Hello, goodbye: the highs and lows of celebrity video greetings app Cameo

II started, as most things do, with drama in a WhatsApp group. It was 2021, and a group of loose friends and acquaintances were passing the Lockdowns again, by playing a wicked online game called. Subterfugein which trickery and betrayal are all part of the gameplay.

Only, this time, people had gone too far and someone was so angry that he left the group. To get her back, my friends came up with a dubious plan – they would get Nigel Farage, of all people, to record a heart-wrenching video urging their estranged partner to join and the team again.

Thanks to Cameo, which Farage had recently signed up to, doing this was easy: for £100, Farage recorded and shared a 60-second video clip on the device at a time. less than 24 hours. The game also worked: thanks to the cameo and Farage’s amazing reading of many jokes that he had no way of understanding, peace in the friendship group returned.

This was one of the many uses of Cameo, a service that allows anyone to request a custom video from a celebrity or influencer for one of their friends, and have it delivered within 24 hours. .The site was a sleeper during the Covid lockdown, and managed to raise $1bn worth of investment by 2021.

But since then, it has hit hard times. Videos are being made, it still has… eclectic a mixture of famous and influential people (who will later pass), but it seems difficult to pay even the smallest debts.

Last month, Business Insider reports on the settlement Cameo reached with 30 US states after it was found to have violated Federal Trade Commission rules regarding celebrity deals.

Cameo was fined $600,000 — a small amount for a billion-dollar company — but showed in court that it could not pay that amount, instead paying $ 100,000 only (split between 30 different countries). So what happened?

Day by day, the site seems to be operating as usual, offering anyone in the market for a casual video a wide variety of actors, comedians and influencers to create their own videos. UK names include actress Miriam Margolyes (£134 for the video), former footballer John Terry (£197), singer Gareth Gates (£47) or speaker and environmentalist Ben Fogle (£71).

US names include ‘NSync’s Lance Bass (£235), Dean Norris, who played DEA agent Hank Schrader in. Breaking Bad (£193), and veterans of the US version of Office Kevin Malone, AKA Brian Baumgartner (£154), or “Meredith the drunk”, Kate Flannery (£150).

While each has its own following, and in some cases a cult following, Cameo has struggled to attract or retain A-list celebrities or influencers with established followings. he’s up. Another reason is that using the app comes with huge reputational risks for big names – people have posted videos trying to trick famous faces into saying racial slurs or other slurs, and even using them for their own purposes. it’s bad.

Last year, a “group linked to Russia” ordered and edited a series of videos recorded from Cameo and similar services to make it appear as if various US celebrities were calling the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a corrupt drug addict, while they believe that they are helping to carry out the operation.

The misinformation effort included cameo appearances from actor Elijah Wood and convicted boxer Mike Tyson, both of whom have since suspended their Cameo appearances, as well as Norris and Flannery, who stay active on the site.

Cameo takes 30% of the creator’s fees for selling, transaction fees, hosting and sending videos. Big producers seem to have decided to abandon this way of making money – either because you need to make a lot of videos that won’t be published, ​​​​​​or because of the risks – but smaller producers say it is a valuable and effective resource. of finance, with little decline.

“I turn it off a lot of the time, which closes the booking window when I’m busy, and you can pick and choose what you want to do,” says one standup comedian who preferred to remain anonymous. . “I have no bad experiences using the app.”

Another big name changer is that Cameo has become associated with failed politicians. Nigel Farage has been in Cameo since 2021, and is one of the most divisive political figures in Britain (having failed to be elected to parliament in his first seven attempts).

skip the previous content ad

after the news release

Stateside, former Republican representative George Santos ($99+) reportedly now makes £78 more from Cameo than he did as an elected representative, while Mike Flynn – a Christian opponent of rejecting the election, and a former Christian leader and former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. he served briefly as Donald Trump’s national security adviser – he was always a cameo.

There is also the problem that Cameo attracts new customers rather than repeat customers or subscribers. The Subterfuge The WhatsApp group, for example, hasn’t offended anyone enough in the three years since the Farage incident to need another Cameo video.

These are some of the problems that hinder the quality of Cameo, explains technical expert Joseph Teasdale, of Enders Analysis.

“Cameo was an epidemic. Celebrities could record selfie videos even when they couldn’t play shows or star in movies. On the demand side, a video from Cameo it made a great gift for the experience when other options were limited. Now celebrities and consumers all have better things to do than record and watch personal videos. “he says.

“When your selling point is that your sellers are famous and desirable, you run into a problem: they are the ones who have brand recognition, they are the ones who attract users, so they can capture most of the value. .These are not unknown TikTokers who can be replaced if they don’t like the words; Cameo lives or dies by the big names he attracts on the platform.

Those big names seem to stick to the big platforms – TikTok, YouTube, Instagram – where the biggest audience is dormant, and where recurring revenue can be secured from ads and monthly subscriptions, as opposed to videos. individual innovations.

This leaves Cameo limited to small creators, influencers and B- or C-list celebrities who can afford the extra cash, and are willing to rely on a new or surprising video submission to earn it. . For those with a little time on their hands, who don’t worry about their videos being used to defame them, it’s a welcome service – even if it won’t make founders or investors Cameo got them as rich as they hoped. .

However, one of the stars of this area remains reliable and functional. Despite being elected as MP for Clacton, and against the violent right-wing in the UK, Nigel Farage was clearly finding time to keep up with his Cameo requests: at the time of writing, the site of the internet showed his last completed video. done at 10.30pm on Tuesday.