Mucklagh's Emma a viral video star

Mucklagh’s Emma O’Connell is getting a giggle from being branded desperate to be famous this week. A college video featuring the final year event management and public relations student at GMIT serenading a lecturer has gone viral, and follows an appearance by Emma on Take Me Out Ireland.

Emma put together the video that sees her interrupt a GMIT lecture with a rendition of “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye with friends to promote a charity open mic night they organised for Pieta House as part of a final year project.

The video going viral was beyond all their expectations, but by the night of the charity event last Tuesday it had clocked up more than 15,000 views and had grabbed the attention of websites joe.ie and her.ie. Speaking to the Offaly Independent the day after the successful event Emma said not only has the video helped raise over €500 for Pieta House, but it also might have a positive effect on her final year grade.

“Our lecturer said nothing like this has happened at GMIT before,” Emma said, adding that she’s been praised for taking the initiative.

The idea for the video was hit on by the group of students as they sat in the library trying to think of a launch idea for the project they will be graded on. “I’m a bit of a headcase myself,” Emma explained, adding that she came up with the idea of gatecrashing a lecture with a song. The lecturer of that class - John Carty - teaches Emma PR. He had been told to expect the group in his class when it ended, but had no idea what was about to happen.

The video went viral after Emma shared it with friends, who in turn passed it on. “It did way more than what we were expecting,” Emma said. “We were so shocked.”

Her parents Patrick and Jo and brothers Martin, Alan and David have been having a laugh at her expense since seeing her in action in the clip, while Emma said she’s also attracting attention from members of the public. “Everyone is tagging me as desperate to be famous,” she laughed, saying that many have connected her appearance on Take Me Out with her current video. “I probably find that the funniest thing of all,” she said.

No doubt Emma has a bright future ahead of her, and as well as becoming more involved with Pieta House she says she’s looking forward to moving to Athlone and beginning work with The Marketing Department. Music hasn’t been ruled out however, and Emma’s dream is to go on to work in PR for a music production company.

Watch Emma's antics here:

http://youtu.be/B4ez9uzjST0