About

Cameo is an app in which people can purchase personalized messages from celebrities, who record video of themselves saying the messages. The app features many celebrities from the comedy, sports, and music worlds and began going viral in 2019 after a prank video in which Sugar Ray singer Mark McGrath breaks up with someone on behalf of someone else went viral.

History

Cameo was founded on March 15th, 2017 by Steven Galanis, Martin Blencowe and Devon Spinnler Townsend.^[1] The app was covered by the New York Times in August of 2018,^[2] who called it the "Being John Malkovich of apps." In its first year, the app secured such internet celebrities as Logan Paul and Shane Dawson, as well as more traditional celebrities including Harry Styles. Celebrities are open to reject requests if they don't wish to say them for whatever reason.

Notable Accounts

The app features several accounts of people who grew popular via memes, such as Rebecca Black,^[10] Jonathan Goldsmith (aka The Most Interesting Man In The World] and Chris Hansen.^[12]

Online Presence

The app has 10,000 likes on Facebook,^[3] 14,000 Twitter followers,^[4] and 95,000 Instagram followers.^[5]

Mark McGrath Video

On November 16th, 2019, Twitter user @SeanAppalled hired Sugar Ray singer Mark McGrath to read a breakup message from a person named Cheyenne to a person named Braydyn (shown below).

The video went viral a week later when it was reposted on November 24th by user @slasherdaysaint, who gained over 6,800 retweets and 36,000 likes.^[6] The video was a prank which McGrath was in on. He tweeted, "I just decided to roll with what I thought was a pretty obvious joke!"^[7] @SeanAppalled also got Anthony Scaramucci to record another video in the narrative (shown below). The video was covered by New York Post^[8] and Rolling Stone.^[9]

Search Interest

External References