American Wil Dasovich did it again.
After creating that viral video of two foreigners speaking Bekinese, the 24-year-old “foreignoy” — that’s how he likes to call himself — married his fascination for Pinoy culture with the very many Christmas video suggestions he received and came up with Takatak Santa.
That is, he dressed up as Santa, went to EDSA, found a Kuya Takatak and did his work for him. His idea was crazy enough he got another foreigner friend to do it with him.
Why anybody would want to get baked by the Manila sun in the middle of El Niño season beats us. But suppose that only goes to show how interested and curious Dasovich is with our culture.
“As an entertainer, the point was to make people happy, laugh, and just brighten up their day,” Dasovich tells Coconuts Manila. “But as my videos are all about exploring Filipino culture, I thought I’d shed light on how hard [takatak boys] work every single day of the year, making an honest living and going through what they have to just to survive.”
It was difficult as fuck. Apart from learning that “it’s a pretty dangerous job, and tiring as well,” Dasovich discovered the perils of production peeps face on a regular basis. “At first, the MMDA didn’t let us film and said we needed permits. It was devastating,” he continued.
But Dasovich, who’s been living in Manila for two years now, has become Pinoy enough and turned gung-ho. He went ahead with his plan and soon even the MMDA enforcers were laughing with him. “Ayaw siguro maging kill joy,” he said.
Two days before Christmas, at 6am, Dasovich and his two fun-loving American friends, went to EDSA and started their project. They walked from the Guadalupe bridge to Ayala looking for a willing Kuya Takatak and the right kind of traffic hell. “By 12pm, we finally found him plus the right traffic to make this video happen,” he shared.
Dasovich first came to the Philippines for a week-long vacation two years ago. It was the first stop of his planned three-month long Asian sojourn, but immediately, he was “scouted for modeling”.
While he was “fascinated by the whole idea that I could be in a commecial,” Dasovich continued with his travels, heading out to Singapore and then Indonesia. But “the agency that scouted me kept texting me”. He was already in Bali when he decided to ditch his plan and try his luck in the PI. Dasovich came back, and soon his modeling jobs became TV stints.
On the side, he created Tsong at Tsonggo, a video blog on YouTube that explored the wonders of Pinoy culture. It wasn’t until he created the “Art of Tagalog” series — which includes that Coconuts-approved “Two foreigners speak Beki” video — that Dasovich went quasi-mainstream on the Internet.
He quickly nabbed a segment on GMA-7’s Unang Hirit and got an endorsement deal with a telecom — all because of his crazy antics such as dressing up as Santa and becoming a Takatak boy for a day.
Mabuhay ka, parekoy!
Reader Interactions