With over 3.8 million Twitter followers (and counting), 2.4 Instagram followers and almost a million Facebook fans, Maine Mendoza has really come a long way.
It wasn’t that long ago that the simple girl from Bulacan, whose hobby was to upload her Dubsmash video on Facebook imitating Kris Aquino, skyrocketed from relative obscurity to stardom – thanks to Eat Bulaga and her unexpected pairing with Alden Richards.
“I can still remember how nervous and timid I was as I stand in the middle of the stage, facing the camera. It’s been a year but I still wonder how I was able to survive that audition unprepared,” Maine said in her social media post looking back on the launch of her career exactly a year ago.
The 21-year-old star is now considered as one of the trusted celebrity endorsers, the most Googled female celebrity in the Philippines (2015), a television and movie star, an influential personality and a celebrity who has an army of rabid fans who are ready to go to any war when their idol is bashed or criticized.
While her fans play a big role in catapulting her to where she is now today, it is also safe to say that without Maine, Alden’s showbiz career would have been stagnant. Similarly, had Alden didn’t drop by the Eat Bulaga studio on July 16 last year, AlDub would not have been and Maine’s TV career would just end up like any other social media rockstars who crossed over to TV then went back to social media when things did not work out. But as you can see, Maine’s case is obviously an exception.
Now it can be said, Maine’s astronomical rise to stardom is similar to a Cinderella story. But like a fairy tale, will her journey in show business have a happy ending? Will AlDub still be around after a few years? Well, popularity and fame have their upside but they also come with the near certainty that they will end. And no matter how big a celebrity someone is, the person will definitely have a precipitous fall from grace.
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Is ‘Big Brother’ still relevant?
Big Brother used to be very popular it became visible in 55 countries and territories. And it was phenomenal it gave other reality shows a run for their money.
But like any other shows that reached its peak, Big Brother is becoming obsolete and currently in crisis. In fact, as of 2016, 26 television networks have decided not to renew the franchise of the show.
While nearly half of Big Brother franchises has reached their natural end point, Pinoy Big Brother has a different story — producers are still fighting to save the show (so they can still milk whatever is left).
Amid declining TV ratings, ABS-CBN still decided to come up with another season with new sets of housemates already been introduced prior to its July 11 premiere.
On Sunday, The Voice Kids finalist Juan Karlos Labajo was announced as the third person to enter “Bahay ni Kuya.” JK joins McCoy de Leon and Nikko Natividad, members of the boy band Hashtags, who were revealed as the first two-in-one housemates on Saturday.
Though the network has not confirmed whether or not the new season of PBB will be a special edition, considering they had conducted national and international auditions in 11 different locations, the reality show will be a mix of celebrity housemates and virtually unknown personalities supposedly from different walks of life.
Called Pinoy Big Brother: Lucky 7, the new season is the 13th Edition overall since it first aired in August 2005. Changes have been presented, too. The logo now features a human eye instead of a graphical one that was seen in earlier seasons and Mariel Rodriguez is joining Toni Gonzaga, Bianca Gonzales, and Robbie Domingo as hosts after her absence since the show’s Teen Edition in 2010.
With a new look, a new batch of housemates, and a promise of mind-blowing twists and surprises, will PBB be able to renew the viewers’ interest on the show? Perhaps the historical ratings performance of the “teleserye ng totoo ng buhay” can answer that. Although many are still optimistic that PBB will still serve something delish to the table, we cannot discount the numbers the show had produced in recent seasons. PBB viewers are turning in droves, obviously.