A group of young people at a shared workspace that operates as a celebrity incubator work together to try to crack the code to achieving celebrity.

SYNOPSIS:

CELEBCUBATE – A SITCOM PROPOSAL

The element that creates all the potential for this show is its setting - a celebrity incubator.

What is a celebrity incubator? It's many things, but in its most important aspect it's a place where the hyper-aspirationalism and the never-say-die can-doism of American culture combine to drive the characters into a perpetual state of personality disorder.

What kind of things can happen in a celebrity incubator? That's the great thing about it. Anything can happen. The only limits are the limits of the human imagination.

With the advent of social-media America’s tortured relationship with the institution of celebrity has only become more pathological. The aspiration to transcend the media divide between the consumption of media, and the production of it, has reached epidemic proportions.

Within the celebrity-obsessed environment that is modern-day America, no-one embodies that obsession more than the central character of this series – Kassidy.

KASSIDY:

Kassidy’s celebrity dreams have been fueled by the advice of every adult in her life, who all exhorted her to believe in herself and follow her dreams. That's exactly what she does, to the point of dysfunction.

Kassidy views celebrities as modern-day saints who will reward her devotion to them by answering her prayers. Her hope is to be able to join them on their side of the celebrity looking glass. She honestly believes that imitating celebrities as much as possible will help her to be like them success-wise. Her celebrity imitation has a purpose, and she defends it against those who argue that it's not effective.

Kassidy is not crazy, far from it. Although she gets diagnosed with "Celebrity Personality Disorder", she is fundamentally rational and she strives to present herself that way. She thinks other people are missing out by living in their imagination less than she does. For her, the imagination is a staging space for future realities.

Kassidy’s behavior at times can seem kooky, but everything she does is backed up by an industry of motivational gurus, all urging their followers to push ever harder in support of their career goals. She buys into this no-holds-barred approach as the only way of succeeding in an ultra-competitive world. Some of the show will revolve around the question of how far is too far for Kassidy to go in the pursuit of her dreams.

One of the keys to the show is Kassidy’s ability to use her motivational platitudes to transform outlandish proposals into unavoidable choices.

Everyone who works in a creative field must navigate the difficult transition back and forth between “Dreamsville” and reality. It’s usually debatable as to how well any given individual is managing this transition. In Kassidy’s case, she appears at times to be managing it very well, and at other times not so well.

Kassidy is an iconic character representative of the multitudinous flavors of hype that proliferate throughout the American media landscape. She brings a depth of personality that will enable her character to go on for years, much in the way that the Costanza/David character has endured for decades.

At the shared workspace Kassidy gets involved at the development stage with a reality show about the making of a reality show, and this provides her with full license to pursue any crazy notion she might have as a possible idea for the show. Much of her personal life becomes potential fodder for the show.

Kassidy and her friends come into contact with a number of fringe entertainment industry players through her job at the shared workspace. The workspace environment is full of youthful striving, and grand plans, and new theories about how to make it big some day, even though none of them are making it at all today.

To an objective observer this workspace would appear to be a hub of delusion, while to the insiders it’s a source of inspiration and encouragement.

THE OTHER CHARACTERS:

The characters self-mockingly refer to themselves as “Celebturbators” whenever they get the frustrating feeling that their celebrity-seeking behavior is just self-gratification.

The characters all share a fascination with both social media and reality television due to their potential to “celebrify” ordinary people.

The characters are all supportive of each other while at the same time believing he or she is the only one who has a completely un-distorted view of themselves and the world they live in.

The characters will have an ongoing sense of comedic tension between them due to the blurry line between legitimate dreams and impossible ones. The characters will always be in conflict over this question, with their own dreams of course looking more possible than those of the others.

All the characters believe they’re the masters of the cultural influences in their lives, when in reality they’re the victims of them.

It’s the combined effect of both American celebrity culture and American aspirational culture that will drive the comedically dysfunctional behavior of the characters.

The interaction between the characters derives from their interaction with the popular culture in which they live. The characters lampoon that culture through their un-critical embrace of it, much like the characters in the “Thunder Gun” episode in season 14 of “Sunny In Philadelphia”.

All of these characters are built from scratch, not types, and this will make them more believable as they attempt to twist reality to suit their own purposes.

Descriptions of the most significant other characters are provided in the following paragraphs.

SHARYN:

Kassidy's friend Sharyn is also an aspiring actress with even fewer prospects than Kassidy and less of an ability to believe in her chances in the “celebrification” lottery. Although she shares Kassidy's desperate ambition, she vacillates between enabling her, and trying to keep her from going over the edge.

Her relationship with Kassidy is one of Kassidy trying to pull her into the various hyper-enthusiasms that Kassidy has decided are essential to their future success, and Sharyn trying, usually unsuccessfully, to keep the both of them on an even keel.

This dysfunctional co-dependent relationship leads Sharyn into unfortunate situations such as when she allows Kassidy to convince her to enter a “Buttsercise” model competition in order to use the experience as material for a show proposal.

STORM:

Storm is a low-budget reality T.V. producer who hires Kassidy as an actress and general production assistant. He's obsessed with reality T.V. believing it to be the great equalizer that gives everyone a shot at the fame they yearn for and deserve. He's making a reality show about the making of a reality show. Despite his fringe-player status, he insists on acting like the big wheel he's convinced he eventually will be.

AMY:

Kassidy's Asian-American friend Amy, is no actress, but she has ambitions to become involved in the business side of the entertainment industry. She's constantly getting swept up in Kassidy's enthusiasms, all the while believing that she's the sensible one. Her nerdy sensibility makes it difficult for her to be as cool as the other two but it doesn't stop her from trying.

MAX:

Max to the M-E-X is a Mexican-American man with ambitions to eventually become the king of low-budget Mexploitation movies. He and Storm have a deal to co-produce each other's productions. Each chides the other for his shameless cheesy pandering. They compete to look like a big shot in Kassidy's eyes.

ISTRA:

Istra is an African-American musician in an all-female rap-goth (roth) band called the Go Go Goths. She wants Storm to do a reality show that follows the progress of her band.

ALEX:

Alex is a freelance camera-operator in the television and video production industry. He provides Kassidy with glimpses into the magical world of television. His sexual orientation is ambiguous, but his interest in Kassidy, and her well-being, is obvious. He's writing a sitcom pilot based on Kassidy's life.

TONE:

The aspirational feel of the show is combined with a sense that “celebrification” is a lottery, and a crooked one that can be cheated if only someone can uncover the secrets of the game’s insiders.

The characters worship people such as Snooki and The Sitch as masters of the celebrity scam, in which celebrity is conferred without any accomplishment to justify it. America seems full of such un-deserving celebrities.

The success of so many un-deserving celebrities feeds the belief that there’s a back-door to celebrity, and if the characters can just figure out what it is, they too will be able to sneak in.

The characters are constantly developing some new plan, a fresh angle, an innovative approach, to allow them to bamboozle their way into the game.

The show revolves around the hucksterism that has become the hallmark of American culture, from the entertainment industry, to the media, to Wall Street, to politics, to religion, to personal relations, the bamboozler is king, and these characters want in on the action.