The HollywoodFix.com
Unless you are a fan of TikTokers, you might not have heard of The Hollywood Fix. It's a wildly popular YouTube channel focusing on influencer news and gossip.
Created by Fletcher Greene, it has become the destination for all things influencer. To give you an idea of the kind of stories he covers, here's some recent video titles: Charli D’Amelio Speaks On Her Friendship With Nessa Barrett After The Drama With Chase Hudson. Blake Gray Addresses Tinder Cheating Rumors With Amelie Zilber.
Greene didn't get his start with influencers. He started by reporting on mainstream celebrities. He lived next to the actress Karrueche Tran, who was dating Chris Brown at the time. He drove by her house one day and saw Brown pounding on her door. He snapped a couple pictures of him and sold them to TMZ for $1,000. After seeing how easy it was, he decided he wanted to keep doing it.
Greene said, "It started out as real celebrities, like movie stars and rock stars, and then it transitioned into television stars. From there it moved to YouTubers. I was the first paparazzi to shoot Jake Paul when he was blowing up big. So, I took the skills that I used on traditional celebrities, like Jennifer Gardner and Ben Affleck, and then turned that style of reporting onto social media influencers. It was very successful because, like with Jake Paul, all you could get was what he was putting out. So, you'd see what he was putting out on his channel but other than that, you didn't know what he was up to. They really liked to see the influencers off camera.”
The big difference between traditional celebrities and influencers is that the influencers will tend to open up a lot more. Most traditional celebrities want to stay on topic and avoid any controversial subjects, where influencers will answer just about any question that you ask them. It's refreshing and it's one of the reasons that The Hollywood Fix has been so successful.
Part of what's so interesting to Greene is that he's always reporting on different people because the influencer world is ever changing. He said, “The thing with the influencers is that they have an unstable shelf life. You can blow up overnight, and have millions of followers, and then just as quickly they're sitting there checking their notifications and there are none. That attention can quickly come and quickly go.”
The hardest part of the process is to figure out exactly which influencers to cover. Because things happen so rapidly in the influencer world, someone that got a lot of interest on a Monday might not on Friday.
Greene said, "There might be five people out at the same time and there's only so many hours in the day. So, a lot of times I'll have to make a decision and go, 'Out of all these people who will have the best story? Is this a person who runs and hides when you film them? Can I get there in time?' You have to make a split-second decision because the pace is so fast."
Finding where these big influencers are is half the battle. He gets DMs from valets, bartenders, servers, etc. who let him know if a celebrity shows up.
He also relies on his network of friends who will reach out if they spot a big celebrity. Surprisingly, he never pays for that information.
Greene mainly sticks to wherever the trendy spot of the moment is. It seems like the number one spot to see the big influencers is the BOA Steakhouse in West Hollywood. He said, "Paul, the manager, is super tight with all the influencers, and has all their numbers, and will seat them at a moment’s notice and get them a good table and good service."
Restaurants are starting to learn that the exposure an influencer can give to them far outweighs the cost of a dinner.
COVID has slowed things down significantly for Greene. He said, "It's been since March that there has been any movie premiers and I'm used to one or two a week. So, I'm anticipating on a huge flood of the mainstream celebrities coming back and being out like crazy. I hope so, if the virus goes away."
Despite being so involved in the influencer world, Greene has no desire to becoming one himself. He said, "That's not my focus. I'm focused on doing my job. And my job is to get media and put it out there. I don't have a personal Instagram account. I'm not that kind of person. I'm not going to be throwing a party in the hills that they have to shut the power off for."
