Mahir Çağrı (, born 1962) is a Turkish individual who became an Internet celebrity in 1999. His picture-laden personal homepage, which exclaimed, in broken English, his love of the accordion, travel, and women, was visited by millions and spawned numerous fansites and parodies, one of which was featured on Fox's MadTV (season 5, episode 20). He was also repeatedly parodied in 1999 on episodes of the Late Show with David Letterman, wearing red Speedos and playing ping-pong. Çağrı was ranked #2 in CNET's Top 10 Web fads. The site was also included in PC World's "The 25 Worst Web Sites" list. Çağrı claimed in various interviews that his personal webpage was hacked, with additions such as "I like sex" embedded into his webpage. The site was originally hosted on the now defunct XOOM web hosting service which advertised Çağrı on its front page during the mania. Çağrı was used in British TV advertising for smartgroups.com by St. Luke's advertising agency. Similarities to Borat Çağrı has stated that Sacha Baron Cohen's character Borat was based on him, and is therefore owed some sort of royalties for use of his likeness. However, Cohen had been developing a similar character since 1996 on the show F2F, before the Mahir webpage was published. See also Internet celebrity Internet meme List of Internet phenomena References External links I Kiss You at web.archive.org News Mahir to Borat: I Sue You! - Wired Magazine, 14.11 The Story Behind The “I Kiss You” Home Page And How It Made Mahir Cagri The World’s First Internet Celebrity - MethodShop Evidence for a Mahir vs. Borat Lawsuit - Electronic News Network Will the real Borat please stand up? - Reuters January 19, 2007 "Real Borat" hopes to make film - BBC November 9, 2006 İnternet Mahir BBC'de: Ben de kendi filmimi yapmak istiyorum 1962 births Internet memes introduced in the 1990s Living people People from İzmir Turkish Internet celebrities