If you leave your car door unlocked, with the keys in the ignition, and your car is stolen, I don’t believe the crime is any less heinous.
Stealing is wrong, no matter the level of difficulty.
I read that somewhere recently and it resonated with me, reminding me of a Philadelphia story that speaks to the importance of old media, the power of social media and the future of them both.
Former Center City financial planner and current aspiring actor Arthur Kade has become a story. Since February, he has been chronicling the throes of his plight charging toward the spotlight through long, personally-involved and mildly misogynistic missives on his blog and in YouTube vidoes of increasingly cartoonish self-admiration.
He’ll lead posts with things like “My game with girls is so sick, but even I couldn’t get through the situation that I had to deal with last night…” and is getting attention for his Kade Scale for rating women.
HOW HE GOT HERE
Whether Joey Sweeney likes it or not, the brains behind Philadelphia culture blog Philebrity first gave the world Kade and has continued covering Kade. That led to Kade, who grew up in the Rhawnhurst neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia, taking the virtual tour of the Jersey Turnpike when New York’s Gawker took notice. As you might have guessed, a flood of other blogs then followed, yes including popular Hot Chicks with Douche Bags, though the site doesn’t have permalinks. He spent 45 minutes on the Danny Bonaduce nationally syndicated radio show.
What thrust him from Web 2.0 quasi fame to a degree of Philly regional mainstream attention was the profile of him and his plight in this month’s Philadelphia magazine — broken by freelance writer Brian Hickey, who himself had quite a tale in the mag.
Last week, he was an attention grabber for an otherwise anonymous fashion show in a city not known for its fashion shows, and then he was the focus of a rather aggressively named Q&A with the popular city blog Phawker. The final regional touch came with an appearance on a smaller TV news outlet — though it, too, proved critical.
But, what, pray, does this all mean?
Is distribution king, not content?