making videos to show to their friends. They took their inspiration from a funny 10-second lip sync video that they watched, creating a video of themselves lip-syncing to an entire song. They completed their first video in March 2005, after much trial and error, uploading the finished video to the local network at their college. The other students liked it so much that they helped to spread the video more widely. While still at school, the Back Dorm Boys were signed as spokespeople for Motorola cellphones in China and eventually become host of Motorola's online lip-sync contests. They also signed a contract with Sina.com, one of the largest Chinese Internet portals as bloggers and podcasters. The Back Dorm Boys maintain a Chinese-language blog through Sina.com. In 2006, they received "The Best Podcaster Award" from Sina.com. In February 2006, a few months before they graduated, the Back Dorm Boys signed a five-year contract with Taihe Rye Music, a talent management company in Beijing, to continue making lip-sync videos as well as to appear in commercials for major brands such as Pepsi. They went to Beijing to build their own Studio Video and Multimedia Arts. They also began studying singing, dancing, and stage arts with Taihe Rye. The Back Dorm Boys filmed a lip-sync video, "The Perfect Day", as a pilot project for their new studio. They also released their first original single, "O Yi O Yi A". This single was accompanied by both a professional music video and a lip sync version showing the Back Dorm Boys giving their own song their usual treatment. They are also known for making their own film in their new studio, directed by Huang Dao, in late 2006. The group has known to have made use of their art school education to help them prepare the composition, visual effects, and lighting in their videos. The Back Dorm Boys phenomenon has resulted in an Internet meme and spawned a variety of parodies and imitations, including attempts by non-speakers to lip-sync to Chinese lyrics of songs used in their videos. The Back Dorm Boys received mainstream media attention in the United States through The Ellen DeGeneres Show. The group released their last album together in 2010 before breaking up a year later due to their expiration of a 5 year record deal with Taihe Rye Music. Since then, Huang has continued his solo career and eventually making