Voice of Turkish vocal actor becomes worldwide sensation

By Ozan Efeoglu

ADANA, Türkiye (AA) - A Turkish vocal actor has become a global phenomenon as the voice of artificial intelligence on the social media app TikTok.

Mehmet Selli, who has started to take an interest in the art of voice acting at a young age, resigned from his post in the country's civil service and now works full-time performing Turkish voiceovers in 60 countries, including the US, UK, Brazil, Vietnam, China, Russia, and Australia.

"I sent Turkish voiceovers to 60 countries. In order to present their products to the Turkish market, the brands especially want Turkish voiceovers for their promotional films. Turkish is a sought-after and demanded language," Selli told Anadolu Agency.

Selli said that with the increase in social media usage, demand for voiceovers has also increased.

"This may be surprising, but there is a need for Turkish voiceovers all over the world. When a company advertises or prepares a training course, it also specifically prefers Turkish. Brands are doing business in the Turkish market. The market is very good here, people use every technological product," he said.

Selli underlined the voice's role as a human instrument and that it should be used in the best way possible, expressing his love for his job and desire to continue voice acting.

"I was chosen as the voice for TikTok's artificial intelligence. Now, a lot of content can be produced through a program that uses my voice without me reading (anything). Artificial intelligence has brought a different tone to the industry, it can't fully reflect natural speech yet, but it's still very successful," said Selli.

"There are organizations that need a lot of voiceovers and want to get them quickly. This is a good example for them. I voiced texts of 2,000 sentences in this artificial intelligence voice. Every shade and vignette of my voice was taken and passed through software. Thanks to that software, they can now make me speak without me."