videos and narrowed the field to five finalists who competed in three online video challenges.
Judge Tom Green reflected on the importance of the voters, saying, “The viewing and voting public really helped us narrow the field, so hats off to them. Nice job, people.”
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Autmn Davis is a staff writer for Murdok covering ebusiness and technology.
