Thursday, November 15, 2007

10 seconds of fame on faux business

Updated because I forgot to include a part of the conversation

Walking back from a meeting yesterday afternoon, I got stopped by a small film crew on 6th ave. Curious, I paused to hear their pitch. A microphone-wielding producer asked if I had a financial question for a "man on the street segment" they do for a show on the Fox Business channel. I don't remember the name.

Fortunately, I'd read reddit that morning, so I had the perfect question subject. She had some pretty simple instructions (these are not exact quotes):

"Just say your name and ask your question; the whole thing shouldn't take more than a few seconds."

"Sure."

"OK. Go."

"Now?"

"Yes. Now."

"Oh, OK."

"..."

"Hi, this is Alexis, I read this on reddit.com, but apparently Jay-Z is now using Euros and not U.S. dollars in his latest music video. Does that mean the U.S. economy is going to hell?"

"That was great, but don't say where you got it from."

"You don't want me to source it?"

"Right. You can't do that."

"Of course I can't. To be fair, the actual article was from a blog -- I just can't remember the name."

"Good. OK, one more time without the source."

"Hi, this is Alexis, I read this on reddit.com, but apparently Jay-Z is now using Euros and not U.S. dollars in his latest music video. Does that mean the U.S. economy is going to hell?"

"You just said the exact same thing."

"Yes."

"We're just going to edit it out unless you say it right, so please do it again without mentioning the website."

"Fine."

"OK, go ahead."

"Hi, this is Alexis... umm, apparently Jay-Z is now using Euros and not U.S. dollars in his latest music video. Does that mean the U.S. economy is going to hell?"

"Perfect. It'll be on tonight at 6."

"Oh? I'll tell my parents. They'll be really proud of me."

I tried my best to make sure my mom was able to tune in, but it was all for naught -- she'd been watching normal Fox news. So if any of you come across this very brief segment on YouTube or elsewhere, please send me a link so I can show my parents. You did such a good job tracking down our bobblehead, I figured crowdsourcing* was worth another shot.



*Fun fact: I just learned today that this word was invented by WIRED. Most people have to pay $.10 every time it's used, but since I'm an employee, I can use it all the time (in fact, I get $.05 when I use it!). Crowdsourcing, crowdsourcing, crowdsourcing.