Parodies are nothing new in the world of internet viral videos, with humorous skits like the Back Dormitory Boys’ “That Way” leading the movement of underground humor. This group of parody video makers, however, is not so underground anymore, as their particular viral videos have garnered major mainstream attention ranging from appearances on the Ellen DeGeneres show to major corporate sponsorships by mobile phone giant Motorola.
The boys behind the Back Dormitory Boys have more parody videos available online besides their runaway hit, “That Way.” Many were able to vote on requests for songs for the Back Dorm Boys to cover, giving the community a way to connect with the men behind the videos, who are simply art college graduates from China. These simple college graduates still have big plans up ahead, with a drama announced to be in the works on their official blog.
History of the Back Dormitory Boys
The Back Dorm Boys consist of a Chinese duo of students at the Guangzhou Arts Institute who graduated with a degree in sculpting in 2006. These two are Wei Wei and Huang Yixin, with an occasional appearances by Xiao Jing, a prominent background character who is constantly seen playing online games behind the two primary Back Dormitory Boys during their videos. Many do not know how to pronounce their real names, so Wei Wei can be seen as the larger one while Huang is the smaller of the duo.
The Back Dorm Boys go back to their days in art college, where they made their first ever comedy videos just to get a laugh out of their friends. After seeing a short lip syncing song online, they wanted to try jokingly lip syncing for an entire song, and created their first comedic video to share with everybody at their college. The Back Dormitory Boys eventually proved so popular with the students that they eventually started to spread the video outside the college, as the production values made possible by the facilities of their college made the video more presentable than other viral videos at the time.
In 2005, their lineup of lip sync parodies mostly consisted of songs by the Backstreet Boys, much like the inspiration for their group name. Aside from “That Way,” other songs such as “As Long As You Love Me” and “Larger Than Life” became subjects for the duo to parody, garnering them more internet fame and stardom on popular streaming sites like YouTube.
The lineup of lip sync parodies from the Back Dormitory Boys are not just limited to Backstreet Boys songs either, as in 2006, the Back Dorm Boys eventually branched out into songs from other artists such as Jessica Simpson and the Black Eyed Peas. The trio also parodied the radio rock hit “We Will Rock You” by Queen, where the video starts off with a puppet introduction, with the Back Dorm Boys lip doing their trademark lip syncing shortly after.
Popularity and Corporate Sponsorships
The Back Dormitory Boys gained much attention from regular internet browsers and large corporate entities alike, even when they were still sculpture majors at their Art College. The Back Dormitory Boys won a deal with Motorola as official spokespeople for the brand, and even got to become hosts for Motorola’s lip sync contest inspired in the same vein as the viral videos the Boys are so fond of making.
The Back Dormitory Boys also scored a deal with Chinese Internet Portal giant Sina.com, also winning the “Best Podcaster Award” from the same company. The Boys continue to to host their blog through this internet service provider, providing fans with the latest updates and developments within the group.
The Back Dorm Boys also won a 5 year contract with the Beijing based talent management company Taihe Rye, earning them even more in the way of production values and motivation to create more lip sync videos. Their studio was built with the help of this company, hastening the production time and increasing the quality of their viral videos tenfold in order to provide fans with better videos. The opening of their new studio was marked with the release of their lip sync video “The Perfect Day.”
A new studio also gave the Back Dorm Boys a chance to show off their natural singing talents not typically thought of people who usually perform lip sync videos; the Boys released their first original single titled “O Yi O Yi A” which had a professionally done music video to go along with the usual lip sync shenanigans which catapulted them into popularity in the first place.
The dynamic duo also made an appearance on the popular Chinese sitcom, Nonstop. This sitcom also happens to take place in a college dormitory, part of the namesake of the Back Dormitory Boys. This appearance has also led to talks of a full fledged drama starring the Boys, as first reported from their official blog.
As internet superstars, their exploits have also made them popular in other countries; the Back Dormitory Boys have also gained mainstream media coverage from popular western news outlets and talk shows such as on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
People in western countries have also found the Back Dorm Boys’ videos to be funny enough to be parodied even further, with some non Chinese speakers also trying to lip sync to the Chinese lyrics featured in Back Dorm videos. This goes to show that the Back Dorm Boys have come a long way from their original “That Way” video.
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The guy in the background is playing de_dust2 ftw!
you guys are a hella lot more entertaining than the backstreet boys ever were bravo you make me laugh can you do some taylor swift like that crappy song she does about being a jerk off to her dude or should i say x-dude give that one a try i think you could really go places lol keep on making folks laugh and smile the world needs more laughter great job you got my vote #1
Backstreet boys is a very popular band during my teenage years, they are great performers too.