Who needs Match.com when you're a Citizen Marketer?

During Jackie Huba's visit to class, we focused a lot on the idea the "Citizen" marketer. Obviously, as this is the name of Jackie's book, it constitutes a great deal of what her presentation includes, but the idea stuck with me. While we can often think of an average Joe blogging about Wal-Mart, or Southwest Airlines employees airing their corporate concerns, it is not as often that we recall an individual simply trying to market themselves.

Sure, a band will market itself in order to ascertain a record deal, an actress will make a youtube video posing as a young girl in order to gain exposure, and a distressed fan will create a youtube phenomenon begging us to "leave Britney aloooooooone!", parodied here. An article on New York's Gothamist Blog turned me onto a media and marketing phenomenon that I found to be fascinating. Channeling nearly every romantic comedy ever made, young Patrick Moberg took to the internet to find the girl of his dreams. No, not through the pains of internet dating. Moberg hoped to find one specific girl.

The article began like this:

"With Craigslist becoming ever-increasingly creepy, this smitten young man has gone and purchased his own URL to find the girl he ogled on the subway last night."

His purchased URL, NYgirlofmydreams.com, hosted only one image, a drawing of the subway encounter, complete with details of the mystery woman's floral hair accessories, clothing, and journal writing hobby.

Moberg's quest became a phenomenon in the New York area. A city of singles, as coined by Carrie Bradshaw, was suddenly infatuated by this seemingly dorky, American Apparel-clad kid who was too embarrassed to talk to a girl on the subway, yet not so embarrassed that he couldn't devote webspace to tracking her down. Articles began to pop up all over New York's blogosphere, detailing Moberg's quest, hoping to locate the girl, and even questioning his authenticity. Dubbed "the subway cyrano", Moberg, with the help of other blogs like Gawker and Blackbook Magazine, was able to eventually identify his Manhattan Transit love connection. Blackbook outed her as one of their very own interns, an Aussie named Camille.

Within days, the two were booked on Good Morning America, which apparently was requested, and to be reported, by Diane Sawyer herself. The segment, upping the romance factor (or ick factor?), introduced the story with a backdrop of romantic movie clips coupled with sappy music.



I highly suggest you give it a watch. It really highlights the sensationalizing power of the media. You really believe that Diane Sawyer wants this to be the next Meg Ryan classic. Since the story aired, Moberg has changed his website's front page to read "In our best interest, there will be no more updates to this site", leaving us to complete the story on our own. Finish it as you may, but a Brooklyn writer drafted his own version of how the media-fueled story played out, which, in it's doomed last line states "For now Patrick is alone in their dressing room. The whole place reeks of Camille’s flowers, her goddamn flowers." Diane Sawyer would be crushed.