The motley crew at Channel 955, one of Detroit's many pop stations, needed listeners to pay attention to them again, so they found themselves a fake Ryan Gosling and paraded him around the city to unsuspecting fans.
The same radio station that ran a guess-her-suicide-date poll during Britney Spears' months of public meltdown, kinda-sorta advocated prison rape after ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was sentenced to prison (again) and inexplicably runs actor-staged "War of the Roses" cheating scams that everyone knows are fake had a "tax account" (sic) that resembled the movie star tag along with morning co-host Spike around downtown and Wayne State University's campus.
People here in Detroit have been on Gosling-watch since His Handsomeness has been in town making a movie with Christina Hendricks, who publicly endorsed a relatively average (somebody has to say it. Rah-rah for local ingredients and stuff, but Supino is just too salty.) pizza shop in Esquire this week and has had residents on an equally maddening celeb hunt.
If anything, the video highlights Detroit's severe self-esteem problem when it comes to visiting celebrities. The same region that produced Bob Seger and Aretha Franklin — both of whom still live in the area, among others — wets their pants and goes into a media frenzy when someone comes for a visit. The vibe isn't, "Hey, Ryan Gosling is making a movie here," it's "CAN RYAN GOSLING SAVE DETROIT?"
That Channel 955 would capitalize on that sentiment to fool a few Wayne State students isn't the worst of their sins, but still kinda lame. But since 98.7 is hot on their ratings tail, they've got to do something about it.