Joe (yes, that one) sent me this story last week -- we had a little "ha-ha what a pinhead" about it, and went back to work. Turns out the 'Today' show gave it a little airtime yesterday, so I'm obliged to share it with y'all.
To recap: Last week, there was an item in Obscurestore about a Yale senior by the name of Aleksey Vayner, who was making a sensation among the Wall Street investment banker community with his documentary/inspirational infomercial-style resume video making the rounds.
As you can imagine, it wasn't exactly because Wall Street investment bankers were fighting each other to hire the guy.
Dealbreaker, "A Wall Street Tabloid" blog, was one of the first to pick up the story, along with the NY Sun, though the IvyGate blog picked up the story and ran with it, for full team coverage, including rehosting the original video on social video sharing site Veoh:
* Bench-pressing 495 pounds:
* Ballroom dancing with a scantily clad partner
* Breaking a stack of bricks with his bare hand:
He does all of this while espousing all manner of self-empowerment messages that may be true, but may also make you hate him with a white-hot fury. Sort of like Patrick Swayze's character in 'Donnie Darko.' (Language warning)
Various anecdotes allege that Vayner has claimed that he's killed two dozen men in underground Tibetan deathmatches, is one of four people licensed in Connecticut to handle nuclear waste, has his own charity and hedge fund and a whole host of other wacky claims.
Some of the terms being thrown around to describe him in the various news articles and blog entries include:
* Histrionic personality disorder (or maybe simply borderline personality disorder)
* Craaazy [PDF File]
* Outlandish
Anyway, Tuesday's 'Today' show ran the item -- Gawker's story [Warning: liberal use of the "d-bag" label] highlights the clip, which includes footage of Matt Lauer getting hit in the head by a racquetball.
The big question is: Is this guy for real (as in, delusional for real, not actually some sort of international superninja), or is he playing us all?
This video might not be the perfect resume for Wall Street. But it's a perfect advertisement for something, all right. What job DOES this qualify Vayner for? Who do you think would hire him now? Because the world is weird, and right now, someone somewhere is looking at that video and thinking, "The kid's got talent and moxie to burn. Let's hire him!"
After all, he's getting a lot of press, and they say all publicity is good publicity. Maybe he's looking for a career in entertainment.
If all the allegations are true, he's got an impressive record of plagiarism, possibly fraud, and likely mental disorders. Maybe he'd make a bang-up securities trader after all, or a high-level governmental figure. Donald Trump is worth squillions, after all, and he still has that weird hair and an ego to match -- people that live big make big targets. Maybe we'll all laugh Vayner straight to the bank.
6 comments:
Must have been a really slow news day.
$20 says you'll find him on the Daily Show or The Colbert Report before too long. I honestly think the guy is just out there in pursuit of his fifteen minutes with this parody, but ya never know.
After all, there's a crazy guy in my town who claims to have designed every pinball machine ever built.
-Dan
http://journals.aol.com/dpoem/TheWisdomofaDistractedMind/
Sounds very American to me... I did read that those with the so-called "mental disorders" are the most successful business men (and women -- ie obsessive compulsion disorders, bipolar disorder...)
DUDE ARE YOU FOR REAL ?
???? Ok and so? And? What about it? What's every one ******* on this guy for? I don't see anything wrong with what he's saying or doing. But then people who are jealous will always have a problem with someone who's a go getter. This guy has a very impressive attitude too bad most people don't have it hell I wish I had it in fact I'm going to use what he said in my own life. I bet if it were "Mr. Your Fired" who said it no one would think twice about it. What kind of attitude should someone have? "Oh I'm a loser can ya lone me $50 bucks so I can go get some more pot an waist my life sitting in front of the TV watching all the snobs on TV getting rich off of people like me who have no life watching reruns of there movies?" Come on now this guy wants something of himself and has enough guts to put it out there for the whole world to see, give me a break, no give HIM a break! And please when ya have real news talk about that an stop picking on someone who wants to be more then a bum like most people are gheeh!
Yeah! I mean, he's no Ron Popiel, but the cat's got moxy, man.
-Dan
http://journals.aol.com/dpoem/TheWisdomofaDistractedMind/
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