Video dance invite gets media attention and lots of YouTube hits
Lina Yeh’s motto is “go big, or go home.” So, when it came time to find a date for the senior dance she decided to ask none other than famed Knicks guard Jeremy Lin.
You can’t ask out a 6-foot-three-inch mega-celebrity any old way, so the William & Mary senior came up with a creative approach – a YouTube video.
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The video went viral and has received lots of media attention, including CNN, the Washington Post, Sports Illustrated (SI.com) and the Huffington Post.
One blogger liked the video enough that he encouraged the basketball star to respond. “Lin should at least give this girl a phone call,” he wrote.
The project was an ambitious idea for a finance major that had never filmed, yet alone edited, a video.
“It was a little bit of a crazy idea,” Yeh said. “And time-consuming.”
The project took nearly two weeks to complete, consuming every waking hour of her free time, she said.
But, Yeh added she got a lot of support from across campus. There was production help from the Swem Media Center, including Hadrian Pollard '12 who volunteered his time to help with filming and countless willing “actors.” Participants included professors, friends, local restaurateurs, W&M basketball standout Emily Correal '13 and even William & Mary President Taylor Reveley.
Overall, Yeh said reaction to the video has been positive. If YouTube hits are a measure, her first production has actually been a smash. As of press time, the video had received more than 140,000 hits.
Despite the media pressure, Lin hadn’t yet responded to what one media outlet dubbed the “Linvitiation.” And while the senior dance isn’t for another few weeks, the clock is ticking.
Still, Yeh isn’t daunted.
“I really did it just for fun,” she said. “It would be nice if Lin came to the dance, but I really just wanted to do something that William & Mary students would enjoy. I wanted to make people laugh.”
