In the case of William Sledd, the answer is an unequivocal yes.
Sledd, 23, has parlayed a fey, southern-fried sense of humor and six years of hard-earned, chain store product knowledge as a manager at the local Gap in his hometown of Paducah, Ky., into the fourth most popular channel on YouTube.
William Sledd is a rising Internet star.
The segments of "Ask a Gay Man" are like an Internet mashup of "What Not to Wear" and "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" — couture advice delivered with soft-handed snark, beginning with his signature opening line: "Hey, bitches."
It doesn't matter if you abide by his style tips or not. Sledd is worth watching just for the laughs, like in his breakout "Denim Edition" in which he and his sometimes sidekick and next door neighbor Stephanie warn viewers that "Mom jeans" are the devil and that carpenter jeans are never OK — unless you're a carpenter.
Some of Sledd's best comic understatements come during his video critiques of his competitors for best series award on YouTube.
"Rednecks shooting at snowmen," Sledd deadpans after showing a clip from "Snowmen Hunters," a survivalist parody. "At least I feel at home."
He mocks another contender, "Ask a Ninja," for wearing too much black, then appears dressed as a Ninja himself — covered in pink.
With almost 60,000 subscribers and millions of views, Sledd says the site has caught on because viewers see him as just a normal, small-town person they can relate to.
Well, normal for a guy who's not afraid to says things like, "I'm a little pro man-bag," and who has a walk-in closet with two shelves full of pajama pants.
Sledd's unapologetic embrace of his sexual orientation has helped win loyal supporters, but there are detractors too: anonymous posters making homophobic comments about his videos. To them, he directed a few choice words in a recent clip he made in honor of Gay and Lesbian Pride month, calling them "cowards hiding behind their computers."
"It's so easy to hate," he says in the video. "Oooh I'm gay, let's leave nasty comments. Send. You know what? Why? There's no need. It's my month, bitch!"
As bold as Sledd is about his sexual preference on the Internet, he has been more circumspect at home, where he still lives with his parents. "We kind of have a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy," he says of his family.
Sledd tapes his vlogs from his Kentucky home.
He says he likes it that way. He refuses to do local media interviews in Paducah. "This is my place, this town where I live," he says. "This is my home. This is where I get away."
"Is this your protective shell?" I ask him.
"This is my shell," he says, flipping his hair over the left side of his face, as he often does on his webcasts. "I mean, I can turn my cell phone off. And turn my computer off, and pretend nothing happened."
But with a growing coterie of famous friends and development deals in the works with mainstream media outlets like NBC, pretending nothing happened is no longer really an option for Sledd.
In fact, he's already quit his job at the Gap and he knows he may have to consider leaving Paducah.
"What happens when you're not that guy in Paducah anymore? Will people still think you're cool?"
"I'm that fabulous guy in New York," he says.
"Just a different place, same guy?"
"Yeah."
Let's hope so.
- Producer: Erin Green
- Video Editor: Steve Neilson
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