Be a Star

Comments (0) By Michael Leaverton Wednesday, Feb 16 2011

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It started with this shit: "I didn't live to be 73 years old so I could eat kale. Don't fix me your breakfast and pretend you're fixing mine." This line of shit (we intend not as much disrespect as you think) was tweeted on Aug. 3, 2009, when people could still believe what they read on Twitter. The quote came from Justin Halpern's dad, and very soon Justin and his Shit My Dad Says feed was thrust into the quick-burning trash fire of new media deal-making, a screamy temp drive filled with e-mails from your mom, stuff white people like, and fucking hipsters. By October 2009, Halpern had a publishing deal (which resulted in a book topping the New York Times bestseller list last June). By November, he had a TV deal (which resulted in some bleeping shit now airing Thursdays at 8:30 p.m., reportedly; one day we'll watch that shit to make sure). Most impressive of all, the 29-year-old had begun signing contracts after just a pittance of tweets, no more than 50, the amount Roger Ebert knocks off before lunch. How'd he do it? Demand answers tonight, as he appears in conversation with Dan Wolf, with a post-talk show by Conspiracy of Beards. A bit of advice, though: Forget about Twitter. Twitter-to-book is dead, but we have it on terrible authority that the Foursquare-to-HBO genre is just being hatched in some idiot producer's head right now, like at a bar somewhere, so start checking in at some sexy places and build out your brand. Note: Halpern was a semisuccessful magazine and comedy writer before his big break, so do something like that, too.
Sun., Feb. 27, 7 p.m., 2011