Cameo, or How to Bend Celebrities to Your Will
By: Mimi Ruthstiver
Tags: Cameo, Celebrity, Pop Culture, Self Care

Cameo, or How to Bend Celebrities to Your Will

When I first heard about Cameo, all I could think was “dance, monkey, dance.”

Me paying $40 for an one-hit wonder to wish my mom a happy birthday (“The Puppeteer” by Thomas Kuebler).

Cameo is an app that allows you to buy personalized video messages from celebrities. Each celebrity on the app sets their own price starting from a few dollars to over a thousand, varying on how much the individual thinks they’re worth.

On the surface, Cameo looked to me like an app to bend celebrities to your will so long as the price was right. It seemed rather pathetic to me, too — if I pay a washed up star a hundred dollars, they have to wish me a happy birthday. It seemed like a last-ditch effort for has-beens to make some money when their fifteen minutes of fame ran out.

I downloaded Cameo one night in the midst of Covid-19 boredom because — and this is going to sound mean-spirited — I wanted to see what celebrities were willing to stoop so low as to become puppets. As I scrolled through the app, I felt as though I was confirming my hypothesis — the caliber of celebrity I was seeing included the lesser-known Real Housewives, Tiktok influencers, and Ken Bone. I sat smug upon my high horse.

And then I saw that you could book a Cameo with Sean Astin.

I’m in no position to drop three hundred dollars for a one-minute Samwise Gamgee video, but the knowledge that that was an option had me reconsider my feelings towards the app. If Sean Astin doesn’t find filming videos for money embarrassing, maybe there’s some value in Cameo after all.

A History of Celebrity Puppetry

Puppet master Steven Galanis (The 1871 Blog).

Cameo was founded by Steven Galanis, a former Hollywood producer and LinkedIn executive in his early 30s. The idea for Cameo came from Galanis’s friend and former business partner Martin Blencowe. Blencowe was a sports agent with only one client: Cassius Marsh, a linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks. In October 2016, Blencowe showed Galanis a video that Marsh had recorded for a friend of his, congratulating him on the birth of his son.

Thus, the “video autograph” was born.

The classic, handwritten autograph has become tainted in recent years. What once symbolized a moment you had shared with your idol has now become exploitable. Are you asking your favorite actor to sign your movie poster as a personal keepsake, or as something to be sold on eBay as soon as you get home? Thanks to Cameo’s terms and conditions, the autograph-er has a lot more protection. In order to book a Cameo, you have to agree to the parameters set by the talent. It is impossible for a Cameo to be price-gouged and resold since it’s such a personal product.

Cameo’s first office opened in Chicago. By 2018, Cameo had made it onto Time magazine’s list of Genius Companies. At this point, there were only 3,500 celebrities on the app; as of late 2020, there’s over 30,000. The headquarters in Chicago remain, along with new offices in Los Angeles, California and Melbourne, Australia. Cameo has a team of 125 people; about a year and a half ago, there were just 17 employees.

Cameo prides itself on being a very transactional service. The fees are set by the talent (with some consultation from Galanis and co based on past history), and Cameo takes 25%. That money can add up really quickly considering how easy it is to bang out a bunch of 30- to 60- second videos in an afternoon. The talent can be enlisted to do anything from wish your wife a happy birthday to razz your friend for not responding to a text.

The Dark Side of Cameo

“I’m gonna use my hard-earned money to make celebrities feel uncomfortable!” (Brooke Cagle on Unsplash)

Unfortunately, since this is the Internet, not every Cameo is booked by those with pure intentions. Several celebrities have been the attempted victims of creepy clients; for example, a man asked sportscaster Kelly Crull to show him the inside of her room because he “wanted to see [her] style.” Since this was a blatant invasion of privacy, his Cameo request was denied. In November 2018, Packers quarterback Brett Farve, comedian Andy Dick, and Souljia Boy were all booked by a group of customers. The customers turned out to be members the white supremacist group the Goyim Defense League, and the script that they gave the celebrities had coded antisemetic messages. The Cameos were then shared around the internet on various platforms.

After learning what they had unknowingly took part in, the celebrities denounced the videos and called for them to be pulled from the internet. Galanis feared that this scandal would be the end of Cameo; the involved celebrities could lose endorsements, and prospective Cameo talent could opt to not join the app for fear of career damage. To combat this, Galanis drove to Milwaukee to meet Brett Farve in person and show him a reaction video to one of his Cameos. Farve was so moved that he opted to stay on the app (I’m not sure why Galanis didn’t make an in-person plea for either Andy Dick or Soulja Boy, but I digress). Additionally, Farve posted a Facebook video declaring that he was “sickened” by white supremacist groups and would henceforth be donating his $500 booking fee to anti-hate charities. Farve said: “I thought I was creating a message to support the brave men and women of our military forces. Had I understood the source of the request, I never would have fulfilled it.” Following the scandal, the company instituted new security measures to filter out hate speech and slurs.

