Who is Mahir Cagri?


If you don't know who Mahir Cagri is by now, then you might as well stay in your cave. For Mahir Cagri is the latest internet craze; not an annoying chain email, not a tiresome animation, but an accordion-playing Turkish goofball in speedos.


The story begins with Mahir Cagrii, a resident of Izmir Turkey, who one year ago got a friend to design a personal home page for him. The home page greeted visitors with "Welcome to my home page !!!!!!!!! I Kiss you !!!!!" and presented photographs of Mahir (playing the accordion, table tennis, lying on the beach) accompanied by a brief biography and invitation ("Who is want to come TURKEY I can invitate ... She can stay my home ..."). The original web site is reproduced here.


Naturally the URL for Mahir's home page started being passed around by email, suspiciously starting at the World Bank and IMF. At the beginning of November there were 11,000 hits; less than two weeks later that number had increased to
over 1.2 million, with contact email and telephone numbers being continuously jammed. The story created such interest that Mahir was featured on the front page of a Turkish newspaper, and advertisers were trying to contact Mahir for banner ads on his site.


According to Mahir himself, he is not responsible. A "friend" supposedly moved the home page to its current address, and also added the amusing comments ("I like sex"). This is all explained on Mahir's new page.


However this was not before the internet community (ie, people with too much time on their hands) got hold of the site, which has now been mirrored and parodied all over the web. Some of the best include:

• MahirCentral, for all your Mahir needs


• MahirActive, where you can help Mahir kill his evil accordion-playing clone


• Mahir Gets Funky, with the original Mahir dance


• TurkishStud, the Mahir page with a euro-disco beat


• The mandatory Bill Clinton parody