The Human Centi-PR*
*this title is based on a movie called the Human Centipede that you should not Google while at work
Well guess who’s back, back again?
No, not Slim Shady.
Vicky and Jeffy!
You might remember them from last week’s escapades that I wrote about here.
Like I concluded in that piece:
“It feels like Jeffy and Victoria and food influencers will do anything for business, a free meal, and your attention.”
Turns out I was not wrong. About a day ago, this piece popped up on Time Out Chicago’s IG feed promoting what a lot of Chicagoan’s have been referring to as the sex boat.
I could explain what that means, but there’s an instagram post which explains exactly what I mean. There used to be video, but I think you have to click to an unsavory website to find that now. (If you do, make sure you have a good virus blocker and VPN).
Which is to say, anytime you make a hot tub seemingly semi-private, sex-related acts are probably gonna happen. I say semi-private, because as we can see from the that IG post, the illusion of privacy is really what’s at play since we realize everyone can see them. Then again, some people are exhibitionists Maybe this is how this particular couple gets its kinks.
Anyway, my point is hot tubs even in the best of times, aka without the sexual shenanigans likely to occur in semi-privacy or the actual privacy of Sybaris, are basically bowls of butt stock*.
What are you talking about, dude? Well since this is a food newsletter, a lot of you have probably made veal or chicken stock, i.e. you boiled a bunch of bones and veg and aromatics in a high temperature water, and all the stuff you boiled leached into the water to form a flavored liquid.
Hot tub = hot water. Bones and veg = bathing suit clad human butts and whatever else is on your skin.
And now, we’ve put this all on a boat fueled with alcohol that travels down the Chicago river, a river once so foul with Cholera and other bacteria, that the city literally defied physics and reversed the flow of the river into a sanitary canal to clean it up.
Well, sure, but now the river must be clean, right?
Let me just share this quote about the river from a July 2019 Block Club article from Allison Fore, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago
“However, our river also contains wildlife and bacteria. Anyone considering contact with water bodies such as the [Chicago Area Waterway System] should consult with their physician,” Fore said. “Although water quality is improved, many hazards exist on the waterways due to boat traffic, currents, temperature and lack of ingress and egress to name a few.
And, yes I know how chlorine works, and in general, hot tubbing drunk or whatever in the middle of winter is not a crime. Arguably for some people it’s the most amazing thing to ever happen in these parts since Jean Baptiste Point du Sable settled near the river’s mouth.
And yet, like everything else, hot tub boats apparently need PR. We’ll get to that in a second. But, first let’s explain where Jeffy and Vicky come in. The lady in the Time Out Chicago video in the Russian Ushanka-style hat is Victoria Kent of Victoria Kent PR.
At the end of the video here in the fabulously bejeweled captain’s hat, very briefly at the end, that’s her partner Jeffy Mai, editor of Time Out Chicago.
The boat company that operates these floating hot tub sex machines, the Chicago Electric Boat company, is not Victoria’s client. So no harm, no foul, right? Vicky isn’t leveraging her partner Jeffy to promote her client like she was last week. It’s just friends having fun and producing content, right?
Well, it’s even weirder in some ways. The boat company’s PR rep is Heidi Hageman of H2PR, also one of Vicki’s friends. So, what we’re seeing is that one PR person is leveraging their other friend in PR to leverage their partner who is an editorial journalist to pimp their client.
Heidi is doing her job by promoting her client and tapping an acquaintance to do so. Vicki arguably is not being ethical in leveraging her boyfriend to promote the butt soup boat party on Time Out’s publication channels, but again I don’t have too much of an issue with her helping a friend in the business out. I will be unequivocal tho that Jeffy, the editor of Time Out Chicago probably should not be pimping his girlfriend’s friend’s client and also shooting footage for them, without at least a disclosure.
Or maybe it’s fine. Here’s Time Out’s “ethics policy”.
It is kind of vague. It doesn’t say our writers will not do things like this. I guess that’s up to you to decide if it’s ok and if so, maybe drop an email to the super accountable email address hello@timeout.com and let them know what you think.
That all being said, there’s still a twist here. Since I’ve mentioned Heidi, I need to mention my own affiliations with her. A few months ago, I was selling these t-shirts I designed in conjunction with a piece I wrote on Chicago’s G.O.A.T. chefs.
Heidi reached out and said that she bought one for herself and one for One Off’s legendary chef leader Paul Kahan. She shared a link of a picture of her and Paul wearing those t-shirts. I re-shared the photo in my Instagram stories because I respect Paul a lot. I was super excited he was wearing one of the t-shirts I created. (I would share this photo now, but it was just a link in a story on IG and is now gone)
So Heidi did her friend Paul a favor because he expressed that he liked the shirt. She absolutely did me a favor by sharing hers and Paul’s sweet sartorial decisions with me and the world.
Am I inclined to write more favorably when covering her clients or be more open to her pitches? I will say no, not a chance. I’d also say Heidi has never pitched me since I started the newsletter. Few in PR really do, because they know by now I’d prefer to discover stories and make choices on my own. I suspect Heidi, who is really one of the best locally in food PR, doesn’t because part of her job is knowing what each and every one of her potential targets needs. And I have been clear on my preferences for independence.
That being said, maybe there is subconscious influence, or actual influence. Honestly, I like Heidi because of it at a minimum. I should also say though I’ve never met Jeffy and Vicky, they seem like super fun people. I want to say this loud and clear because people keep asserting that I write these pieces because I’m jealous or I have a vendetta or I just don’t like these people.
That’s not the case. I am doing it because I think it’s important for consumers of information and social media to know what they’re seeing and why they’re seeing it. I also hope it enforces a more even playing field for all restaurants and chefs and anyone who does anything so that it’s the quality of their work and not the unreliability of their entangled relationships that earns them credit and coverage.
Full stop, if I write about Heidi or her clients and there’s some potential influence, I should be transparent about this interaction, and you the reader should know about it so you can make your own decisions about my coverage. That’s why I’ve declared this here. Your turn, Jeffy.
*Kevin James coined the butt soup phrase in his stand-up.
LOVE IT!