Marcelo Santos III: Expounding love through videos
By Paulo Resurrecion
Books telling stories of love are indeed very much common, but reading love stories on videos is a different story. A flashing dialogue plus a heart-warming background song has indeed captured the hearts of many Filipino netizens.
With the rise of the age of technology and the prevalence of social media today, sometimes it only takes creativity, hard work and enough skills to be a well-known individual throughout the cyberspace. With almost 23 million channel views, Marcelo Santos III popularized a new way of telling stories of love, and it’s through the famous social media site YouTube.
It was from his own experiences as well as his friends’ where he got his inspiration in writing. Marcelo Santos III, 21, uploaded his first story entitled “Bag at Folder” on December 2009 on Facebook. “I uploaded my first story on Facebook so that most of my friends could watch it. After that, they shared it to some of their friends until it spread throughout the site. I then decided to continue and create more stories on videos. I transferred all my works on YouTube early 2010, and named my channel ‘Love Story on Video by Marcelo Santos III’ or simply LSOV,” Santos said. Now, his first work, a story of a student who was secretly in love to his seatmate, has more than 200,000 views.
M, as his peers call him, is an advertising graduate from Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP). As a child, he never thought of being a writer, as he used to dream to be either a businessman or a teacher in the future. Writing used to be just his way of escaping boredom. And now, it was through writing that made him famous in the online world. With almost 500,000 likes in his Facebook page and more than 120,000 Twitter followers, his works could easily go viral on different social media sites.
Chances, heartaches and destiny are the common themes of Santos’ stories. He believed that “everyone is destined for a good love story, and it would come at the right time, at the right place and at the right moment.
Aside from his own ability to touch the heart of millions of people through his writings, Santos considered his choice of medium as a major player for his success. He believes that the online videos are more accessible to millions of people compared to the traditional print media. His works cater mostly to high school and college students; teenagers who are usually very idealistic about love. “Perhaps my new way of writing along with very touching background music attracted the interest of many Filipinos in the internet, and I also believe that Filipinos are really into love stories,” he said.
One of his famous works, Text: Story of Best Friends, has already reached 1.6 million views. It was a tragic story of two college students who happened to be best friends since they were in young. The story ended as they realized their love for each other, which was soon followed by the death of the guy who became a victim of fraternity hazing in a way to protect the girl he loves.
Santos considers his success as an online writer truly life-changing. Now, he is usually noticed in public places like schools and malls. “It really feels great when you know that some people could appreciate you. There are even times when people would take pictures of you, as if you are a celebrity,” he said. But after all, he still wasn’t used to such treatment.
“I remembered when I was in SM Manila, and 10 girls kept on calling my name, so I immediately turned to them and I was surprised as they all shrieked,” he added. Also, Santos has already been featured in different television shows like GMA’s Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho and Saksi. His story was also been stared in Yahoo! Philippines News last November 2011.
Recently, Marcelo Santos III was awarded as a “Young Male Professional Published Author of the Year” in the recent “Top Brand Awards 2012” for his first book, “Para sa Hopeless Romantic”. He decided to compile his works and also start his career as a published writer. “I also want people to be able to read my works even without computer or internet. That’s why I decided to compile all of my writings in YouTube and turn it into a book novel,” Santos said.
After all the blessings he had, Santos couldn’t ask for more but to just live a simple life, life with friends and family. He was truly grateful to his supporters who he said “motivated me to continue writing.”
“What I have learned from my own journey was that life is all about right the timing. Every dream has a right time, and it will happen in the right place. We should continue believing, trusting and dreaming. What suppose to happen will happen, in God’s time,” he said.