Jakarta24 recently had the pleasure of interviewing Sarah Jane. “Sarah who?” you ask. Well, if you’re one of the millions who regularly log on to her hottish website, you’ll most certainly know. Or if you’re a racing car / bike freak who has lived in Australia recently, you’ll probably have heard of her too. Or if you’re partial to the odd Chiko Roll, you may remember her. Chiko Roll?? OK forget about Chiko Rolls – that’s another story. The point is, if you’ve not one of the above; let Jakarta24 introduce you to Sarah Jane.

Sarah Jane claims to be the Internet’s most downloaded woman. I n 2001, Sarah Jane was hit on (computer-wise) about two and a half million times over a 24-hour period – 70,000 times in 37 minutes so the legend goes. She now plods along at a steady three million hits a week. So how did – does – she do it? For starters she has all those well-placed items necessary - including shoulder length blonde hair - to become one of the Internet’s favourite gals. And her attire is mostly minimalist although, it must be said, she is attired. And perhaps there’s an extremely clever computer geek sweating it out in the background somewhere.

But J24 is not interested in the physical dimensions of a person, no matter how well they’re put together – we’re interested in personalities. And how much can a collection of low-res pics on a computer screen tell you about a person? Not much. So I got right up close and personal with the high resolution, 3-D Sarah Jane. Okay, okay then – I had a coffee with her in a very public place and I knocked the sugar over and generally made a fool of myself. But she did allow me to ask a whole lot of questions and she even answered a few of them.

After talking for a while, the first thing that comes across is that, despite all the glamour puss stuff, this girl is a bit of a tomboy at heart. Born between two boys it was “either join in or get left out of the loop completely” so she developed a passion for motor sports, followed the football and other supposedly boy stuff. This didn’t mean she just hung around with the boys. She had a good mixture of friends of both sexes but admits that she didn’t get into all that mad dating stuff and her relationships with the boys was platonic. “I was the last in my class to be kissed” she admited. Mmm. Sounds like my teenage years – and a good part of my adult life – so I can relate to that.

Upon leaving school, Sarah Jane’s ambition was to build a career around helping the poor, downtrodden and the less endowed so she headed to Melbourne and became a model. There she was moderately successful, getting enough modeling work and becoming a member of a three-girl band, the Sirens. Her big break though, came when she landed the role as the Chiko Roll chick. Okay, we’re back to the Chiko Roll. The Chiko Roll is a deep fried fast food item, a large spring roll about six inches long and an inch and a half in diameter. Its big advantage, over and above being vaguely edible, is that it can be held securely in one hand allowing the other hand free to hold other objects – like anything containing beer. This appealed to the average Australian male’s sense of ergonomics making the Chiko Roll a success Down Under.
This particular Chiko Roll campaign was very controversial which turned out to be a big plus for all involved. Sarah Jane was pictured sitting on a motorbike, suitably under-attired, legs akimbo, clutching a Chiko Roll (I’m not sure what the other hand was doing). Protests ensued – Fundamentalists, Women’s Libbers and probably People Against the Phallicization of Foodstuffs – and eventually the offending billboards were replaced with something less provocative. But Sarah Jane was now on the map.

While the Chico ad saw her cut from the Sirens band – “according to the manager my image wasn’t right” – her career as a media personality took off. She became heavily involved in promoting her passion, motor sports, guested on various TV shows including Beauty and the Beast, and became the No. 1 member of the Western Bulldogs Football Club (usually reserved for pollies and the like). She also discovered she had a talent for painting, going on to exhibit her cartoonesque artwork at several venues.

But in 2001, most of her energy was directed towards getting in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s most downloaded woman (over a 24-hour period). To do this she had to challenge the record holder – an over jugged American who would make a great ad for the next two World Cups. The Brits, God bless them, also challenged (in order “to stop the Aussies winning everything”) and entered 72-year-old Nora Batty. Sarah Jane, according to her people, smashed all previous records. It’s not sure how many hits British Nora got – or even if she had the ability to survive more than a few.

Unfortunately for Sarah, the Guinness people were by now tiring of the challenges and counter-challenges of these download divas and decided to hit the delete button on the whole issue, citing the lack of any standard measurement as the reason. Still it was all very exciting stuff for Sarah and as far as she is concerned, she is the Internet’s Download Queen.
Sarah Jane is currently in Jakarta, forgoing fame and fortune in her home country to follow her partner. And you can’t keep a good woman down – she’s now itching to get involved in Jakarta’s media world. Perhaps she could challenge Inul for the Queen of Dangdut title. Now that would be interesting.