Jesse Camp was the winner of the first Wanna Be a VJ

Wanna Be a VJ

Wanna Be a VJ was a show and contest on MTV. Contestants were selected from the crowd around MTV's Times Square office, and narrowed down via challenges testing the applicants' music knowledge and personality. Once narrowed down to six contestants, viewers were allowed to vote for contestants via...

contest on MTV

MTV

MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

. He beat out Dave Holmes

Dave Holmes

David Robert "Dave" Holmes is a television personality who gained national attention as the runner-up on MTV's first Wanna Be a VJ contest in 1998. From the beginning, he distinguished himself from other candidates with an encyclopedic knowledge of music trivia.Despite his loss to Jesse Camp, MTV...

 for a VJ job on the popular music video

Music video

A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

 show Total Request Live

Total Request Live

Total Request Live is a television series on MTV that featured popular music videos. TRL was MTV's prime outlet for music videos as the network continues to concentrate on reality-based programming. In addition to music videos, TRL featured daily guests...

(TRL), and also hosted the short-lived Lunch with Jesse, which was canceled in 2002.

Controversy

During the course of Wanna Be a VJ, it was believed that he was homeless because he projected the image of a "street kid." However, controversy arose when it was discovered that he had grown up and attended private school in Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

.

The Village Voice

The Village Voice

The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...

reported that an internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 source, known only by the handle

User (computing)

A user is an agent, either a human agent or software agent, who uses a computer or network service. A user often has a user account and is identified by a username , screen name , nickname , or handle, which is derived from the identical Citizen's Band radio term.Users are...

 "UglyPig", claimed to have cast over 3,000 votes for Camp in the Wanna Be a VJ contest, exploiting a security flaw in the system.

Career

Camp held his position as an occasional TRL host for one year. When he left the series, Thalia DaCosta won the contest to replace him, who in turn was a VJ on the network for about a year. Upon leaving Camp attempted to parlay his MTV fame into a rock career under the name Jesse & the 8th Street Kidz on the Hollywood Records

Hollywood Records

Hollywood Records is an American record label owned by Disney Music Group, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company.-History:Hollywood Records was founded in 1989 by then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner with the idea of expanding the music operations of the company and to develop and promote...

 label. Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Stephen Thomas Erlewine is a senior editor for Allmusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for Allmusic, as well as a freelance writer, occasionally contributing liner notes. He is also frontman and guitarist for the Ann Arbor-based band Who Dat?Erlewine is the nephew...

 described the hair metal–leaning album as "unbearable".

In late 2006, he was reportedly working at a Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

–area pet supply store called Centinela Feed & Supply. In 2008 he began working for a firm called "Telefund" as a caller, raising money for non-profit liberal and progressive

Progressive

Progressive is an adjectival form of progress and may refer to:-Politics:* Progressivism, a political ideology* Progressive Era, a period of reform in the United States Progressive is an adjectival form of progress and may refer to:-Politics:* Progressivism, a political ideology* Progressive Era, a...

 organizations.

Other works

• He is seen doing an impromptu cameo on the documentary by Aron Ranen called Power & Control LSD in The Sixties.

External links

• Jesse Camp's Bio on VH1
  VH1
  VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...