Pinay makes it big on YouTube

I've watched a few of Christine's vblogs, and she is hilarious! There have been a handful of Fil-am comedians out there who have been charging good money for spoofing their experiences growing up as Flips. Most notable of course is Rex Navarette who has been coming to the Philippines regularly performing sketches about his mother as well and growing up in a country where people spoke 'wers-wers.'

But Christine has pushed the envelope by taking her comedy to the Internet...thus her newfound fame (or notoriety?). Asian Sentinel features her in its latest issue. Read on...

For decades, actors of Asian descent have been trying make it big by breaking into mainstream Hollywood, usually with limited success. Thirty-one year old Christine Gambito, an American born to Filipino immigrants in Virginia, took a different route and achieved what others have been trying to do for years in only a matter of months – become famous.

With a little help from technology, Christine is now one of the most popular faces on the Internet. Proof of this is that an entry from her video blog, or vlog, HappySlip.com, garnered enough votes to be named second Best Comedy at the 2006 YouTube video awards. Her video “Peelings”, which is a spoof on a fractured conversation between three family members – all of them played by Christine ‑ has had more than 200,000 viewers on YouTube and admirers have even begun posting videos about Christine herself on YouTube, praising her as a new star for the Internet age.

Happy Slip, which is a one-woman production team, is a play on the term “half slip”, which her mom, in her Filipino-English accent, always reminded her to wear as a young girl. “Christine, put on your happy slip!” she parodies in one of her videos. (More on Asia Sentinel, April 13, 2007.)