We just covered the Makmende story and how it appears to be gaining such huge momentum on the social web. Many have asked the question, “Is Makmende Kenya’s first ‘viral’ sensation?” And no doubt about it, Just a band have done phenomenal job on the video, it is a work of real creativity and true talent.
However, is Makmende really viral, yet? Can we already say that it has achieved true viral status? Or is it a tad too early to label it ‘viral’?
Let’s look at the stats so far:
As at March 24th (the date of posting and 10 days after the initial posting of Makmende) these were the stats according to YouTube:
By some unconfirmed reports, the Makmende Facebook page went from 8,000 to 14,000 members over a day. As it stands, the page is currently at 18,192 fans and growing. And the comments on the fan age wall are amusing to say the least:
Makmende cn detect missiles!
Michael Jackson lied;Makmende is the only person who can talk to the man in the mirror,and that man answers him
Makmende is the one who played Mowgli in Jungle Book.
Guess who was knocking at the door of NOAH’s ARK just after 40 days n nights of heavy rainfall,it was this
Makmende of urs a.k.a makende.The only guy who can drink boiling chai str8t from the sufuria……
Makmende wrote the covenanant and apparently had it Written in manderin
Someone once proclaimed Makmende to be a work of fiction.His body has never been found.
makmende has bin 2 avater world n bck!Makmende for Prezzo
Makmende updated his computer virus with ARV’s
And the vybe on twitter is something else all together.
This is for certain – Makmende is definitely ‘viral’ from a ‘local’ perspective. Kenyan’s just can’t get enough of Makmende, their new super hero!
Just for fun, we took a look at other videos which went ‘viral’ and tried to comparing how Makmende is doing so far:
- Chat Roullette: 1.3 Million views in less than a week
- BMW stunt ad: 1M views in the first week
- Google Chrome Video: 250,000 views in 2 days!
- The Muppets Bohemian Rhapsody: 6 Million views in the first week!!!
Of course, it could legitimately be argued that these are massive brands, and a comparison with our relatively ‘small time’ band is absurd, and that would be totally right. But it just serves to show what ‘viral’ really means. This is the standard according to the rest of the world. In any case, as it stands the most watched video on YouTube is not by some huge brand – The Evolution of Dance video hit 30,000,000 views in four (4) months. Currently it has over 158,000,000 views
Apparently, in context, still far to go to be truly called viral. All the same, it’s a great step in doing such kind of production work for the internet and it definitely proves that content rules, and there are people out there who are hungry for relevant content from this side of the world. Kudos to Just a band! In fact we love Makmende so much, let’s watch that video again!
on a national level it is viral, the topic was the most treding for Kenya for like a full two days,
The guys who made it not only captured the imagination of the country, but like changed how social media works in the country.
now how do i copy this
Good analysis however the video that register a million hits are international, for you to get this Makmende craze you have to have been a Kenyan kid in primary school in the late 1980s to the early to mid 1990s. You thus have to excuse us not getting the video to the insane figure numbers.