If truth be told, we really do miss news from home when we’re away, and tend to feed off an assortment of news sites at various intervals when on foreign soils (which has been all too frequently lately…). We caught the 9 bells Nuacht on RTE on Friday, and we were captivated with the story of Sophie Merry, a young Dublin woman, who has recently become the face of the Etam global jeans campaign.

The news feature showed how Sophie (aka Bandytoaster on Youtube) became an overnight Cinderella sensation after posting a video of her rocking it out in her mate’s garden, on the popular video blogging site.

A communications agency in Paris, home to the Etam label, spotted the video online and was immediately captivated by the image of Sophie dancing to Daft Punk’s ‘Harder Better Faster Stronger’. Sophie didn’t know it at the time, but she was to become the fulcrum around which a massive viral marketing campaign for Etam jeans was to be launched. Immediately after seeing the video, the firm sought her out to pilot the promotion of the label, and she jumped on board.

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The project became a performance in real time; she became both the subject of the adverts in her dancing, and also the face of all the photography. Thus although Sophie designed the fairy tale through the video, she was also designed by it, in becoming a model in true overnight sensation - all from posting a 3’42” video on YouTube…

An extraordinary story about a very ordinary girl. She has a plethora of offers following her work with Etam, no doubt they will involved both dancing and modelling. Turns out our friend Carla knows her… small world much? Swings and roundabouts folks…