(UPDATE: Mea culpa. This thing's premiering Monday night, 9 p.m. Not Tuesday night, as previously reported. Read on. – BKT)
As Andy reported in May, Chris Crocker, internet celebrity and creator of uniquely diquieting YouTube videos, is the subject of a documentary entitled Me @ The Zoo, which premiered last winter at Sundance. It's been picked up by HBO, and debuts on that channel on Tuesday, at 9 p.m. It looks extremely cool — a meditation on internet celebrity from two whip-smart fiimmakers who know exactly what they're after, and who may be seen discussing their film AFTER THE JUMP.
To plug the film, Crocker chatted this week with HuffPo's Noah Michelson. As always, he's a lot saner in interviews than his videos would suggest. A sample:
HuffPo: With the documentary coming out, some people are saying this is your second chance at fame. Some are even calling it your last chance. How do you respond to that? Are you plotting how you can ride the current interest in you to the next level?
Crocker: That's so funny. I think that people — especially people I work with and that are around me — they want me to be more strategic, but I genuinely did this documentary because of the therapeutic relief of just needing to be understood as a person. It was never for the fame in the beginning and it's not about the fame now. It's so interesting because, yes, I have played up being this "fame whore." And I've played up to that because I knew that's what people thought of me, so I wanted to be in on the joke. But the whole time it's never been about fame for me. It's literally been an outlet. I do consider myself an entertainer and if entertaining people happens in the process of having therapy, then great.
I've met with some really amazing people recently — I was just at John Waters's party in Provincetown — and I've really been encouraged by people who it's so hard for me to even walk into a room with because there's all these preconceived notions about me wanting to be famous and these preconceived notions of me not being genuine — like I'm this 15-minutes-of-fame, desperate person. That kind of gets to me. It's like, if I do have any ambition about me whatsoever, that's perceived as me being a fame whore. If I do something I want it to really be grassroots — maybe an indie film? I'm not sitting here wanting to be on tabloids. It's not what I'm in it for.
