Rubi's 'quinceañera': Mexico gets a viral lesson

VILLA DE GUADALUPE, San Luis Potosi - Crescencio Ibarra and Ana Elda Garcia stood outside their front door, on the side of the road in La Joya, San Luis Potosi, greeting guests who had come the night prior to celebrate their daughter Rubi's fifteenth birthday.

They thanked people for the food and dancing, and for transforming their simple cattle ranch into a frenzy after an internet announcement of the party became a viral phenomenon.

“I don't want to hear anything about the media," complained Rubio's mother Ana Elda, who wore a t-shirt and leggings. "I behaved very well all the time and they treated us very badly." Her hairdo from the night before was still intact, and her face showed the accumulated tiredness of 15 days without sleep.

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During two days, reporters hovered around the 15-year-old's house as if they suspected to find El Chapo Guzman in a hidden closet.

“That’s enough,” Ana Elda screamed at reporters as they launched themselves at the truck that transported the family.

Among the pushing and shoving of a herd of cameramen, the Ibarras threatened to leave the celebration, which they said no longer belonged to them. “Keep your party. We have to leave our event so that you can stay,” complained one of Rubi's uncles after the mass.

Guests who traveled to La Joya from Tamaulipas, Hidalgo, Texas, and Arizona agreed with the family's complaints. “The media were the ones who created the mess," added one of the visitors.

Media headlines noted how Rubi's party had ended in tragedy with Felix Peña Vasquez’ death. Vasquez, owner of the “Coyotes Negros” horse team, died after being run over by his own horse during a "chiva" race for a prize of 10,000 Mexican pesos.

“I don't care about the 10,000 (pesos), I come for my horse’s fame, the fame is what counts,” Peña had said earlier in the day in an interview put on YouTube.

Fourteen-year-old Esmeralda de Leon Rodríguez said she wanted something similar when she turns 15 in May. “Yes, I would like something like what happened to Rubi to happen to me because important brands are sponsoring her,” she said.

She said she dreams of wearing a fluffy blue dress with sparkles.

Tecate provided the beers. Charras, the tortilla giant, donated the tortillas that accompanied the mole served during lunch and printed hundreds of masks with Rubi's face. Interjet gave the party’s godfather, Eduard Arias, a.k.a Lady Wuu, an airplane ticket.

The television sales channel CV Directo offered prizes including a steam iron or a "comfortable, elegant and sensual" girdle to guests in a stall installed a few meters from the church.

The finger that pushed “publish”

Viral communication is a way to signal what is considered important and interesting for parts of a community in any given moment, Karine Nohon and Jeff Hemsley wrote in their 2013 book "Going Viral."

A video, a tweet, or a news report go viral when shared by many people simultaneously in a brief period of time and the message surpasses usual network activity.

Five weeks ago, 24-year-old student Roberto Martinez uploaded Rubi's parents' video invitation to Facebook. The video racked up one million views before the family, terrified, made him take it down.

Martinez works for Ogarrio.com, an information portal featuring news and events -- weddings, baptisms, regional fairs -- that take place in Matehuala, the fourth largest city in San Luis Potosi.

At first, Martinez didn't want to take it down. But “they started to make memes, first just here in the plateau region, then at the national and even international level,” he said.

Tens of thousands of people and half a dozen celebrities confirmed through Facebook and Twitter that they would attend.

Requests rained down for Ogarrio.com to share other videos and pictures and work its viral magic again. “Not every video they send us is going to go viral. If someone wanted to do the same thing, it would not have the same impact," said Martinez.

Poor but connected

Residents of the small town say a group of engineers came to Villa de Guadalupe a decade ago with plans to install a telephone antenna. The neighbors opposed it in the belief that the radiowaves would make them sick.

Today, there are only three places in the entire municipality of Villa de Guadalupe with internet: the police station, the mayor’s brother’s house, and the top of a small hill on the side of the Laguna Seca road, on the curve right before the esplanade where Rubi had her fifteenth birthday party.

“We go on motorcycles or by bicycle,” said Rutilio Ibarra, a 56-year-old cattle rancher who, like Rubi’s father, makes a living from selling goats. He checks his Facebook at least once a day at the small hill or in the nearby towns of Charcas and Matehuala.

Some 74 percent of Mexican internet users admit that the internet has changed their habits, and 79 percent say that their main online activity is browsing social media, according to a recent study by the Mexican Internet Association.

In Mexico, 57 percent of the population, or some 62.4 million people, are connected to the internet, according to the National Survey on the Availability and Use of Home Information Technologies, carried out during the second semester of 2016.

The same census reveals that an even greater number (77.7 million) use cellphones and two out of three people have a smartphone in a country where 46.2 percent live in poverty.

YouTube pilgrimage

The Muñoz family did not travel 14 hours by car from the Otomi highlands of Hidalgo to dance and eat at Rubi’s birthday party. They just came for a picture.

“We only wanted to fulfill our objective of meeting the 'quinceañera' because she is a famous person,” said 17-year-old Daniel.

The family arrived in La Joya the night before the party. The Muñoz family explained to Rubi's parents how important it was for their children to meet the “quinceañera." So the Ibarras let them into their living room for a photo.

Daniel, like Rubi, celebrated his fifteenth birthday with dancing and cake. His sister preferred a cellphone to a party. “I would not like something like this to happen to me, I do not like being the center of attention,” she said.

“Rubi went viral because many people started to share the video (of the invitation to her party). I suppose that they did it as a joke at first. And now they have fulfilled a dream even bigger than she could ever have imagined,” explained Daniel.

In the video, Rubi’s father Crescencio wears a black hat and a button-up blue shirt, accompanied by his daughter and wife.

Looking at the camera he announces the preparations for his daughter's 15th birthday party, listing the regional bands that will play. There will be a “chiva," he announced, and a 10,000 Mexican peso prize for the winner of a race.

“Everyone is cordially invited. Thank you,” he said at the end. The simplicity of his words stirred up jokes in urban Mexico and unleashed the viral avalanche.

Not everyone felt the jokes were in good fun.

“The jokes about Rubi’s party are as racist as jokes about black people or 'Gallegos' in Spain,” wrote journalist Mauricio Cabrera in the Mexican magazine Emeequis. "Once again we laugh at others. We are a racist and classist country. A country more of memes than actions," he added.

For Cabrera, Rubi's sudden fame was an enormous offense converted into a national joke.

The morning after the party, Crescencio stood by the door to the family home and read messages requested by guests at the party. Wearing a hat and sleeveless beige jacket, he stared into the strangers' smartphones:

- “Greetings to my sister Keila in Florida, from her sister Coqui.”

- “Greetings to El Cachete tacos from Piedras Negras, Coahuila.”

- “Greetings to Tampico, Tamaulipas.”

One guest asked: "When is the wedding?"

"I’m never opening my mouth again," answered Rubi’s father.