Once upon a time, in the not-so-far-away town of Sta. Maria in Bulacan, there lived a girl named Maine Mendoza, who grew up with very low self-esteem. The very quiet girl wanted to become an artista but she knew she was not beautiful enough to enter Tinseltown. She thought she didn’t have what it takes to become a star.
By BÜM D. TENORIO, JR.
She grew up befriending loneliness — she experienced two heartaches that rendered her juvenile, lovelorn heart fragile. She dealt with pain by blogging about it. Oh, how she wrote insightful odes about failures, foibles and follies at mainemendoza.net.
Her agonies were turned into perceptive prose as she found beauty in pain. It did not help to lift her mood knowing fully that she grew up not being close with her family. She knew she was loved but she “lacked TLC.” She went on with life…“like a plant.”
Despite that, she turned to “dubsmash,” a mobile app used to create short, selfie videos with sounds and spiels of famous people. She created a world all her own, compiling about 60 dubsmash videos of her with contorted face, tweaked lips and eyes almost popping from the sockets. Yes, it was silly, she thought. But it was in dubsmashing that she found the time to smile, to laugh, to celebrate herself. Her “ugly self,” her “uneventful life.”
One day, her fairy godmother, who was monitoring her life all along, was so delighted with her self-deprecating humor that she waved her magic wand at her, resolute to end the girl’s prolonged dalliances with introverted pain. In an instant, her life was changed. The “ugly girl” who was unsure of herself, let alone her future, was tossed into the limelight. She became a star. To this day, she is a superstar.
From the cocoon of loneliness, she emerged a sprightly woman, soaring here and there in the hearts of the millions of people whose lives she has touched ever since she became a main part of the TV variety show-to-beat Eat Bulaga!’s Kalyeserye “Juan For All, All For Juan.”
By and large, that is the fairy tale of Maine Mendoza. But everything in that tale is true. Fate, her fairy godmother, made sure that the pain of the past would be erased — instantaneously. After all, Maine is a good girl and every good girl deserves good things in life.
This is how fate worked on Maine’s favor. On June 19, 2015, a staff of Eat Bulaga! left a comment on her Instagram post asking her to audition. The longest running noon time variety show in the Philippines was looking for a new host.
After checking the veracity of the message, she went on to audition; by this time, her Dubsmash videos were already gaining popularity. In her recollection, there were about 15 hopefuls who went to the studio to claim the hosting spot. Fate gave it to her. Her first break in showbiz happened on July 4, 2015, appearing as Yaya Dub, the nanny/granddaughter of Lola Nidora, a character superbly played by Wally Bayola.
She was destined to become a phenomenon especially so when, on July 16, a Thursday, she unexpectedly found her love interest, albeit via a split screen, in the person of Alden Richards, a young, handsome, clean-looking and bedimpled actor from GMA Talent Center and a host of Eat Bulaga! Who would have thought that her simple, sincere glance at Alden Richards via a split screen on that day would be received with great interest and adulation by the public? The love team of Alden and Yaya Dub was born and it was called AlDub.
The love team has created an AlDub Nation ever since the tandem became the most famous love team in all of modern TV’s history in the Philippines. Perhaps, even in the world, because their love team has generated 41 million tweets on Twitterlandia in one day, eclipsing all world records, including sports events and other high-profile occasions in the world.
“I also do not know how to explain the phenomenon,” Maine admits in the vernacular. “But I am thankful, most especially to the AlDub fans around the world. There’s no AlDub without them.”
Yes, AlDub fans are all over the world. These are Overseas Filipino Workers who burn the midnight oil monitoring the new developments about the AlDub loveteam via Internet. These are foreigners from the US to Hong Kong to Switzerland who have been bitten by the AlDub bug. A true-blue AlDub fan celebrates every 16th of the month as the “monthsary” of the reel couple. And every Thursday is their “weeksary.” (Maine and Alden both tell PeopleAsia that they are open to making their relationship “real.” And they say it sans their pabebe waves, no dubsmash, no make-believe, just as a matter-of-fact statement. Maine admits that she met Alden when she was 15 and she had a photo taken with the young star as a souvenir.)
In the Philippines, even some of the well-heeled crowd from Forbes Park and Dasmariñas Village in Makati City follow the story of AlDub. Anyone who says a derogatory remark about AlDub and the Kalyeserye in the social media is met with the ire of the fans.
Sociologists and communication experts have involved themselves in explaining the phenomenon. It’s the Cinderella story. It’s the young-love-sweet-love tale. It’s the fact that youngsters pick up a lot of lessons from the wisdom of Lola Nidora and her two other sisters Tinidora (Jose Manalo) and Tidora (Paolo Ballesteros).
