Marina Orlova (Internet celebrity)

Marina Vladimirovna Orlova
Марина Владимировна Орлова
Born Marina Orlova
10 December 1980
Arzamas, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Nationality Russian/American
Years active 2007–present
Known for Infotainment etymology

Internet information

Web alias(es) HotForWords
Web hosting service(s) YouTube
Signature phrase "Intelligence is Sexy"
Website
www.hotforwords.com

Marina Vladimirovna Orlova (Russian: Марина Владимировна Орлова) (born December 10, 1980) is a Russian Internet celebrity who describes herself as a philologist.[1] She is the host of a popular channel on YouTube, HotForWords and a corresponding website. In the early 2000s, she was a bi-weekly guest on Maxim Radio on Sirius Satellite Radio. In 2012 she started an online series of videos for a personal finance website Bankrate.com where she explains the meaning of commonly used financial and economic terms.[2]

Early life and education

Orlova was born in Arzamas (Nizhny Novgorod Oblast) Russian SFSR, Soviet Union in 1980. She worked at a shop for a year before applying to an international recruitment program. She wanted to do something creative, or improve her English skills and to prepare for her Ph.D;[1] she was then sent to a small town near San Francisco and worked as a nanny for a working family with two children. A year later she moved to Hollywood, where she attempted to start a career in modelling. After going to two photoshoots, she was told that at 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m), she was too short.[3]

She has two degrees in philology[1] and taught English and world literature to high school students in Moscow before moving to the United States to pursue further education.[4]

Orlova rents an apartment in Beverly Hills. She has said that her work takes up all of her time, and that she sometimes sits at the computer 12 to 14 hours at a time and has little time left for socializing.[3]

Hot for Words website

In February 2007, The Hot for Words trademark was registered by Charles T. Como, a creator of internet sites for music bands, and the YouTube account Hotforwords was registered. The first video posted was "Intro to Philology ;-)" on March 7, 2007.[5] Orlova said this was at a time when "everybody was uploading cleavage."[6]

The theme of Orlova's website and YouTube videos, which begin with the tagline "Intelligence is Sexy," is tracing the origins of English words. Some of her entries focus on everyday words such as "irony" and "OK," while others address lengthy and rarely used words such as "floccinaucinihilipilification" and "antidisestablishmentarianism." Some entries also address idioms, including "let the cat out of the bag," "dressed to the nines," and "three sheets to the wind," or new words like the verb "to google."

Orlova in January 2010

Orlova has been voted "World's #1 Sexiest Geek" in Wired Magazine's "Sexy Geek of the Year Contest". G4 TV has listed Orlova among its "Hot Women of the Net" on several occasions, and Cosmopolitan Magazine has identified her as the "most subscribed to YouTube guru."[7] Orlova appeared on the cover of the November 2009 issue of the wine, beer and spirits publication Mutineer Magazine,[8] applying her word explanations to common beverage words. Orlova has appeared on The O'Reilly Factor,[9] and was profiled on "The Medium," an Internet feature of The New York Times Magazine.[10] In June 2008, Orlova and radio personality Danny Bonaduce signed endorsement contracts with coComment.[11]

The Moscow Times said "Marina exploits her blonde-bombshell looks to the maximum: She appears in her two-minute clips scantily clad, pouting and making doe eyes. This is surely the main factor in her success. However, while the number of scantily clad girls on the Internet is limitless, not all of them put so much intellectual effort into their success."[12]

In an interview, Orlova explained how she got viewers interested in words: "How else could I attract them to words?" "Everyone knows that sex sells."[6]

In spring of 2010 Marina started doing video lessons of Russian for RT (TV network)[13] and in the fall of the same year, she was hired to be the spokeswoman for AnastasiaDate,[14] an online dating website.

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Marina Orlova: About the Author". harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2010-04-05.
  2. ↑ "Interview with Marina Orlova, HotForWords: In the business of explaining words", In2up, 24 May 2011. Retrieved on 23 August 2012.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Наталья ДЕРБЕНЕВА [Natalia Derbeneva] (March 19, 2010). Английский язык в Голливуде преподает русская блондинка [Russian Blonde in Hollywood Teaches English] (in Russian). Комсомольская правда [Pravda]. Retrieved 2010-03-31.
  4. ↑ Marina Orlova's appearance on G4 TV on YouTube(March 13, 2008)
  5. ↑ Vonderau, Patrick (2010). "Understanding Orlova: YouTube Producers, Hot for Words, and Some Pitfalls of Production Studies". Wide Screen. Retrieved 2013-12-14.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Kazakina, Katya (September 25, 2009). "Google Trails Linguist With Lingerie, 238 Million YouTube Views". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2010-08-06.
  7. ↑ Molly Fahner, Cosmopolitan Magazine, June 2008.
  8. ↑ "Current and Back Issues". Mutineer Magazine. Retrieved 2010-08-06.
  9. ↑ "Internet vixen teaches O'Reilly a thing or two about origins of words". Fox News. Retrieved 2010-01-08.
  10. ↑ Virginia Heffernan, Sexicon, The New York Times Magazine, December 17, 2007.
  11. ↑ "coComment Ignites Web Commenting With HotForWords and Danny Bonaduce". redorbit.com. June 11, 2008. Retrieved 2010-08-15.
  12. ↑ Marina Orlova has managed to get several million people interested in the origins of English words(registration required) , Victor Sonkin, The Moscow Times, June 6, 2008.
  13. ↑ "RT presents Russian with Hot For Words". RT.com. Retrieved 2011-11-11.
  14. ↑ Hall, Steve (November 8, 2010). "Former Go Daddy Girl Investigates History of Mail Order Brides". Ad Rants.

External links