After reading Download This: YouTube Phenom Has a Big Secret by Ethan Smith and Peter Lattman and finding out that my Boston Sports Santa Claus was fake, I realized something: For better or for worse, I root for the “unknown amateur makes it big due to the web.”

Digby’s Sellers
(If you got that reference, I want to know)

The article details 24-year-old singer Marié Digby, whose YouTube videos have gained a massive following. Her acoustic rendition of the song “Umbrella” (of which I am completely unfamiliar) was featured on MTV’s “The Hills” (of which I am familiar in name and description only. I’m told it’s about rich young women in California that don’t really do anything, but are famous nonetheless. And they fight too.)

Anyway, back to the point.

The Journal article goes on to show that Digby’s amateur image is just that: an image. Not reality.

From the article:

Ms. Digby’s simple, homemade music videos of her performing popular songs have been viewed more than 2.3 million times on YouTube. Her acoustic-guitar rendition of the R&B hit “Umbrella” has been featured on MTV’s program “The Hills” and is played regularly on radio stations in Los Angeles, Sacramento and Portland, Ore. Capping the frenzy, a press release last week from Walt Disney Co.’s Hollywood Records label declared: “Breakthrough YouTube Phenomenon Marié Digby Signs With Hollywood Records.”

What the release failed to mention is that Hollywood Records signed Ms. Digby in 2005, 18 months before she became a YouTube phenomenon. Hollywood Records helped devise her Internet strategy, consulted with her on the type of songs she chose to post, and distributed a high-quality studio recording of “Umbrella” to iTunes and radio stations.

What Makes This Dishonest?

Again, from the aricle:

In an Aug. 16 blog posting on her MySpace page, Ms. Digby wrote: “I NEVER in a million years thought that doing my little video of Umbrella in my living room would lead to this . tv shows, itunes, etc !!!”

and

The artist and her label say there’s nothing untoward about the campaign. In interviews, Ms. Digby and executives at the company describe her three-month string of successes as part of a lengthy process of laying the groundwork for the upcoming release of her debut album.

Ms. Digby says she doesn’t mention her record label on her Web sites because “I didn’t feel like it was something that was going to make people like me.”

The Kid From Boston

Two months ago, I was introduced to TownieNews.com and Paul “Fitzy” Fitzgerald. The site is updated weekly with a video webcast from “Fitzy”, a Boston-native and Boston-sports fanatic.

I thought the webcasts were so funny that I began sending links to all my friends. In July, while at a wedding, I had a hotel room full of 15 people crowded around my laptop watching all 48 episodes of the TownieNews webcast.

Weeks later, while searching for any Fitzy webcast I may have missed, my heart sank when I saw this cnn/AP article entitled “Go ahead, post that dumb video online, you could get some work”:

Nick Stevens had a decent life as a comedian in New York, supporting himself with acting and writing gigs on TV and radio. But things got more interesting after he launched a zero-budget video blog in his living room. Called TownieNews.com, it features rants by fictional Boston sports nut Paul “Fitzy” Fitzgerald.

Fitzy developed such an online following that a Boston TV station, believing he was real, called to set up an interview. (Stevens set the reporters straight.) The blog also got noticed by the people at Heavy.com, who hired Stevens to host their regular “SportsCenter” takeoff known as “The Burly Sports Show.” Stevens plays himself, more or less, but Fitzy appears as a character.

Stevens, 33, says he lives pretty well on what he gets paid to do two of the online episodes every week — which sometimes amazes him.

“The guy who was buying his coffees with nickels and dimes in 2003 and having beans on toast for lunch is very thankful,” he says. “The Web is great. The single greatest distraction from employment is also the single greatest enabler of employment.”

Why Does This Feel Wrong?

I think there are three reasons why the “false amateur” feels so wrong:

1. We don’t want to feel duped- This is especially true about bloggers in my opinion. We don’t want to be “taken” or fooled. It makes us feel stupid and embarrassed.

2. We want to believe we’re one idea away- The web has made celebrities out of regular people, and billionaires out of ham and eggers. Or at least that’s what we want to believe. There is something optimistic about the web; there is a feeling of opportunity here. I think that many people are hungry for examples of “amateur has idea, takes it to the web, makes it big.”

3. There’s an intent to mislead- The people behind these “let’s pretend you’re an amateur” campaigns implicitly believe that the general public is stupid, and that they can get away with being intentionally dishonest.

Everything about the false amateur feels wrong to me, but I have to ask myself: Should I blame the companies for trying to lie and manipulate? Or should I blame myself for wanting to believe?