Behind The Maltese Prank Videos Racking Up Hundreds Of Millions Of Views On Facebook
Fake pregnancies, cheating couples and Uber in Malta… online Maltese pranks may have taken a while to arrive, but they are making up for lost time in a big way.
“I’m going to be honest – I never read the comments, but I’ve been told that people legit believe some of these videos,” Nicole Ebejer tells Lovin Malta in between shoots of her latest pranks.
Ebejer recently started working with an online content creation company – Sarcasm, owned by Digihood Media, based in India – with 45.5 million followers on Facebook alone after they found her on Instagram.
However, she never expected her videos to rack up so many views in such a short time, especially considering she was filming most of them in one take with her friends.
You’ve probably seen some of her pranks by now – there’s the one where one of her best friends, popular make-up artist Henry Galea, fakes having a pregnancy with her. In just five weeks, it’s garnered 233 million views.
Then there’s the time she gets caught cheating on her man, with 74 million views in four weeks.
Another one features one of her friends, Naledi, apparently riding an Uber around Malta before “leaving behind” a €50 note to see what the driver does. It’s racked up six million views in one week.
The content revolves around key themes, like relationships, sexual teasing and emotional tearjerkers – but the reaction online has been real.
Shortly after publishing the fake pregnancy reveal, Ebejer had produced a video where she finds her partner cheating on her. Though a prank, hundreds of people began commenting with advice for the couple to stay together for the baby’s sake… including from Maltese people.
“Although I knew the page had a huge following, I didn’t expect people here to notice the videos,” she said. “It’s funny that there are people that think we’re together and it’s sort of cute when they give advice. I’ve known Henry for years now so we have a good on-screen connection.”
“If only people knew that I’m nothing like this in real life!”
When it comes to her videos, Ebejer is producing around 30 videos a month, with around one or two being uploaded on a day to day basis.
“I film as often as I want, and I’m given a script for some videos that I work along with and the pranks normally I come up with them myself,” she explained. “It’s really interesting work, and I don’t think people realise how much work is involved in one video.”
However, anyone taking the videos too seriously or getting emotionally attached to the characters might need to slow down though, with Ebejer saying they are done for “entertainment purposes”. That said, she invites anyone who has an original idea or is up for appearing in her videos to just get into contact with her.
“Right now, I’m just enjoying creating content for this page, and maybe in the future I’ll open my own YouTube page. I would just like to thank anyone enjoying the videos for watching,” she ended.
What did you make of Ebejer’s popular videos?
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