Vocabulary vixen HotForWords addresses 'hot girl' image

Through the unpredictable vicissitudes of online media, Marina Orlova has managed to remain popular and — even more importantly — relevant as Internet users' attentions spans dwindle. As an unchallenged mainstay of the viral video era, there is little left to accomplish for the giddily intelligent Russian etymologist. Her YouTube channel, HotForWords, has garnered more than 207 million viewers and attention from countless digital aficionados all contemplating the same question: in the realm of infotainment, is Orlova a smart teacher with a seductive strategy or a seductive teacher with a smart strategy? The conundrum may be open for debate, but HotForWords, a moniker derived from Van Halen's infectious single, already knows the answer: She's a little bit of both.

Patrick Svitek: Your videos employ the concept that “Intelligence is Sexy.” Wired Magazine crowned you the “World’s #1 Sexiest Geek.” Cosmopolitan Magazine deemed you a “YouTube guru.” In the gamut of roles you have willingly (or even unwillingly) undertaken — provocative video vixen, web-savvy marketing maestro, sagacious intellectual — which one do you believe has been the most vital to your success?

Marina Orlova: I believe all of the roles have played an important part in my success. When I first looked at YouTube two and a half years ago, I saw a lot of cute girls dancing around and these videos were very popular, but I noticed that there was nothing differentiating one girl from the next. I also noticed that the intellectual videos that I found interesting got no views! That’s when I had my epiphany… use the hot girl image, but use it to sell learning! In homage to Van Halen’s “Hot For Teacher” video, I called my channel HotForWords and took on the hot teacher role. I knew that I paid more attention to my good looking teachers in school… perhaps it would translate to the net as well!

But, just being a “hot girl” on the net is not enough to truly succeed. The resulting content has to be interesting as well to keep the audience coming back. So I spend five to eight hours on each two-minute video: researching, writing the script, shooting the video, editing and finally uploading it. Then I spend the remaining hours of my day interacting with my audience, responding to comments, et cetera.

Even though my videos get between 500,000 to a million views a day, I try my best to interact with my audience as much as I can. That’s why I built my website, HotForWords.com, so the dedicated fans can come there and interact with me on a more personal level that they can’t do on YouTube.

My tagline “Intelligence is Sexy” came about when I noticed that dumb was starting to be considered hot in women — with not very smart girls becoming role models. I decided to fight that and show that being smart is actually hotter and sexier than being dumb! And I get thanks daily by women thanking me for showing that it’s cool to be smart [and] that they don’t have to play dumb anymore!

PS: In this age of 140-character microblogging and proliferating mobile convenience, what do you believe is the most effective way to capture Internet users’ attention spans?

MO: Be short and succinct — to the point! I think Twitter is one of the most ingenious inventions of all time... not because it allows people to tweet about what they are eating for breakfast, but because of it’s 140-character limitation! I love the fact that it forces you to sum up an idea in so few characters! It really helps people express themselves better than through the usual verbal diarrhea that we are so often exposed to!

In one of my lessons I talked about the 140-character limitation and why it came about. It’s related to SMS texts only being 160 characters and that limitation came about when a German researcher analyzed postcards that people were sending to others via postal mail. He discovered that the average postcard was only 150 characters! That’s it! And that meant that most ideas could be summarized in 150 characters or less! 160 characters was chosen as a limit for SMS texts as a result of that study.

Twitter went for 140 as they needed about 20 characters for the Twitter name. But I truly love that limitation as it forces people to be concise with what they are trying to convey; that lesson should teach people that in order to capture people’s attention on the Internet, [they should] keep it short and to the point!

They talk about people having short attention spans these days?  Well, fine... if that’s the case, then get them the info as quickly and in as short a time as you can, and you will succeed.

PS: It has become fairly simple to adopt the notoriety of a viral video sensation. The Web 2.0 movement has taught us, if anything, that anybody can be a star with the right amount of raw ambition. As the spectrum of YouTube celebrities rapidly increases, how have you attempted to transcend the burdens of having your “15 minutes of fame?”

MO: Through hard work, always being aware of the changes to the online environment, and adapting quickly to those changes!

I put out five to seven videos a week every single week, week in and week out. There are no other individual partners on YouTube that put out as many videos as I do. It’s a lot of work! But it has resulted in my videos getting over 207 million views! I also change pretty rapidly when YouTube changes its functionality. When YouTube started offering HD video, I was one of the first channels to offer HD. When it got rid of most viewed and defaulted to some weird category called “most popular” that seemed to penalize videos longer than a couple minutes, I cut my videos down to under two minutes.

It’s being aware of how your environment is changing and changing your format to adapt.

There are plenty of examples of fame happening when a person catches his cat doing something funny or a guy tripping while trying to do kung-fu. Those are the true examples of “15 minutes of fame." But to have your videos watched millions of times each and every week, and to have your audience grow and grow and grow each week — well, that’s building a business and there is no reason why the success should ever have to go away!

PS: When you’re not producing your own content, what websites do you turn to on a regular basis for inspiration or just general entertainment?

MO: Since I get such a large amount of traffic on my YouTube channel and on my website, it’s hard for me to be away from those sites for any length of time! The only time I take a break is to pop over to MSNBC.com to see what’s happening in the world, POPURLS.com to get an overview of what’s happening on the net and finally I use Tweetdeck to track what is going on on Twitter... how people are reacting to the Iran election, or how people are responding to the death of Michael Jackson, for example. Twitter is so real-time [that] I find it such a great resource for keeping up on world events and how people are perceiving those events!

PS: How would you describe the current state of the English language, a lexicon undoubtedly tarnished by the LOLs and BRBs running rampant everyday?

MO: I love it! The advent of the Internet and cell phones and texting has really increased the amount of communication that is occurring between people, which is the reason for language in the first place! So, even though the language may be getting butchered with the LOLs and the BRBs, those acronyms are conveying a message — and that’s a good thing! 

Of course, now that everyone has a voice, the next thing we all need to learn is how to listen again! As Pauline Phillips, under the pen name Abigail Van Buren or Dear Abby once said: “The less you talk, the more you’re listened to.” Good advice that I wish some of my friends would follow!

For more information: Visit HotForWords' YouTube channel and official fansite, HotForWords.com.