Proof that the HBO dramedy “Entourage” really can come true — at least for one young man from Rhode Island named Michael Seander, a Duke baseball player who was sidelined by an injury some years ago and, on a lark, began making rap videos about his partying college lifestyle under the moniker Mike Stud.
Now in his late 20s and living in a West Hollywood house with his collaborators (and lifelong friends), Mike is enjoying a success that’s possible only because the traditional music industry imploded. He’s a proudly independent recording artist whose fame and marketing strategy are a creation of social networks.
“This Is Mike Stud” is primarily about a group of guys working together to release and promote their buddy’s album and travel the country with him while feeding a desire for an endless bacchanal. Imagine if “Entourage” had one Vinny and a half-dozen Turtles and was confined mainly to a decent-size tour bus and smallish concert venues. (Imagine also, for a moment, a world in which the rap music realm is seemingly populated only by white people, save for one friend of Mike’s from college, Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Marcus Stroman.)
Thanks to a commitment to documentary principles, the show becomes a fascinating study in present-day masculinity and the definitions of celebrity in an all-digital era. There’s something almost heartbreaking about Mike’s desire to push his (mediocre, at best) music into a more artistic realm while young women clamor to have him to sign their breasts with a Sharpie pen. The lucky few get to join him and his pals on their bus, though Mike is struggling to play it cool, now that he has a steady girlfriend (who happens to be Jose Canseco’s 19-year-old daughter).
