How not to get attention

A word to the wise: If you are applying for a job in the investment-banking industry (or anywhere else for that matter), and you come up with the bright idea of putting together a kind of video introduction as part of your application, try not to make it a howlingly funny tribute to yourself, complete with pompous comments about leadership, clips of you bench-pressing 475 pounds (allegedly), ballroom dancing and smashing bricks with your hand.

If you ignore this advice, as Aleksey Vayner did, you will be begging for ridicule. And in a world that gave us the Star Wars Kid, the Tron guy, the Numa Numa dance and many other even more embarrassing moments, ridicule is more than happy to come your way with or without the begging. Then the New Yorker will pick it up and expand on it to an even greater extent, and eventually the New York Times will jump on the bandwagon, and you will be the laughing-stock of North America, if not the world.

Maybe investment banking isn’t ready for Aleksey, but there’s a spot for him somewhere on reality TV, I guarantee. Maybe a televised version of Dilbert’s Topper character?

Update:

Check my comments for one from Jay Maynard — also known as The Tron Guy.

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Tagged as: bio, vayner, Video, youtube

Jay Maynard

Don\'t be surprised if he has the last laugh, though...by now, I certainly have.

Mathew Ingram

Thanks for the comment, Jay. I hope you are right. Nice costume, by the way :-)

Jake

I wouldn't have included the dedication to Radomir Kovacevic, but that's just me. And with all due respect to Mr. Maynard, I'm pretty sure that this guy will not be getting the last laugh here--although maybe the three muscled guys who were "spotting" for him can get some personal trainer work out of it.

Mathew Ingram

I would have a tendency to agree, Jake. Although you're right about the "spotters" -- they were working pretty hard :-)

Jay Maynard

Thanks! I\'ve gotten a lot of comments pro and con in the two-plus years since I unleashed it on an unsuspecting world, muah ha ha ha haaaaa... but I wouldn\'t have traded the experience for anything, at least not by now.

Fraser

Jay, how did you get the last laugh? And if Jay doesn't return --- anyone know what he's referring to?

Mathew Ingram

I wouldn't presume to speak for Jay, Fraser -- but I can only assume that he means he has gotten far more in terms of public profile and/or work opportunities as a result of the Tron Guy thing than he gave up in momentary public embarrasment (assuming there was any at all).

Jay Maynard

That\'s a pretty good summation, Mathew.

I\'ve gone places, and met people, and done things because of the whole Tron Guy affair that I would have never been able to otherwise. It\'s been a lot of fun, overall. The first couple of weeks, especially the treatment I got on Slashdot and Fark those first few days, were pretty rough, and at the time, I said I wouldn\'t do it again. That was before the good things started happening.

A lot of folks hid behind their keyboards and took shots at me. A lot of folks told me to my face that they thought it was pretty cool and that I should keep doing it. Guess which ones I learned to listen to?

I never sought out publicity. I expected maybe 500 people to ever see that costume, in person or online. I learned how to handle it from some good people, and it\'s an opportunity I wouldn\'t have had otherwise.

People ask me how I can take getting laughed at all the time. I learned that lesson from Jack Benny. Unless you pay attention to it, you don\'t realize, from listening to his radio shows, that he was usually the butt of the jokes. He pointed out that, when the program was done, people wouldn\'t remember that they laughed at Jack Benny...they\'d remember that they laughed at the Jack Benny Show, and if they laughed, they\'d tune in next week - and he comes out a winner as long as they did that.

The same applies to me. I don\'t ming that people are laughing at me, because they\'re enjoying themselves.