Britney defender courted by TV executives

The guy who made the “Leave Britney Alone” video, which has generated almost 8 million hits on YouTube in its first week, may be getting his own reality TV show. Variety magazine reported this week that 19-year-old Chris Crocker, who lives with his grandparents in Tennessee, has signed a deal with 44 Blue Productions. “It’s going to pretty much be the ‘Chris Crocker experience,’” said 44 Blue president/co-founder Rasha Drachkovitch. “We consider him a rebel character that people will find interesting. He’s going to be a star.”

“I guess anyone can get their own television show these days,” said Christina Trischetti in CinemaBlend.com. But you have to admit: Crocker’s video was “priceless.” And whether or not his tears were real doesn’t even matter. “His little two-minute rant over Britney has made him famous. Great tactic! I wish I thought of it first.”

“This sounds like one of those ideas that everyone involved with will soon wish never occurred to them,” said Simon Vozick-Levinson on Entertainment Weekly’s PopWatch blog. But maybe that’s “just my envy of the entertainment industry’s radiant future talking.” Seriously, though, does anyone really hope that “Crocker’s show makes it out of development?”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Crocker has been a YouTube sensation for a while now, said Eli Sanders in The Stranger several months before the Britney video. He’s a very captivating person. “He is a train wreck of marginal characteristics—effeminate, Southern, flamboyantly gay at a young age, uncensored—and they make it hard to stop watching.” He’s “trapped in a stifling Southern town that he hates, and which seems to hate him.”