You could call it a questionable career move, but the hundreds of viewers on Ustream called it hilarious, and it was for a good cause.
On New Year’s Eve, Chris Pirillo played the role of “Subservient Chris,” parodying Burger King’s popular Subservient Chicken. The goal was to raise money for WyldRyde, the IRC network Pirillo uses for his live stream’s chat room.
While completing tasks for donators, such as singing songs, dancing, and pretending to be the Star Wars Kid, Pirillo told viewers he would put on his wife’s dress and dance if the total amount of funds raised reached $1,500.
WyldRyde received over $1,700 during the fundraiser, which began the night before, and Pirillo stayed true to his word. He put on a dress, make-up, and high heels, then danced to Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy.”
Pirillo’s stream reached 800 viewers towards the end of his cross-dressing antics, and many of them stayed for his computer giveaway.
Though WyldRyde greatly exceeded their 2007 goal with the funds raised, the non-profit organization is still approximately $1,000 shy of their 2008 goal.
If you’d like to donate to WyldRyde, visit their site and donate using PayPal or by mail.
Kina Grannis is an aspiring musician and songwriter participating in Doritos’ “Crash the Super Bowl” contest, in which voters determine which artist receives a contract with Interscope Records and gets to create a 60-second music video to be aired during the Super Bowl.
The voting is done on Crash the Super Bowl’s MySpace page, and all of the participants are free to campaign for votes.
Grannis, in a brilliant marketing move, looked to the popular social link-sharing site Digg to reach a new audience.
She created “Gotta Digg,” a song about the site, and posted a video of the song on YouTube. One of her friends submitted the video link to Digg, and in just 25 hours, the song received upwards of 3,500 diggs, becoming the most popular submission of the day.
Will it work?
So far, so good, it seems. The Digg community is abuzz with discussion about the song, praising Grannis’ vocals and songwriting skills. “Gotta Digg” has also made its way around the blogosphere, where many bloggers applauded Grannis’ ingenuity. If the positive comments translate into votes, Grannis has created a solid foundation for a fanbase.
Grannis is one of 10 semi-finalists, and three artists will move on to the finalist round. Voting for the current round ends on December 31, and the results will be revealed shortly afterwards.
Being a celebrity train wreck runs in the family. Jamie Lynn Spears, the 16-year-old sister of Britney Spears, announced she is pregnant.
The star of Nickelodeon’s Zoey 101 confirmed the news to OK! Magazine.
Spears is 12 weeks along, according to the Associated Press. After discovering the pregnancy, she kept the news to herself until just before Thanksgiving.
According to multiple sources, the father is 19-year-old Casey Aldridge, though Spears was not in a relationship when she revealed the pregnancy to her mother.
“I kind of just keep my options open,” Spears said. “I have a bunch of friends that I always hang out with, a bunch of guy friends.”
Zoey 101 will not be affected by Spears’ pregnancy. The show concluded filming for its fourth and final season in September. New episodes will run through 2008.
Nickelodeon issued a statement expressing support for the actress.
“We respect Jamie Lynn’s decision to take responsibility in this sensitive and personal situation. We know this is a very difficult time for her and her family, and our primary concern right now is for Jamie Lynn’s well being,” Nickelodeon said.
Aldridge’s mother also confirmed the news to TMZ, and expressed Aldridge’s preference to stay out of the limelight for now.
“At this point, Casey doesn’t wish to speak out,” she said, “but it would be wonderful when the time comes.”
Spears told OK! Magazine she plans to keep the baby.
Meanwhile, her mother’s parenting book has been put on hold.
Comcast, the United States’ largest cable television provider, has sued the National Football League, claiming it has been running a campaign encouraging football fans to cancel their cable subscriptions.
The NFL has been at odds with Comcast since the cable giant decided to move the NFL Network to a “sports entertainment package” for the 2007 season.
