To quote Kashana Cauney, in the future everyone will be canceled for 15 minutes.
Jered "Threatin" Eames is a mediocre singer-songwriter who booked a European tour by buying a fake following on social media, establishing fake promoters and labels, and hiring some cool kids to be his backing band. He fooled a bunch of places in the UK and Ireland into letting him rent their venues, but didn't count for the fact that they all talk to each other and have their own significant online platforms. It all unraveled spectacularly and horribly on the internet after Threatin played to a couple of empty halls, but now the media wants, for its own reasons, to help the faker make it. Cue extensive, fascinating profiles from the BBC and Rolling Stone.
In my conversation with the couple, they quickly admitted the hoax. … he had something he was eager to show me – a series of emails that he said he sent out under yet another alias, a Gmail account belonging to “E. Evieknowsit”.
“URGENT: News tip,” the subject line read.
“The musician going by the name Threatin is a total fake. He faked a record label, booking agent, facebook likes, and an online fanbase to book a European tour. ZERO people are coming to the shows and it is clear that his entire operation is fake,” he wrote, including links to all his phoney websites.
“Please don’t let this man fake his way to fame… Please Expose him.” …
“I manufactured my own destruction,” he said proudly. “My idea was, how am I going to fill these empty rooms? I’m going to fill them with eyes from the digital world. That was the objective from the beginning.”
I was going to complain about the BBC and Rolling Stone getting suckered into this game, and maybe get suckered into it a bit myself, but you know what? I have an uncanny feeling that his wife, Kelsey, is incredibly talented.
