North Philly YouTube stars unhappy with PW exposure

There’s a funny thing about this whole “new media” thing that journalists can’t stop talking about. Now, story subjects can answer back.
Such is the case with Joel Mathis’s profile of North Philly-based The Skorpion Show for the publication’s “Queer Issue.” The day after the article ran, Skorpian’s Keven Simmons shared his distaste with 9,000 of the show’s subscribers.
“Now I know how those reality stars feel … this will never happen again,” he said.
The Skorpion Show is a DIY talk show where Kevin Simmons and Makael Mclendon, better known as Skorpion and Makael, chat about everything from celebrities to relationship issues to music reviews. Each video typically features the hosts sitting side-by-side chatting into their Logitech webcam.
Each episode averages around 4,000 views, which when stretched over 185 videos, adds up. Two of the duo’s videos have broken the one-million viewer mark.
After the story was published, The Skorpion Show uploaded two videos pertaining to the PW story. Follow after the jump to hear their beef.
The hosts took issue with PW’s assertion about the show’s supposed emphasis on gay topics. The hosts and their viewers weren’t happy about certain language used in the story, either. The article describes the two as “snap-happy” and “like a pair of sugar-fueled teenage girls.” The story also focuses heavily on the show’s comments on gay topics as well as their personal life, something the two claim they attempt to keep as private as possible. See the first of their responses below:
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In their call for reader outrage, the story has received 114 comments, most in support of show. The article’s comment count is only barely trailing behind the alt-weekly’s awesome expose of the state of the city’s animal care that ran last week.
To be fair, no subject of any piece of journalism is going to be completely happy with the way they are portrayed, and some topics the duo takes issue with border on being nitpicky. No writer worth their salt would ever let a story subject read the story before print, something that Simmons suggested he is going to request from now on.
When reached for comment, Simmons stated, “I think we said all we had to about the PW article. Lets just say he painted us as Men On Film from In Living Color, [and] that’s not us!”
[Disclosure: I have worked for the Philadelphia CityPaper.]