Written by Liz Gannes
Posted Thursday, September 6, 2007 at 9:38 AM PT

 

YouTube Star Exposed: Digby Goes Down?

The story of the local girl making it big never fails to captivate. And YouTube is everybody’s hometown these days, where you can see fellow members evolve from their first post to their first million views. We all love the rags-to-riches, democratization-of-distribution legend.

That’s exactly what Hollywood Records played into with its promotions of Marié Digby, a singer it had actually signed in 2005, as the Wall Street Journal uncovered today.

Digby — and it seems much of this may have been her idea — acted the innocent undiscovered talent on YouTube. But, with the help of her record label, her actions proved to be far savvier. After recording an album of original music, Digby used a common YouTube trick to make yourself turn up in frequent searches and related content — she posted videos of herself singing covers of other hit songs. And an acoustic version of Rihanna’s “Umbrella” took off.

Soon the video had hundreds of thousands of views, Digby’s version of the song was featured on radio stations from Los Angeles to Portland, Ore., and she was invited to appear on Carson Daly’s late-night show. As the WSJ tells it,

“I don’t think we need a television show to find talent in America,” crowed NBC late-night talk show host Carson Daly, introducing a performance by Ms. Digby last month. “We have the Internet.” Mr. Daly’s music booker, Diana Miller, says she booked the singer through Hollywood Records’ public-relations department.

At the show’s taping, Ms. Digby gave a backstage interview that was posted online by NBC [embedded above]. “I just did this YouTube video two months ago and never, ever imagined that it would actually get me on TV or radio or anything like that,” she said. “I just did it in my living room and it blew up first on YouTube and then I guess it got to Star 98.7 and then Carson Daly found me so that’s why I’m here.”

YouTube users are already plenty skeptical of spoofs and manipulation, as we’ve written in the cases of Green Tea Girlie, LisaNova, and most famously Lonelygirl15. But the gotcha moment doesn’t always lead to your demise — if you do it right, it becomes part of your legend. After all, there are worse things that could happen to widely unknown aspiring pop stars than being exposed by one of the world’s top newspapers.

Digby may have been too manipulative, if the most recent comments on her videos in the wake of the WSJ article tell you anything. “I’m really hurt by this. She should apologize to us,” read one. But she’s got plenty of time to repent, harness the publicity, and do damage control — even Miss Teen South Carolina knows that much. The question is if people like Marie Digby singing her own songs.

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Topic: Shows & Stars

Comments (1)

  • The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article was wrong about Marié Digby. To anyone who followed her videos, it’s obvious that Marié Digby has always been herself.

    The article stated:

    “Ms. Digby’s MySpace and YouTube pages don’t mention Hollywood Records. Until last week, a box marked “Type of Label” on her MySpace Music page said, “None.”

    However, she had joined MySpace in 2004, roughly 2 years before she was signed, and she merely didn’t bother to update a setting, and she’d probably forgotten that setting even existed. I signed up for a MySpace music page, and it could even be missed when first signing up. And, since months after she recorded her CD, there was no indication it was ever going to be released, I wouldn’t expect that it would even cross her mind to change her status to signed, even if she was still aware of that setting. Note, her CD didn’t come out until approximately 2 years after she was signed, and approximately 4 years after she joined MySpace.

    The article went on to state:

    “After inquiries from The Wall Street Journal, the entry was changed to “Major,” though the label still is not named.”

    Makes sense to me. There is no point in naming a record label when there is no indication they are going to release your CD. And, given that, who she was signed with has just as little relevance as that she was signed. (Note, the CD, titled “Unfold” finally came out on April 8, 2008. Buy it, it’s wonderful).

    The Wall Street Journal article also contained:

    ‘Most of Ms. Digby’s new fans seem pleased to believe that they discovered an underground sensation.

    In fact, the vast majority of the posts were about her music, and not about “discovering” her. For most of us viewers, a huge number of people had already seen her videos when we found her, which were posted long before the WSJ article, so we could hardly claim to have ‘discovered her.’

    The term “feigning amateur status”, used in the WSJ article is completely ridiculous. Marié Digby posted music videos, and expressed enthusiasm, and hope. She was largely unknown outside of Los Angeles.

    Marié Digby has posted that a Wall Street reporter talked to Marié Digby for about an hour, but they never asked the questions that would have cleared this up. Instead, they took one response, which merely meant that her signed status wasn’t relevant to her goals (and frankly, would have seemed ridiculous in the videos), as meaning she was hiding it.

    There were radio station interviews, before the WSJ article, where she mentioned being signed. If she were hiding it, she would have hid it there too.

    I gather Marié Digby’s family is rather well off. She never mentioned that in her videos either. I wouldn’t say she was, “feigning middle class status,” but I’m sure some people would! Sad!

    Bill Hallahan — 2:43 PM on July 25, 2008 Reply

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