The experts will always have an explanation for the sudden popularity of the AlDub love team but for Maine, she will always be stupefied by the admiration given her and Alden.
“If there’s one thing beautiful that this popularity has brought me, it is that I have become close to my family,” Maine says, finding it awkward that she is shedding tears in front of other people at the interview.
“I have a lot of realizations about my parents, my siblings, about my relationship with them. Unusual changes are happening now. I did not have the same attention from them when I was growing up. Kulang po ako sa atensyon (I was longing for attention). But slowly, I am getting used to their attention. I thank the Lord for this opportunity for my family and me to become close. Ito na po ang tamang panahon to make things right (This is the right time to make things right). Little by little,” says Maine, the fourth in the brood of five, including Nicolette, 26; Nicolas, 24; Nicoleen, 23; and Nicodeim, 17. Her real name is Nicomaine.
She says she grew up playing with the kids from the neighborhood instead of her siblings because “we had different interests.” Maine also grew up with all the provisions from her parents and from whom she learned the value of hard work. Her mom Mary Ann, an accountant, owns five Shell gas stations in Bulacan; while her dad Teodoro, an engineer, owns a construction firm that builds roads in Metro Manila.
Spending quality time now with her family has become a cause for celebration for Maine. “Now that I am Yaya Dub, my parents always tell me to keep my feet on the ground; to stay humble; to not allow myself to be eaten by popularity; to always be grateful to the people behind Yaya Dub and to the fans. I love them more for doing that.”
How does Maine protect herself from being overwhelmed by her instant celebrity status? (She has 1.7 million followers on Instagram and 2.6 million followers on Twitter.) “My safety net is to remain simple and do whatever I was doing before all these came along. I still write my blog. And one day, I wish to continue writing the romance novel (a la Nicholas Sparks, her favorite author) I had started writing before I became part of Eat Bulaga!”
After doing Kalyeserye live, Maine is back to her “boring life.” Just like in her pre-Yaya Dub days, she shares her experiences with her very few friends, especially with her best friend Geneva Verceles, who was her partner in discovering dubsmash in April 2015. “I have very few friends. I also do not like to go out. If I don’t have shoots, I just go home. Isn’t that boring?” she says.
Maine is so famous now that in just a span of a few months, she has already been co-endorsing with Alden about 10 brands including McDonald’s, Bench, Talk N’ Text, Coca-Cola, Bear Brand, among other products.
“I’m kuripot (a tightwad). My first pay check from Eat Bulaga! and all my earnings from the show and all my talent fees in all the commercials I endorse are all in the bank. I do not see the need to touch them. I have not thought of what to invest in yet, but I am also not known to splurge,” says the 20-year-old Maine, who finished a degree in HRIM major in Culinary Arts at the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde. She took her practicum in New York.
Even if she did not put her culinary skills into practice, she hopes to one day bake a humongous chocolate cake for the AlDub Nation “because they always give me chocolate cakes.”
And what will she cook for Alden? “Bopis, that’s his favorite,” reveals Maine who wanted to become a flight attendant when she was a kid. And where would she and Alden, whose first dream was to become a pilot, fly to enjoy each other’s company? “Maybe in another planet. Sa Pluto. And the two of us can stay there — just the two of us,” she says with her usual contorted and lip-tweaking Yaya Dub face.
Now that she’s famous — sitting on the chairs of famed makeup artists and hairdressers, dolled up by name-droppable stylists and featured by major glossies and newspapers — does she think of herself as a beautiful human being?
“No. I am grateful for the compliment but I still do not think I am beautiful. I am just thankful that a beautiful blessing has been given to me. I pray that I get to stay and enjoy it. I pray that this popularity continues to be the bridge that makes my family and me close to each other. I pray that I continue to inspire others with what I can offer them — fun, laughter and all. But I still do not think I am beautiful. I do not have the confidence to say that,” she says.
Maine Mendoza does not have the confidence of a big star yet, but she has the sincerity of a venerated saint. Just like in all fairy tales, it is her heart that serves as her weapon; it is her simple, sincere heart that makes her shine. It is her heart that makes her, as Yaya Dub, the favorite female fairy-tale character of today’s Philippine television. That makes her followers live happily ever after.
“Maine Mendoza: Once Upon a Dream” was originally published in PeopleAsia‘s December 2015-January 2016 issue. For the profile on Aldren Richards, click here.
