The self-made star

HOLDEN -- Brooke Brodack is famous.

``Hey Brooke!" a hostess gushes as the pixie ish 20-year-old enters the restaurant. ``What's up, Brooke?" asks a waitress. Even the dishwashers recognize Brodack as they pass her table on their way to the kitchen.

Brodack, who has legions of fans -- and detractors -- made national news this month when she was signed by talk show host Carson Daly's production company to an 18-month development deal.

But at the 99 Restaurant here, Brodack is known for something other than the quirky short films that made her an Internet celebrity. She was a popular hostess for three years before quitting last month, and there's hardly an employee or customer who doesn't know her. Now, though, Brodack can't seem to go anywhere in this small town northwest of Worcester without drawing attention.

She walked into a Friendly's last week with a friend who hadn't heard about the Daly deal. After a few awkward minutes, he asked Brodack why everyone was watching them. On Thursday morning, Brodack's mother, Beverly, noticed a dirty, unmarked van circling their block. Worried it might be a stalker, Beverly called the police.

``Things are getting weird," admits Brodack, who lives in a modest, one-story house with her mother and younger sister.

Then again, it's been weird for Brodack ever since October, when her video ``Crazed Numa Fan !!!!" became a sensation on YouTube.com, the popular website where users post and share their home made video clips. Brodack, who goes by the Internet handle ``Brookers," is now one of YouTube's biggest stars. Each of her videos attracts hundreds of thousands of views.

``Crazed Numa Fan !!!!" consists of Brodack and her sister Missy dancing in Brodack's bedroom to ``Dragostea Din Tei," a preposterously catchy pop song by Romanian band the O Zone . Brodack lip-synchs the lyrics, bangs her head like Joey Ramone, and just generally goes nuts. (She says she's often asked if she does drugs. She doesn't.)

The production is primitive -- at several points, Brodack holds the camera while filming herself -- but her energy and appealing eccentricity make you want to watch the four-minute video again and again. Which is what YouTube users did -- more than a million and a half times, an audience comparable to that of ``Hannity & Colmes," the popular Fox News talk show.

Other ``Brookers" videos feature Brodack delivering a monologue on why kids eat glue, and improvising a song on her violin -- by strumming it guitar-style. Her success seems mainly due to her uninhibited personality. But her mother says she was always the quietist of the three children.

``I had to send Missy to the store to get bread because Brooke was too shy," Beverly Brodack recalls, laughing.

It took YouTube, where Brooke first registered in September, to bring her out of her shell. She learned to express herself creatively and to deal with her ``haters" -- YouTube members who take pleasure in disparaging her videos.

``In high school, if I even heard a rumor that people were saying something behind my back, I would freak out," Brodack says. ``Now I have millions of haters and I don't even care."

Brodack made herself an Internet star using a two-year-old eMachines computer, a grapefruit-size camcorder, and factory-standard Windows Movie Maker software. She uses online chat rooms to communicate with her fans. (In the time it took her to conduct an interview and eat lunch with a reporter, Brodack received 260 requests to be added as a ``friend" on MySpace. And, of course, there's a fan site: www.brookerfanatics.com).

Brodack gets so much e-mail, from fans and haters alike, that in May she dismissed as hoaxes the first two e-mails from Ruth Caruso , the head of development for Carson Daly Productions.

``I thought they were fake," Brodack says, shrugging. ``I get a lot of weird mail."

Fortunately, Caruso was persistent, and once she finally got hold of Brodack, they quickly worked out a contract. Caruso had been alerted to Brodack by Daly himself, who stumbled on her videos one weekend while surfing the Internet.

``Something about her was extremely captivating, and I couldn't figure it out," Daly says by telephone from Burbank, Calif., where he shoots his NBC talk show, ``Last Call With Carson Daly." ``I just wanted to reach out and see what I could do for her.

``I know, big Friday night for Mr. Daly, surfing YouTube," jokes Daly, the former MTV VJ who has corresponded with Brodack by e-mail but hasn't met her in person.

The deal Brodack signed with Carson Daly Productions calls for her to help create and act in programs for television, the Internet, and portable devices. (Today's announcement that NBC would promote its fall prime-time lineup on YouTube is unrelated, though both highlight how traditional entertainment media want to generate Internet buzz.)

Brodack and Caruso have discussed producing a series of comedy sketches for ``Last Call." But at her house last week, Brodack seemed most excited about the new computer Daly has promised her.

``I've got so many ideas that I can't use because my equipment is so crummy," Brodack said. ``But now it's almost going to be too easy -- I might get lazy."

Will Brodack find success outside the insular world of YouTube, with its private jokes and tech-geek sensibility?

Professor Sam Kauffmann thinks so. Kauffmann, a filmmaker and associate professor of film at Boston University who looked at Brodack's videos at the Globe's request, says her talents will translate into more traditional media.

``She has terrific camera presence," Kauffmann said. ``She does humor; she does pathos; she cries; she goofs around. I think adults would find it pretty vapid, but [Daly's] not going for an Academy Award. He's looking to the MTV audience -- 12- to 17-year-olds -- and she's perfect for that."

But Brodack's ambitions go beyond MTV viewers. She admires Tim Burton and Quentin Tarantino and eventually wants to direct movies. Surprisingly, for this resolutely tame director (there's hardly a curse word or bared midriff in her videos), one of her favorite films is Tarantino's ``Kill Bill." Her favorite scene? The one where Uma Thurman plucks out her enemy's eyeball, drops it on the floor, and squashes it under her bare foot.

``I like to get extreme reactions," Brodack says with a grin.

Michael Hardy can be reached at mhardy@globe.com