Chapter 65 – Does Online Popularity Translate into the Real World?
by Leesa Dean
Hmmmm. This week a few big YouTube and Vine personalities failed spectacularly as live-streamed red carpet hosts of the Daytime Emmys. I watched videos of it and their “hosting” skills were embarrassing. They made dumb, seriously distasteful racist and rape jokes, admitted on camera that they never heard of any of the people they were interviewing (who were nominated for awards) although they had time to prep, told awful stale jokes mostly mugged for the camera and, just in general, sucked the big one. Worse, a number of them tweeted after and were bitter, unapologetic and unprofessional. One of them even wrote: “Your opinion < my dog’s left nut.” Way to be classy!
Apparently, a few weeks before the ceremony the NATAS (the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences) issued a casting call for social media mavens to host and, specifically, the organizers wanted millennials between the ages of 18-35 who have a very strong social media following (300,000 followers minimum). The organizers, stupidly, thought, a big social media following will translate into more viewers and publicity.
Boy were they wrong.