The league insists on their channel being available on basic cable packages, alongside channels such as ESPN, Comedy Central, and MTV. When Comcast relegated the NFL Network to a higher-tier package, the NFL began appealing to Comcast customers to complain to the cable provider.
Numerous e-mails from the NFL prodded fans to call Comcast if they did not want to pay $5 more per month to receive the NFL Network and encouraged them to demand the channel remain in a lower-tier package. The e-mails also suggested alternatives.
“Or, you have options: Call DISH NETWORK or DIRECTV and get NFL Network as part of their basic package of networks,” the e-mails read.
That didn’t sit well with Comcast.
Comcast explained the NFL wants to charge the cable provider 70 cents per month for every subscriber if the channel runs on a basic package. All Comcast customers would have to pay the fee, whether they want the channel or not.
“We bargained explicitly for the right to place the NFL Network on a sports tier because it is the best and fairest solution for all our customers,” said David L. Cohen, executive vice president of Comcast. “This decision means that our customers who are NFL fans will be able to watch the NFL Network without burdening those who are not NFL fans with extra costs.”
While both the NFL and Comcast claim to be fighting for the interests of their customers, football fans are the real losers in the squabble.
The NFL Network has provided numerous marquee matchups this season, including a much-hyped game between the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys. However, the channel is available in only 35 million of 111 million households with cable nationwide, much to the chagrin of Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys and head of the NFL Network committee.
“The cable companies are screwing with our fans, if you will,” Jones said, “and we’ve got to stop it.”
The internet has a way of connecting television audiences with their favorite shows like never before. A viewer can find bonus content that didn’t make it onto TV, discuss the happenings of a recent episode with fellow fans, and learn more about a show.
But the most striking connection between television and the internet is the fan’s ability to communicate and interact with the people they see on TV.
Stars such as Hayden Panettiere, of "Heroes" fame, and Zach Braff of "Scrubs," are easy to find on MySpace. Braff alone has over 300,000 MySpace friends. Although these actors, and many other stars, have likely never logged in to their MySpace profiles (having delegated a PR crony to manage the profile for them), it gives fans a feeling of interaction, and a forum for praise and criticism.
Panettiere provides exclusive content for her MySpace friends, updating her fans with what she’s "been up to" recently.
Fan interaction is a different beast, however, for reality TV stars. Suddenly, their fifteen minutes of fame lead to an often unwelcome invasion of their personal online lives. Without expensive public relations personnel to manage their web presence, participants on a reality TV show can suddenly find themselves feeling exposed.
A quick glance at message boards for various reality shows tells the story. Threads entitled "myspace?" are often a dime a dozen.
And someone always finds the MySpace pages.
CBS’s "Kid Nation" is a prime example. On the show’s message board on IMDb.com, there were five threads discussing MySpace profiles of the children on the show on the first page alone. Between those threads, links to the pages of nine different kids are provided.
Wisely, most of the kids, though not all of them, have set their profiles to "private," meaning someone must be added by them as a MySpace friend before the content of their page can be viewed. Most of them also require that someone who tries to add them as a friend knows either their last name or personal e-mail address. The show’s cast listing on sites like IMDb renders that layer of protection useless, however.
While some of the kids might relish their newfound fame, others are likely to loathe it. Unfortunately for those kids, setting your profile as private only hides whatever is on your own profile, not what you’ve put on others.
Two of the kids posted their phone numbers as comments on the profile of one of the other kids from the show who left their profile as publicly viewable.
Whoops.
A plethora of friend requests and messages from people you’ve never met (and probably don’t want to meet) is an annoyance. Getting phone calls from those same people is a mistake you’ll only make once.
But it isn’t all bad for reality TV stars. Some have the forethought to create a second profile for their fans, barren of sensitive personal information (which shouldn’t be publicly viewable in the first place). It gives the reality TV pseudo-celebrities the chance to interact, on their own terms, with the people who enjoyed watching them on TV.
The fans love it, too.