Ping pong
I was thinking about the evolution of blogging, Web 2.0, and all its ramifications approaches to self-presentation and representation online - from effusive, barely literate teenage gurglings, like those at MySpace, to more sober, considered outpourings such as you find here at Relocution 
- and, suddenly, I remembered him: the Turkish Guy. We all had a good laugh at the time (1999), but I don’t remember making the connection with Borat. Well, the suit’s a different colour! Now, of course, it seems obvious: even down to the ping pong.
The legend of Mahir continues at ikissyou.org/ (currently looking pretty much as it did when he started). Borat has taken the basic idea to new technical heights at Myspace, with extensive use of YouTube. But who came first? Borat, or Mahir? Mahir, or Borat? (Now I’m starting to sound like our other Millenial TV favourite, Banzai!)
Is there any great point in the neverending quest for didfirstery? In a globally connected world - one that is, moreover, increasingly, cumulatively and automatically archived - we may have to rethink ideas about originality, across space and time. How many great achievements, starting with fire, were legitimately invented or discovered independently in different parts of the globe, in different epochs. Some even died out and were revived (like glass-making in Britain in the Dark Ages).
How different would it have been, if The Blog of Prometheus, or www.rome.it/careers/glassmaking, had survived? But does it really matter - morally, at least, whether Leibniz or Newton invented calculus? “Multiple connections and successful response status codes are what matter now,” says Billy The Cyborg, and I think he’s probably onto something.
As usual, Wikipedia takes the fun out of everything (in fact, Wikipedia’s not much fun all round), so you might as well go there for the full story, including a convincing account of the chronology of the Mahir vs Borat controversy. Then go and watch the Borat trailers at Apple. Nice!