A Snooptacular Rise

A pivotal moment for Cameo was when Snoop Dogg joined the platform. He joined on April 20th, 2019 (because of course he did) with his booking price set at $420 (because of course it was). He made about $50,000 on his first day, and ultimately made more money in his first month of bookings than any other celebrity ever had on the app.

Some celebrities are slightly more human than others, and don’t feel right charging high fees for simple requests. After finding out that filming Cameos was a useful way to earn money for charity, Sarah Jessica Parker joined the platform of her own volition in late September 2019 to raise money for the New York City Ballet’s fall fashion gala 3 days away. According to her publicity team, her goal was to make just a couple thousand dollars to push the Ballet’s goal over the edge. She set her price for $300 and booked 22 Cameos in the first hour.

SJP’s reviews.

The Cameo team then sent out an email to subscribers announcing Parker’s presence on the app, increasing her bookings to 38 within 5 minutes. She then raised her price to $1,000 dollars, then $2,000, and eventually capping at $2,500 to help slow the incoming requests. If you look at her reviews, you’ll see a mixed bag — a lot of people claim that she forgot important details and gave an overall impersonal experience.

Cameo’s popularity skyrocketed in 2020 during the covid-19 pandemic, since entertainers were unable to…well, entertain. That makes sense — “hey, sorry I couldn’t give you a physical birthday gift, here’s a video of Josh Sussman, the nerdy kid from Glee, wishing you well….that I spent 46 dollars on! Because that’s what you’re worth to me!” It’s gotten to the point where Cameo is turning away funding from investors — they just don’t need it anymore.

I’m Mandy Moore, Here to Tell You That Your Son is Gay

80% of Cameos are booked for celebratory reasons: birthdays, anniversaries, etc. A current goal for the Cameo team is educating their users on the other reasons that Cameos can be booked. According to Cara Leahy, head of talent relations: “We’ve had people use Cameo to come out to their parents, for wedding proposals, or for individual invitations to bachelor or bachelorette parties.” Their efforts seem to be paying off — a user booked former Giants linebacker Leonard Marshall to convince his elderly dad to take stronger precautions against covid-19.

I don’t want it to seem like I’m knocking Cameo or judging people who give Cameos as gifts, because I’m not. I’m one of you! I’ve given Cameos as gifts before and they’ve always been a hit! I’m just fascinated by this app; there’s so much about it that seems outlandish and extremely futuristic to me.

I got a Cameo from Redacted Sitcom Actor for one of my best friends for his birthday. The Cameo was filmed from Redacted Sitcom Actor’s car. My friend didn’t care, he loved his birthday video, but I have to laugh when I picture Redacted Sitcom Actor pulling up to his local Thai restaurant to grab some takeout and finding out that the food’s gonna take another 5 minutes, so he pulls out his phone and says “well, may as well get some work done!”

When I started this research project, I didn’t really have a point I was trying to make; I was more interested in doing a deep dive on how bizarre and futuristic I found Cameo. Even after booking Cameos for my loved ones and hearing from friends what positive experiences they’ve had with the app, I still found the general premise rather ridiculous. It seemed nothing more than a way for anyone with a few thousand social media followers to make some extra cash. Even with the things I had discovered, something about the app still felt phony and impersonal.

Then, about two weeks into researching and writing, I was hit with a case of the doldrums. I was feeling low about my career, feeling like I was stuck in an endless loop of unfulfillment. In an almost fugue-like state, I dropped twenty-one dollars to book myself a Cameo with one of my favorite drag queens. When you book a Cameo for yourself, a little form pops up asking you to introduce yourself, what your pronouns are, and why you’re booking. One of the booking reasons is “get advice.” There’s a section of the form where you can go into detail — in two hundred and fifty characters or less. I told the drag queen that she inspired me, and that I could use a pep talk to return to in times of stress. I told her how I’ve been feeling directionless, that I’m several years out of college and I feel like my degree is collecting dust.

Two days later, I got the most heartfelt video in response. Most Cameos are about 30 seconds to a minute long, but this one lasted for three and a half minutes. She told me that she has gone through the same thing I’ve gone through several times in her life. She gave me some great ideas about small steps to take to dig myself out of a rut. She told me that the experiences I’m having right now, even if they’re completely unrelated to what I think I want to do, are valuable and are probably teaching me more than I know. She told me to speak about myself more positively, that I’m too hard on myself. She even pronounced my name right, which is a skill very few people have mastered.

It was after watching my own personal video that I finally understood the real value of Cameo. I could never have had an experience like this from meeting Redacted Drag Queen at DragCon or sending her a message on Twitter. I tried to get myself to be realistic — this wasn’t necessarily personal; I paid her to give me advice, after all. But in my gut, I felt that that wasn’t true. Sure, I had spent money, but the advice Redacted Drag Queen had given me was completely from the heart. I had been able to connect with someone I admire so easily, and I have Cameo to thank.