By: Sam Ford, PepperDigital
Of all the pop culture phenomena that have sprung up over the past year, none have astounded me quite as deeply as Arthur Kade. For those not familiar, Kade is a former financial adviser who left his career amidst the financial meltdown to pursue his quest to be an actor. In the process, Kade set out on what he has self-labeled "The Journey" and has used social media, most prominently his blog, to share every step along the way. According to Philadelphia Magazine, Kade's blog is "equal parts diary, public exhibition and, in the eyes of many, train wreck. It has made him a cult hero -- or, more accurately, villain -- not only here in Philadelphia, but, as ridiculous as it sounds, around the world."
Kade's extreme hubris about the quality of his acting and his career-to-be, the excessive hyperbole about his looks, and his continuously degrading sexual remarks about women have gained the attention of Web sites from Gawker to Jezebel. Most of all, people are left wondering whether Kade is chronicling his foray into acting or whether the blog itself is the work of art, an elaborate scripted reality show he has developed for himself, and is living.
I first learned of Kade's existence late last spring, having dinner with a friend in New Jersey. At the time, Kade's ridiculous chronicles of his "journey" were circulating throughout the blogosphere, and my friend had become quite addicted to following the unfolding narrative. Some might call Kade a "viral phenomenon" and his blog a piece of content that infected anyone and everyone who stumbled across it, who then had to share it with the world. However, while I'm sure many readers of Kade's blog would find quite a few connections between the character who is Arthur Kade and an entity that induces stomach retching, I don't believe there's anything magical in Kade's approach that brainwashed people into turning him into what Gawker calls an "F-List Celebrity."
As many of you know, I am working on a book project at the moment with Henry Jenkins and Joshua Green called "spreadable media," looking at how and why people spread content online. Kade's genius is in creating a character and putting out a steady stream of content that speaks to hot-button issues for people. By embodying the worst stereotypes of reality television personalities, he's become an online, "real-life," "real time" character that an audience can follow, curse, ridicule--and, in the process, turn into a star. Kade has been profiled by publications and Web sites not only across the U.S. but increasingly across the globe. Celebrity sites have discussed his ridiculous excesses. Entertainment fans have assessed his acting abilities. Women's groups have debated his many offenses.
And, he's been named in Urban Dictionary as...well..."Supreme Douche of the Universe" (and that's among the nicer descriptions). In other words, Kade's reputation has been built because a wide variety of online communities saw him as a character embodying issues they wanted to discuss (reality television/acting, female empowerment, Philadelphia culture, Internet celebrity, etc.). And Kade's success came from providing regular fodder for those people's conversations.