Touching the void - the new celebrities of nothing

Were it not for the magic of Twitter off-shoot Tweeting Too Hard, it’s possible that this cream of human evolution may never have had the chance to rise to the top. For those not in the know, Tweeting Too Hard is a website which collates the most vacuous, egotistical, self-important utter wank-brains, who every day offer up their 140 character parcels of self-congratulatory wisdom to the world in the strange belief that anything they say or think will be of use or interest to anyone other than themselves.

Tweeting Too Hard has proved to me a suspicion I have always held, that the world truly is chocked to the ozone layer with idiots, but I’ve never had the means or the bad fortune to meet any of them. If Louis Armstong were to pen his classic ballad today, Satchmo would most likely croon: “And I think to myself, it’s a wonderful world… but deadset, it’s full of tools, too.” Now thanks to Twitter, fortune and means are no longer an issue. Let’s take a peek at a few crackers:

@serafinowicz
When I look up at the night sky and think about the billions of stars out there, I think to myself: I’m amazing.

@therealdjclue
At the Hottest, Newest..Exclusive club in Ny rite now. I could tell u the name and where..But u couldn’t get in Anyway..So why Bother!

@babesmcphee
it’s so life-affirming when the poor fall in love.

Sure, gems like these are impressive to say the least, but for consistency, potency, and hilarity, none of these were even a blip on the radar compared to Arthur Kade. His tweets were works of fine art, and if you were like to gaze loftily at Kade’s particular Twitter encrusted Sistine Chapel, it would look something like this:

People don’t realize the effort that goes into getting perfect pictures. I have had times where a look was so hot, I just look amazing.

People want to see the ups & downs of a rising star that is not interested in just being a celebrity, but a world class human leading man.

I just hired an acting coach (Pat Jordan of Philadelphia) and I could tell she was shocked by my good looks and innate acting ability.

I’m on a self-imposed drought right now, mostly because I don’t want to waste my time with less than a perfect 10.

I am a savior, a god to people who sit at their desk all day, hate their lives, & want to jump off a roof because they are so miserable.

It quite literally never ends. It is all killer, no filler. Reading Kade’s Twitter page is like listening to Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. It’s so good that you think it’s a greatest hits album, but it’s not. It’s just Lindsay, Stevie, Mick, Christine and the other dude, basing out another studio record, unaware of the genius they are about to unleash onto an unsuspecting public. Kade’s Rumours is hit after hit of non-stop all-time naval-gazing number 1s. As one commenter put it, “Man, Arthur really is some kind of event horizon of narcissism. Full reverse! Don’t look or discuss or else you will be sucked in!”

Well sir, save me a chez-lounge in the vortex, because I literally cannot get enough of this guy. As far as I’m concerned, when it comes to the famous-for-nothing genre, Arthur Kade IS the zeitgeist. He is 100%, pure as the driven snow, Columbian-grade ego. He’s so far into his own ego I think he is the only person on the planet whose ego has its own ego. And every day, that ego wakes up, looks its own ego in the mirror and says, “Kade, it doesn’t get any better than you. And do you know how I know? Because I’m you. And together, we are THE BEST”.

The back story, like it matters, is of a financial adviser in Philadelphia who hung up his calculator to pursue a dream of what currently appears to be male modelling, but what Kade would have as becoming “the fastest rising actor and author in decades”. Think Patrick Bateman from American Psycho (without the killing spree) trying to be Derek Zoolander trying to be Dustin Hoffman. And for some unknown reason, the rise seems to be working. Rabid fans and foes, radio interviews, magazine spreads - Kade is riding the crest of his 15 minutes of lame. As Arthur puts it:

One person asked me yesterday “You think you’re 15 minutes are up yet?”, I responded with “I am going on 2 hours already, and it’s only going to get bigger, because I can do this better than anyone.

Sorry, Arthur. Exactly what do you do better than anyone? No one seems to know what the “this” is. I don’t know if Kade even knows what it is. More importantly, for the famous-for-nothing genre, it’s actually better that way. Knowing your “this” means you may have talent, and any hint of talent is only detrimental to your cause of becoming the best at absolutely nothing.

Deep down, well as deep as you can go when your emotional ocean is a puddle, Kade is really betting the house on Hollywood. There is a video on his website where Kade shows off the range and emotional depth he has mastered with his acting coach by assuming John Travolta’s career reviving role of Vincent Vega in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. (Clip contains some coarse language.)

The transformation is so unrecognisable its almost like you’re waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out from behind a wall, run straight up to the camera and yell “You’ve been Punk’d!” It’s such a non-event, that it really hits the no-talent nail square on the head, and to me solidifies his position as the unrivalled hero of the zeros.

Though you might think I’m painting Kade in an extremely negative light in some sort of jealous fit, by very definition of what he is, I need to make it clear that I do not hold any hate for him in the slightest. Due to the fact that I believe he is behaving purely out of his own beliefs and values, as ridiculous or offensive as they may be, there is absolutely no malice in anything he ever says or does.

Sure, there’s supreme ignorance, and his detractors will surely hang him out to dry for that, but while he’s not really hurting anyone but possibly himself, then it’s no foul, no harm. I mean, it’s not like he’s a former Texan leader of the free world with access to the big red button that could kill us all now is he? Only a nation of absolute morons could allow someone of Kade’s ignorance and idiocy to reach the position of the highest office in the land. But surely that could never happen.

What? It did? Twice you say? Oh.

But, dear readers and on-the-cusp Kadeites, herein lies my fear. Are we all being Punk’d? Surely the rule is when something seems too good to be true, it usually is. In this post Chk-Chk-Boom world, where it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s utter horse plop, you can be forgiven for being a hundred times bitten, a thousand times shy when it comes to anything the media serves up, especially when the internet is involved.

Is Kade Andy Kaufman back from the grave? Is he part of the Joaquin-Phoenix-quits-acting-to-become-shithouse-rapper conspiracy theory? Or is it just another happy accident where the internet has somehow served up a complete wally whose own niche in being nothing but somehow knowing how to successfully market the void means that by some miracle they may actually make it?

If this is a hoax, and in fact Arthur Kade is not real, then the silver lining in this particular cloud is that we are bearing witness to THE GREATEST SATIRICAL CHARACTER ACTOR OF OUR TIME. Period. If that turns out to be true, the man behind Arthur Kade will make Sascha Baron Cohen look like a pantomime actor, and I don’t think Sasha would object to that appraisal. Joyfully for you and I, as innocent bystanders in all of this, the message is simply this - we cannot lose.

Whether Kade ends up on the heights of Oprah or the lows of Springer, or whether he’s thrust back into the vacuum once he realises that maybe you need more than just looks, a copy of The Secret, and being American to gain global respect, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. For now all we can do is wish him well, and hope that he never gains even a hint of self awareness that would render his incessant musings boring and give us nothing to laugh at during these harsh and depressing economic times.

Failing that, I’m sure there’ll be another dickhead rising through the ranks any day now, so don’t stress too much.

You’ve done it again internet, you’ve done it again.