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"We Kind of Live a Double Life": How 5 BYU Students Became Outrageously Famous in the Philippines Without Realizing It (Video)

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When BYU students Tylan Glines, Connor Peck, Davis Blount, Jake Mingus, and Sumner Mahaffey made their first video for their Hey Joe Show, they had no idea just how outrageously famous they were about to become. 

The unassuming returned missionaries met each other while serving in the Philippines Cebu Mission and consequently spoke Cebuano, a language spoken by roughly 25 million Filipinos. 

After their missions, the five began making comedy videos in Cebuano in 2014, dubbing their comedy antics the Hey Joe Show, using the nickname "Joe" Filippino children give foreigners. Within the first week, the show had about a million views, according to a video on the BYU Facebook page. 

But even then, the group had no idea how popular they were. When they traveled to the Philippines in 2015 for a tour, they were hoping to have 20–25 people show up to a mall for their performance. Thousands of people showed up.

The group said the screams were deafening. 

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"That's when it hit us, oh my goodness," Peck says in the video. 

The group says there were times on their tour where police barricades were put in place to keep their fans from swarming them. If they walked on the streets in the Philippines, people would instantly recognize them. They even met and made a dance video with the president of the Philippines. 

And yet, when they came back to the U.S., none of their classmates had any idea how famous the five were a half a world away. 

"We kind of live a double life in the Philippines," Mingus says. "That's always a weird transition, no one is asking to take pictures of you."

As the group members have begun to go their separate ways, they reflect on the blessings they have seen from the project: 

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