The world’s first internet phenomenon: Internet Who is Mahir?

With the introduction of social media platforms into our lives, there has been a serious identity change in the internet world. Especially recently, thousands of local and foreign people who have achieved a certain reputation in applications such as Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, called social media or internet phenomenon, have emerged.

While these people usually announce their names to large audiences through a certain social media platform, there are also people who have somehow reached great fame in the internet world in the times when such applications were not yet read in history. In fact, there is such a person whose reputation exceeded the borders of our country and left its mark on the 2000s. Here is the extraordinary life of the world’s first phenomenon Internet Mahir….

Who is Internet Mahir?

Being an internet phenomenon is not as easy as we think. In fact, it was almost impossible in the 90s, when the internet was just beginning to be used, there were no social media applications and there were a limited number of websites. However, a man named Mahir Çağrı, who lives in İzmir, succeeded to sit on the world’s agenda by achieving the impossible with his personal website ”ikissyou.org” that he opened in 1999.

Actually, the website didn’t have much of a feature. Since there was no such thing as an internet phenomenon at that time, this was also very normal. Welcoming the visitors with the slogan “I kiss you all” on the website he opened, Mahir Çağrı introduced himself in his humble English and shared certain sections from his daily life. Mahir Çağrı, who introduces himself as a journalist, music and physical education teacher and a person with a doctorate in psychology on his website, also loved playing table tennis.

This concept, adopted by Mahir Çağrı, has attracted a lot of attention all over the world, including our country, as it has never been tried before. However, the reactions to him in our country were not very positive at first.

The life of Mahir Çağrı, who did not listen to the criticism, started to change completely after a short time. Because 50 thousand people visit his website daily. At the same time, the total number of visitors to the site had exceeded 3 million in a few months. This data was so high compared to that period that Mahir Çağrı managed to enter the Guinness Book of World Records as the most visited person on the website in 2001.

He was named the 100th most recognized person in the world by Forbes in 2000.

Mahir Çağrı, whose reputation exceeds the borders of our country, introduced the concept of internet phenomenon to the whole world and received the nickname Internet Mahir from his fans. Internet Mahir’s fame had spread so much that fan clubs were opened in his name, causing a stampede wherever he went, regardless of country.

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Thereupon, the US Forbes magazine included Internet Mahir in the last place in the list of the world’s 100 most famous names in 2000. In addition, Mahir’s website ranked third in the list of the internet’s 100 most important events on Yahoo’s 10th anniversary.

Internet One of the interesting aspects of Mahir was that he stayed at the house of his fans when he went abroad. Mahir, who gave interviews to dozens of media organizations especially in the USA and participated in famous programs such as Talk Show, always stayed at his fans’ homes during these periods.

Internet Mahir also had many famous fans

Many celebrities, from world-famous musicians to movie stars, were big fans of Internet Mahir. At the beginning of these celebrities was undoubtedly David Bowie, who died in 2016. Bowie liked Internet Mahir so much that he used to take pictures of Mahir out of his pocket and imitate him on television shows he attended. In addition, many celebrities such as Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan were among Mahir’s fans.

The Guardian claimed that Borat movie was inspired by Internet Mahir

The movie Borat, starring famous actors such as Sacha Baron Cohen and Pamela Anderson, was inspired by Internet Mahir, according to The Guardian. In fact, the fact that the character of Borat Sagdiyev, played by Sacha Baron Cohen, had bad English, wore a suit and played table tennis, strengthened these claims.

Thereupon, Internet Mahir announced that he would file a lawsuit against the production team for imitating him without his permission, and later somehow abandoned this decision.

However, over the years, the use of the internet has become more widespread and social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have entered our lives. Thereupon, Mahir Çağrı, who announced the internet phenomenon and social network concepts to the world for the first time, started to move away from his former glorious life.

Especially a large part of the new generation does not know Internet Mahir, who is described as the father of internet phenomena. Mahir states that even when he was world-famous, he could not get the support he wanted from his country and that he was the father of social media platforms. At the same time, Mahir, who stated that he had the potential to establish Facebook and Twitter if the necessary support was given to him, lives a somewhat more modest life today.

Internet to Mahir’s first website from here You can go.