While it may be a little premature to start calling Tay Allyn the next Rebecca Black based solely on her video for “Mass Text” this morning, it’s turned out to have been a wild trip down the rabbit hole since then. I imagine many of you saw her video this morning and wondered, “Good Lord, where do they make people like this?”
For those of you who answered “Los Angeles” or “Drama School,” congratulations, you’re both right! On the same YouTube channel that hosts her “Mass Text” video can be found her magic-themed 2011 commencement speech to the USC School of Theater (posted to YouTube February 2013), which she began by pulling a wand out of her cleavage and casting a Harry Potter-ish spell, naturally. If this isn’t staged it might be the most “Theater Majors Gonna Theater” thing I’ve ever seen. Here’s an excerpt:
“I chose to bring our class together with a magic spell, because I truly believe that our class has created the magic of theater, and the magic of friendship.
Magic uses precisely defined actions to achieve an other-worldly experience. Precisely defined action – isn’t that what Joe Hacker is always telling us when we’re bumbling around trying to find meaning in a film script?! It’s so true though, I truly believe that magic and theater correlate. We have all spent the last four years here learning how to focus our amazing creativity and passion to literally create a new world that only existed before on paper!”
How does she have so much energy?! If they had an energy drink called “Theater Kid” I would chug it every time I had to operate heavy machinery. And it would be cheap, because theater kids are plentiful. Much smaller carbon footprint than coconut water.
Then she starts crying (sort of) at the 4:12 mark, and it’s hard to tell if it’s genuine, because it seems like she’d been in character the whole time. Either that or she’s a real-life Tinkerbell.
In any case, this is probably pretty eye-opening for the non-arts majors out there, so go ahead and take a minute if you need. After the jump, Tay’s acting reel, which begins with the line “My favorite animal is the meerkat.”
You know Tay Allyn had to have put both these videos here on her YouTube page in the hopes that we’d find them after watching “Mass Text.” Which, according to Josh Kurp, has a bunch of info about Justin Timberlake and MySpace choosing her a top artist of 2013 which, as far as any of us can tell seems to be completely made up.
So, what do you think, viral marketing stunt? (By the way, thanks for sucking the magic and wonder out of everything, viral marketing). Hard to tell thus far, but I get the feeling she’s more like the new James Franco than the new Rebecca Black. If so, I need a cigarette, because that’s the best I’ve been dicknosed in a long time.