Brian Atene

Brian Atene (born August 16, 1963?) is a part-fictional former student at the Juilliard School of performing arts. His spoof video became an Internet phenomenon in 2006 when an audition tape he had made purporting to be from 1984 for the film "Full Metal Jacket" was posted on YouTube. The video attracted considerable attention because of the apparent hubris ("You will find in me the finest actor of the lot, the most beautifully trained, the most capable"), and comical over-acting displayed by the 20-year-old aspiring actor while attempting to attract the attention of director Stanley Kubrick. The video features Atene performing a "cutting" loosely based on S. E. Hinton's "The Outsiders". Atene acts out the role of Johnny Cade, whose back has been broken.

The video was mentioned on prominent web sites such as Boing Boing, Gawker, and Defamer, and spread in classic viral fashion, inspiring numerous remixes.

Three days after the breakout of the video, an individual posted a video response on YouTube, claiming to be Atene, now 43 years old, heavier and "still acting". A debate broke out, within the comment sections of YouTube, and on many other blogs and sites hosting the two videos, as to whether or not this was in fact the "real Atene." Since the man in question had blue eyes in contrast to Atene's brown ones, it is unlikely that they are the same.

Further confusing matters, a number of days later, another individual claiming to be Atene created a user ID on YouTube called "juilliardropout". He claimed that he would post a video sometime in the near future and that the original video, although real, was done partly tongue-in-cheek. On November 17, 2006 juilliardropout posted a video on YouTube where he said he is Brian Atene and said that the original tape was one of two and it was the other one that was actually sent to Stanley Kubrick; he also asked people to visit [http://christopherreeve.org christopherreeve.org] and buy Superman items to support "The search for truth and justice" and promised to post new videos on YouTube. While Atene explains the choice of this charity with a story about how Reeve (a former student of Juilliard himself) visited the school while Atene was a student there, some YouTube commenters wondered whether this was a sly reference to his "I ain't gonna walk again-- not even on crut-chessssss!" audition for Kubrick from The Outsiders.

On November 30, 2006, Yahoo! Current Buzz announced that they had had contact with Brian Atene, naming the man calling himself Juilliardropout as the real Brian Atene.

On April 30, 2007, Atene stated, without any ambiguity, that the video was an inside joke that he had taped for some friends. He said this in the comment box of the infamous YouTube video:
*"People like this video today for the same reasons we all liked it over twenty years ago. The internet has made a wider audience of what was once a small cult of people in Philadelphia on college campuses in the '80's and '90's. The video is outrageous and Andy Kauffman-esque; and people love a prank from any angle"."

Atene also stated that he "can't believe there's still a debate on this thing"."

Brian Atene's original juilliardropout channel on Youtube was deleted by Atene himself. On March 24, 2008 a new channel was launched called simply brianatene.

External links

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMGXJsWrsPg juilliardropout's "Atene Returns!" video]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVruXIbA4tw alleged "Brian Atene's" 2006 video]
* [http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=c860df3ccf66c83fb61bb2ffd934330b.1311797&cache=1&fr=cur_fp Yahoo! Current Buzz video confirming Juilliardropout as the real Brian Atene]
* [http://www.thephoenix.com/article_ektid26582.aspx Boston Phoenix article] about false Atene getting comment from juilliardropout
* [http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Technology/story?id=2752482 ABC NEWS Top 10 internet videos of 2006]