TKOG Who makes those reporters swoon

The lovely Amy of Just A Titch was awesome enough to post an interview with me today as part of her Start Fresh Summer series. Check it out to read a little about the life dream I threw away, why I’m less of an asshole now, and thoughts about how to scrap your so-so life and start fresh!

On List Addicts, embarrassing early-aughts hiphop I physically cannot stop myself from listening to on repeat.

NTKOG #204: The kind of suave, adorable attention whore whose daily soundbytes qualify — in her own mind at least — as capital-N News.

I am: tolerably amusing in bite-size chunks, some have suggested. However…

I am not: super into thrusting my name into the semi-literary world in any milieu less masturbatory than my fetal fiction career.

The Scene: My tiny apartment office, transformed for a few weeks into a cutthroat all-publicity-is-good-publicity (diet)coked-up PR maelstrom. There are bloggers out there, I’ve heard, who want to get famous — and bully for them, I say, but this dude just wants to write. However, for just a few days, I had a singular goal: to slide my words or, god willing, smiling mug under the face of every semi-literate man, woman and gender dysphoric warrior in America.

Considered and promptly rejected the idea of emailing terse, over-hyped press releases about myself to cranky Conde Nast interns. But how else to infiltrate the media? Guerrilla newspaper stuffing? Hacking TMZ’s Photoshop programs? Uh, sky-writing?

Enter Help A Reporter Out: a service that pairs stressed-out reporters with aspiring journalistic starfuckers with no aim greater than seeing their own names in print. Perfect! Signed up for the site and sat back to let the offers roll in.

Good news about HARO: the service sends out three digest emails a day — as well as several last-minute tweets — specifying exactly what sort of sources they need and, where applicable, exactly which opinions the reporters need to hear before the paper goes to bed.

Less good news: unless you’re a paleontology-certified personal trainer willing to give five sentences about the economic implications of Mr. T’s social relevance, you might have your work cut out sifting through offers.

However, within two months, I’d achieved my goal of becoming a media darling. Sort of.

Current tally: several quotes in a super-bourg Boston Globe article, which hilariously referred to me as a nascent socialite (um, dudes, I don’t even own a hair dryer); a quote in a national women’s magazine, in which I discuss a sexual mishap that caused me to compare my escaped NuvaRing to a “gooey hula hoop”; a quote and PICTURE in — honest to god, guys — a NATIONAL BEAUTY MAGAZINE.

The Verdict: Apparently the (sweet, extremely awesome) reporters I’ve worked with are really emphasizing the darling aspect of my new media darling persona. Judging by the press, I’m a glamorous, sexually adventurous socialista. But, uh, last time I checked, I’m still the same old grungy, celibate socialist. Now with a few extra-hilarious google results after my name.

That said, I’ve stayed in contact with a few writers from said national beauty magazine, and periodically send ‘em more hilarious, unprintable soundbytes that — weirdly — sometimes get printed. So even if it isn’t my key to journalistic superstardom, at the very least, it’s an entertaining new hobby. You should try it too, if you’re so inclined. Then we can trade Talking Head business cards and share a throaty chuckle at the grim lots of those poor schmucks who don’t fritter away their lives as amateur media darlings.

Tagged as: fameball, help a reporter out, i have nothing against trying-to-be famous bloggers but my bias is obviously with trying-to-be-writers writers, ladies who have nuva ring you know what i'm talking about with the gooey hula hoop thing, media darling, narcissist, no seriously never give me your business card -- i just use 'em to clean under my nails, obviously i won't tell you which magazines. remember that time this blog was anonymous? OH WAIT IT IS STILL THOSE TIMES.