About

eHarmony Video Bio is a YouTube video featuring a woman who calls herself "Debbie" professing her extreme love for cats in what is supposedly a video profile for the dating site eHarmony.

Origin

The video titled "eHarmony Video Bio^[9]" was uploaded by YouTuber hartmanncara on June 3rd, 2011. In it, a young, timid woman "Debbie" begins her monologue explaining that it is her first attempt at creating an online dating profile video. Less than a full minute into the video, "Debbie" suddenly hits a wall of emotions and becomes teary-eyed, professing how much she loves cats. By December 2011, the video has accrued over 18 million views.

Transcript

Helloooo, my name is Debbie, um, this is my first attempt at an eHarmony video. This is my first attempt at online dating. I'm nervous but I'm excited at the same time, um, so I'm just going to start talking about what I like and hope I get some replies!

So I'm a recent, um, MBA grad from Villanova um, I. love. cats. um, I just (fans self) ..Sorry I'm getting emotiona;. I love cats, I love every kind of cat (fans herself) …Sorry, I just, I REALLY LOVE CATS. I just want to hug all of them but I can't 'cause that's crazy. I can't hug every cat. I just want to, I want to, I want to sigh I'm sorry, I just, I get, anytime I hear cat, I just, I love cats um, WHOO! Promised myself I wouldn't cry, um, so anyway, I AM A CAT LOVER. Um, and I, love to run tears up, pauses um, I'm sorry, I'm thinking about cats again cries I just, I think about how many don't have a home and how I should have them and how cute they are and their ears and the whiskers and the nose. I just love them and I want them and I want them in a basket and with little bow ties I want them to be on a rainbow and in my bed and I just want a house, full of them and I just want us to roll around. I can't, I can't

Spread

The video was shared on The Daily What^[1], College Humor^[2] and CBS News^[3] on June 9th, 2011. The next day, an article was published on The Huffington Post^[4] titled "eHarmony Cat Lover Video Bio Beyond Ridiculous," calling out the video as a probable troll. Over the course of the following weeks, the video's validity was brought up as an issue on Mashable^[10], Best Week Ever^[11] and the UK Daily Mail.^[12] eHarmony even made a response video^[13] of their own.

Authenticity

A debate over the authenticity of the video took place in the YouTube comments with many users asserting the video is "obviously fake." In July, the woman in the video identified herself as actress Cara Hartmann, who has since launched a website^[5], Tumblr^[6] page, Twitter^[7] account and has a Facebook^[8] fan page with over 7000 likes as of December 2011.

She uploaded another video to her YouTube account titled "OMG!!1 sooo many views!" on June 15th, 2011. The video starts with a shot of a laptop playing the original eHarmony bio video before she enters the frame to answer a cellphone and says "Hello? Oh hi, Hollywood."

Cara has since several other videos for her YouTube channel, in which she portrays different characters. These videos are confirmation that the eHarmony bio was also scripted.

Gregory Brothers Songify

On July 7th, 2011, the Gregory Brothers uploaded an auto-tune remix to their "schmoyoho" YouTube account. The video has received over 12 million views as of December 2011.

Notable Derivatives

Search Interest

External References