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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Technology
James Ball

Hello, goodbye: the rise and decline of the celebrity video-greeting app Cameo

Miriam Margolyes, Nigel Farage, Ben Fogle
Miriam Margolyes, Nigel Farage, Ben Fogle are among the celebrities offering personalised videos on Cameo. Photograph: Cameo

It started, as many things do, with drama in the WhatsApp group. It was 2021, and a loose coalition of my friends and acquaintances was passing the on-again, off-again lockdowns by playing a spectacularly vicious online game called Subterfuge, in which treachery and betrayal are all part of how to play.

Only, this time, people had gone too far and someone had been upset badly enough that they had quit the group. To win him back, my friends came up with a dubious plan – they would have Nigel Farage, of all people, record an ironic apology video urging their departed comrade to rejoin the group.

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