Is David Hasselhoff your hero?

A few weeks ago (or maybe even a month ago now) I was watching another classic episode of Rove! One of the segments in his show is what you could almost call a ‘week in the headlines’ (can’t actually remember the name or if it has a name), where he and his little partner-in-crime Peter talk about recent phenomenon occurring out there in the world of the media. On this particular episode, they talked about the phenomenon that was ‘Hoffmail’: a series of emails being sent to people with super-imposed pictures of the 90’s Baywatch star David Hasselhoff. It was so random and weird, and in return made the masses laugh. Now ‘Hoffmail’ and ‘Hoff’ websites are everywhere, and they’re getting weirder and weirder by the minute.

I decided to take a look at ‘The Hoff’ (as most call him). I’ve never been sent Hoff mail before, as I don’t think it’s so big over here in New Zealand. So I toodled over to Google and typed in different words. David Hasselhoff brought up lots of sites dedicated to biographies and so on. One was called ‘The Official David Hasselhoff Site Of Worship’ www.knight-foundation.com (a site dedicated to his hair on both his head and chest…shudder…). Another was entitled ‘David Hasselhoff Is The Anti-Christ’ http://www.esquilax.com/baywatch/index/shtml (saying that David and television are the devil, and ‘he’s got the proof’ from jibberish such as the devils numbers and bible extracts). You can take these websites as either being dead serious by die-hard fans, or a mockery of ‘the man’ himself. You can’t help but laugh as you ‘gaze upon his beauty’, but some people actually love this stuff!. After having a great chuckle to myself, I typed in Hoff Mail, and the first website that came up on the search was www.binarymoon.co.uk/2005/07/david-hasselhoff-photos/. This site acts as a mini-blog forum where people visit the links provided and give their feedback on ‘The Hoff’ or provide links to other sites. One of the links is called ‘Help David Find His Nipples’ http://uhura.cc.rochester.edu/~jg001g/hassel.htm, where among several pictures of nipples, you have to find David’s. Click on the wrong one and you get abused to try again. Another link was called ‘David Hasselhoff photos @ flickr’ http://www-us.flickr.com/photos/tags/davidhasselhoff/, which has all the Hoff mail pictures such as ‘Desperate Hoffwives’, ‘Harry Hoffer’, and our very own ‘Helen. Hoff’. From these pictures are associated tags that link you to other Hoff sites, and you can even post comments on the pictures.

So what do I think of ‘Hoff’? A techno culture mix of technology, culture and nature? Very much so! Hoff, a 70’s, 80’s and 90’s superstar, has been morphed (with his many natural talents of courseJ) through the technology of computer and internet, and has been globally exposed/mocked/worshiped by millions. Whether or not Mr. Hoff himself agrees with what has happened, the power of new media has re-opened his profile (which can be either a gain or loss for him). I still find it funny how out of all the people in stardom land, they chose to use David Hasselhoff as a target for this phenomenon. Maybe it is because of his failed music career in Europe, or because he used to be a hot stud in his younger days, but now looks like a try-hard old man. It just goes to prove that technology is capable of anything. Beware of pictures you may have on the internet; who knows who can get their hands on them and what they’ll do with them.