Ronald Jenkees, a Real Character

The Sports Guy has drawn my attention to the latest freak vlogger: Ronald Jenkees. Beebee890, DaxFlame, and Ronald Jenkees are not quite taking over YouTube, but they represent a decent-sized niche within the YouTube ecosphere. DaxFlame is #32 on all-time most subscribed list, and Jenkees is #50 on all-time most subscribed musicians.

Mainstream press and/or Digg picks up on these guys, and that gets them their initial boom in subscribers. The Sports Guy and Digg brought attention to Ronald, and G4 did something on DaxFlame (to which he angrily responded). All it takes is one member of the mainstream media to reference one of them, and then they become discussion topics. Their freak appeal takes it from there.

So, is he socially awkward, mentally challenged, or neither? What do we mean by mentally challenged (or retarded, disabled, etc)? Perhaps we've been able to get away with two vastly different views of these different people. There's the PC "noble savage" view, which says that anyone who appears to be "different" is worthy of praise (regardless of whether the behavior can be attributed to social awkwardness or a physiological condition), and the grade-school playground view, which says that anyone different must be ridiculed. These knee-jerk reactions have been able to coexist because the two groups don't have to come into contact with one another because those freaks that spark the debate between the two camps aren't in the public eye that much. Until now.

But Ronald Jenkees is more than just another William Hung. His keyboard and beat-making skilz rival that of any shitty post-krunk hiphop producer. There's talk of him being some sort of savant. He claims that he is not, but how would he know if he were a savant? Who is the authority on this - the individual in question? A doctor? Movies about savants (e.g. Rainman)? Us? I'm also reminded of the unhappy story of another "different" musical genius: Daniel Johnston. Once fans recognize an artist as a savant or a genius, the bar gets set unrealistically high. An unstable person gets introduced to the wrong people, and disaster ensues.

Before we assume that Ronald is acting, its worth considering the possibility that "different" people like Ronald have been waiting in the wings, not good-looking or "normal" enough to be in the public eye before YouTube. They could've had a blog and/or a MySpace page, but that just wouldn't have conveyed how different they were - only video could do that.

To the debates over whether or not he is acting like a dork/mentally challenged person, we should add the question as to whether or not he wrote the damn good songs he performs. Maybe they're pre-recorded loops he got from someone else, though the visuals seem to provide the needed proof that he can play the keyboard.

Somehow, their freakishness works to their advantage, drawing attention to them and making them impervious to criticism (provided you don't get busted for acting). How can anyone rag on you if you can always hide behind being different? You could try to be cool, you could try to be your normal semi-cool self, or you could exaggerate your inner dork to the point where you're clearly different (not retarded, just different). If you do this, any social misstep you might make can be attributed to your different-ness, which is considered a positive attribute (kind of like the self-effacing jujitsu Eminem uses on his first couple of albums).

There may be people as talented as Ronald Jenkees out there, but who would notice them if they're just another Steve Vai wannabe from Berklee School of Music, some quiet man-of-mystery (which reads as holier-than-thou) with a ponytail, no fashion sense, and zero charisma? If that were you, then wouldn't you have an easier time getting attention and sympathy if you exaggerated your dorky characteristics (in effect "passing" as a dork)? Just like people who pass as black, gay, etc, there is enough of an element of truth to the claim that the passer could not be outed as a total fraud.

So, what happens next? What does stardom (or the new semi-stardom that online fame creates) do to a person? What makes it seem as though DaxFlame is an act is that he seems utterly oblivious towards his newfound semi-fame. There's something about the kind of fame that's achieved by vloggers on YouTube that feels hermetically sealed, cut off for the most part from real life like all social acts online. For this reason, vlogging and YouTube in general still feels like a proving ground for would-be stars (albeit a different breed of would-be stars). Ever since Brookers got signed by Carson Daly, that's the way that most people think about it. Ronald Jenkees is interesting only if he's going to put out an album or work with established rap stars.