The Chronicle

February 25th, 2008

YouTube viewers delight in Dukie spelling bee moments

Everyone goes through an awkward phase. But for Duke students who competed in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, these painful moments in transition have been immortalized on film—and thousands of YouTube viewers continue to capitalize on them for laughs years after the fact.

Overcome with joy, Rebecca Sealfon, a doctoral candidate in biology at the University, screamed the spelling of the word “euonym” for the win in 1997 with a giddiness that has made her the butt of countless late night talk show hosts’ jokes. But the admiring comedians have nothing on YouTube viewers, who have relived the moment almost 100,000 times.

Sealfon’s notoriety seems to pale in comparison to that of Akshay Buddiga, who collapsed under pressure during the 2004 competition. Buddiga’s brother Pratyush Buddiga said the incident sparked a national media frenzy and the speller turned down interview requests from the likes of talk show hosts Oprah and Jay Leno.

“We felt like they were making fun of my brother,” said Pratyush, a freshman and the winner of the 2004 bee.

YouTube viewers seem to be doing the same. A clip of Akshay’s fall has been watched 240,000 times, with 794 sneering comments to boot.

Sophomore Michael Dechert only placed 32nd at nationals, but he said he’s thankful he didn’t stick around in the competition long enough for anything too embarrassing to be captured on film. Dechert had managed to keep his orthographic past from his brothers in Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity until pledging, when one of his tasks was to have his parents send the film of his time onstage.

“They had a lot of fun watching,” Dechert said. “A lot of fun.”
–Julia Love

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