Daler Mehndi’s 1998 music video, in which the singer performs with 4 “clones” of himself. “Mehndi claims his music was often criticized for only being popular due to the abundance of beautiful, dancing women in his videos The singer responded by creating a video that featured nobody but himself.” Apparently he wasn’t wrong and the song went on to become the “biggest indi-pop hit at the time”.
The video caught the attention of the wider internet around 2006. The catchy song, dated visual effects, and absurdity of the “clones” fueled its spread.
On a less fun note: in 2018 the singer and his brother Shamsar were convicted of human trafficking, accused of “cheating people of large sums of money by falsely promising to take them to America” and “illegally sending people abroad as a part of their dance troupes.”
They remastered the video a few years back
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=viMEhOWcxd0
Did they remaster the human trafficking!? That seems like the bigger story…
I can’t quite tell what that means from the wiki article-- sounds like he may have been getting people into the US bc they couldn’t get visas to go. I have a much different reaction to that than I would if the trafficking involved the other reasons people usually traffick.