Celine Dreams
 When we crossed paths with Celine Dreams in 2002, we fell madly in love. Five years later, our admiration for the site hasn't dimmed. A testament to the Web's long tail before the long tail was even a glimmer in a marketer's eye, this site is the ultimate niche play.
The concept: Celine Dion sometimes inhabits the dreams of her fans. Those fans are then encouraged to submit their dreams about the French-Canadian songbird for public analysis. We'll admit we're not big fans of the vocal stylings of Ms. Dion, but we are huge fans of quirky visionaries like Yuri Toroptsov. Yuri's the mind behind this audacious mashup of Celine adoration and the unconscious mind, and he joined us for a chat from his home in Paris... Hey Yuri, what was the impetus behind Celine Dreams? Well, I am a huge fan of Celine. In 1999, I saw her for the first time in concert at Radio City Music Hall and I was really enchanted by the experience. During the show I saw lots of other fans. So, I had this idea in my mind that if I wanted to meet Celine someday I really needed to somehow distinguish myself from other folks like me. I wanted to create something unique while using my interest in Celine and psychology. You did make something unique. That's what we loved about this site when we found it. Your site takes the staid "celeb fan page" and mashes it up with something totally out of left field. Thanks. That's the essence of creativity. Taking something ordinary and making it crazy. Mixing it up. Were you always interested in dreams and dream interpretation? It started when I arrived in NYC to go to the New School for Social Research in the Village. Being a grad student, I could take a free classes in other departments of the university. So, I took an introduction to psychoanalysis and I was stunned by what the class revealed. Dream interpretation was just one of the subjects—the one I adored. It sparked something in you? Yep, it was more of a blast than a spark. The idea that a dream had a meaning was a revelation. You had never thought about dreams in that way before this class? No, in Russia where I was born and grew up, psychology and psychoanalysis were used largely for ideological purposes. So whatever Freud and others found was inaccessible to regular people. And since I grew up in a village of 300 people... let's just say dreams were not the major source of preoccupation for farmers. Notions on the unconscious, dreams, and hidden meanings became clear to me only after I took that class in NYC. Do you keep a dream journal of your own? Do you analyze your own dreams? Yes, I do. I've developed a habit, it's natural for me now. I write down all my dreams and try to analyze them. So, we must ask, do you ever dream about Celine? (Laughs) It happens sometimes. My theory is that every fan wants to meet the object of his/her adoration. At its deepest level, in the beginning, Celinedreams.com was a way to meet Celine in person. So the dreams of Celine I have are ones where I am meeting with her. It's a kind of wishful thinking. If you did ever realize your dream of meeting her one-on-one, what would you say? Probably nothing. How great she is, how I like her songs. It's all very trivial, right? The quest is so much more fun than the result. Maybe I'd ask her to tell me about one of her recent dreams, so I could interpret it and post it on my web site. How far does your love for Celine go back? I was on a business trip to Seoul, South Korea in 1995 or 1996. I saw one of Celine's videos for the first time. The song was called "It's All Coming Back To Me Now." I liked it and wanted to know more. Let's move forward 6 years. You want to differentiate your fan site from other Celine fan sites. You launch Celine Dreams in 2001. Any initial response? NOTHING. It was quiet for a long time. I thought maybe it was too weird a subject. I started by analyzing the actual dreams of Celine which I found in interviews with her. There were no fan dreams about Celine when the site started. I added the fan dream submission feature after I realized there was a limit to finding the actual dreams of Celine Dion. When did you get your first fan submission of a stranger's dream? The first fan dream submissions came after I posted a call at the end of 2001. You had some hubbub around your site in 2002-2003, after we wrote about it and other media outlets followed. How have you kept up the passion for the site over the past 4 or 5 years? Good question. A lot of major Celine fan sites burned out since that and I'm still here. I guess I'm still going because the concept was initially strong, I still like Celine, and I'm still interested in dreams. Plus, I still haven't met her. I suppose all these factors give me the energy to go on. How many fan dream submissions are you getting these days? I get a lot of crap (if I may say so) every day. People send me all sorts of stuff. I get about one or two real dreams a week. That brings up something we wanted to ask—How much of the coverage you've received and email you get are people "laughing at you" rather than "laughing with you"? I think "laughing at me" is actually a real driver of traffic to my site. Boards where people are "trashing" the site contribute probably to 5-10 percent of the entire traffic. Does it bother you? No, not at all. I think it's healthy. You do realize the site has a goofy concept? It is a goofy concept. At no time have I pretended that I'm doing a science project. The site is the fruit of passion and humor. Tell us about your day job as a photographer... I consider myself a portraitist. I love working with people, capturing people's stories and emotions. At the moment I'm working on a new series titled "Marilyn and I." I photographed fans of Marilyn Monroe next to one of her authentic dresses. It's going to be a book and an exhibition. Thanks Yuri! For the latest on what Yuri's up to, visit toroptsov.com
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