Stephen Fry promotes 'Jersey Shore' parody, viewing figures spike: viral video spotlight
A video featuring stars from the Broadway production The Importance of Being Earnest playing characters from US TV show Jersey Shore has gone viral, thanks to a mention by British actor, author and journalist Stephen Fry, among others.
The video shows two actors currently starring in the production of the Oscar Wilde play acting out lines from Jersey Shore.
Jersey Shore is a reality TV show now in its third series which follows the lives of eight Italian-American housemates who spend the summer together at the Jersey shore.
The attraction of the YouTube video is in the repetition of phrases from the show, such as "There's no way I'm going to Jersey without my hair gel" in an upper class turn-of-the-century British accent.
The video, titled "Jersey Shore" Gone Wilde, Part 1," was uploaded to YouTube on April 22. YouTube figures remained low, around 25,000, until April 27, when they leaped to over 100,000. As of 1pm GMT April 27 total YouTube views for the video are 118,388.
The video's dramatic increase in popularity can most likely be attributed to the video being featured on popular technology and social media blog Mashable and then later picked up by Stephen Fry.
The well respected British actor, playwright and author with more than two million Twitter followers tweeted on April 27 "Gracious! Oscar Wilde Meets Jersey Shore" with a link to the video.
The mention by Stephen Fry has led YouTube users to begin indicating whether they had been directed to the video via Stephen Fry's Twitter account with the use of the "thumbs up" or "like" button.
The video, uploaded by theater magazine Playbill, is described as "Part 1 in a multi-part series," and five videos in all have been posted to the site.
"'Jersey Shore' Gone Wilde, Part 1" can be watched at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhk5Rjz7xk0
