FOX, in their rush to push out a copy of NBC’s karaoke gameshow Singing Bee has blurred the line between reality, and well, fiction.
The series Don’t Forget the Lyrics debuted on Wednesday with cuter-than-a-button “Katie Moeser of Escondido, California” (a distant suburb of LA) hopping and bopping out-of-key to the classics. One couldn’t help but be charmed by the self-proclaimed nerd who said she’s “currently getting her masters in biology… studying to be an entomologist.” But is that so? A Google of Ms. Moeser reveals a MySpace account that presents a contrary image.
Her current MySpace account says she’s an (ahem) 99-year old living in Sherman Oaks (another suburb of LA) with a long series of interests, including– as claimed on TV– insects, knitting as well as assorted other not-so-nerdy activities.
However, as recently as July 8 (shown by Google cache) just days before her appearance on DFTL, her profile showed her as a 29-year old from Santa Monica (yet another LA suburb), and listed among her wide variety of activities, “making out on tylenol PM”. But most telling, her original profile showed group membership in “Hollywood Assistants,” and her networking fields as being “Film – Marketing – Public Relations Publicity.”
All of these have been redacted in the current version, but the missing latter ones reveal the story about Ms. Moeser: The Hollywood Assistants Myspace group is a private LA group only for the slave class of Tinseltown. As stated in its description:
MySpace group for assistants in the film and TV business. Agent assistants, studio exec assistants, production assistants, etc. You don’t have to be in Hollywood but you do have to be working in the industry to join. The purpose of the group is to meet people at other studios, agencies etc. that you wouldn’t otherwise meet. It will also serve as a place to post news, opportunities, and the boss rantings that go with being an assistant in this business. If you send a request to join and you do not have your job listed on your page, please send me a message detailing your job. I am sorry for all the people I have had to deny but I must limit the group to people who are currently working.
This single item shows that rather being a seemingly just-off-the-streets karaoke hottie, Katie is in actuality, the reality show equivalent of a ringer: she’s an entertainment industry wannabe.
Who’s to blame? Clearly it’s not Katie; she was selected, prepped and moulded by the show’s producers to project just the right image for the supposed game-show’s potential TV audience. Just as with every other money-oriented reality series (such as, say, Survivor) DFTL is cast with an eye towards emotional resonance, personality and likeability– and if presenting someone as a cute bug-loving nerd might improve some Nielsen numbers, then the casting department is going to push the truth envelope. Expect to see more of the same from this show. As pointed out in Variety‘s fluffy initial review, “The number of people on the casting staff far outnumbers any other department in the credits on “Lyrics”.
Addendum: Of course, I may be completely off-base: Kate may be exactly what she claims, a grad student in entomology. (In which case I humbly apologise for undue assumptions.) However, how would one explain the conveniently timed deletion of any hint that she might be working for The Industry; or the reported, and seemingly uncompleted undergraduate major in Communications (rather than biology); or this note, left to a friend on Myspace, during what would normally be considered a scholastic term:
Sep 28 2006 9:42P
call me pal!! I am up in LA every few weekends!! I actually have a job interview up there tomorrow. teehee…so I might be moving back soon!! xo
wow. just wow. but, even if she isn’t who she says she is… does it matter? She’s still hot.
Very insightful Simon – if that’s who you SAY you are? Seriously, this article is most informative, and to the Vincent fellow, sure it matters – they are, after all, presenting it as a REALITY type show. The producers must be held to some standard. BTW, I think that Wayne Brady looks might goofy dancing around on stage.
Hey there, Simon, I’ve been following a lot of blogs on this show, and I’ve gotta say, yours is quite the most entertaining!
There’s a couple of things I’d like to point out, not necessarily to defend Ms. Moeser, or the show, but just a few items for you to consider.
Point 1: It seems to me that most of the people that would audition to be on this type of program would either be a) karaoke singers; b) wanna-be-actors/actresses that might have an “easy shot” at getting their faces and personalities on TV; c) people who aren’t afraid to get up and make goofballs of themselves.
Unfortunately, these goofballs don’t consider the repercussions of their appearances and actions, things they say, things they do… and how it all could be more life changing (and career ruining) than just financially beneficial.
But you can’t sit there and suggest that a major network would actually pay someone or put someone in as a ‘ringer’ when there are thousands upon thousands of people that might be aching to get on any kind of tv show and fit the mold of the typical person that you might find auditioning for this type of program!
And of those thousands, there are bound to be good singers, bad singers, theatre groupies, interns, people that just want to make it in the business badly! We all want our 15 minutes of fame, it seems, some people are just more bold than others.
Just because she lives close to Hollywood doesn’t mean she’s a pro… just means that they selected quite a few of their first contestants from the LA/San Diego area, where most of the auditions (that were advertised on the radio)were held.
Point 2: Putting age 99 on your myspace page is basically a way of hiding your age… after all, not all women like to reveal that kind of secret (although she might have revealed that on the show, I don’t recall…) but there’s a lot of jerks on myspace that will do searches on pretty girls between the ages of 18-36whatever… obviously if you put the age 99, you’re not going to be included in the search results.
Give the poor kid a break! Besides, after taxes, she’s not going to be that wealthy! lol… I don’t think people realize that either!!!
By the way, Escondido is a suburb of San Diego… you definitely need to get a few of your facts straight!!!
I couldn’t have said it better than Donna S. This is absolute horseshit. Why not just dunk her in water to see if she’s a witch? If she drowns, at least you’ll know she’s not!
Hi, Donna, thanks for reading! I agree with your general points — however:
1) I wasn’t actually suggesting that Ms. Moeser is an actress, but that she is not, as she said (or was told to say) a grad student in entomology. I referred to her as an “entertainment industry wannabe”, because she was listing herself as a member of the exclusionary Hollywood Assistants group (which requires proof of working in the entertainment field to join). On a related note,someone on the Fox Message Board claims to have known her from San Diego where they “did theater together”. There’s no verification of that, of course. 
2) The age issue was just a side note, and not really meaningful, other than to hint that it’s unlikely for someone to be a 29-year-old masters candidate in biology. The critical point is that Katie had made changes to her MySpace profile just at the time of the broadcast which appeared to obfuscate her Hollywood connection/interests.
Incidentally, I was kidding about Escondido being a “distant suburb of LA” (it’s about 100 miles from the center of LA) — ’cause while Katie may have been from there originally, it seems pretty clear that at least from December of last year, she’s been living in LA.
And finally, I do point out that any blame for the way she was presented rests with the producers/casting crew of the show who coached Katie on what to say, rather than on her.
[...] I’d been noticing a strange trend– a sudden rush of searches for my over a year old posting about one “Katie Moeser” formerly a contestant on FOX’s Don’t Forget the [...]