Want a message from celebrities? Just pay them

Remember Nikki Blonsky? She was the unknown Long Island teen plucked from a Cold Stone Creamery and cast as the star of the 2007 movie musical Hairspray. Now, a decade after that big splash, her acting career has slowed to a drip.

Recently she lent her voice to Pup Star, a direct-to-digital entry in the Air Bud extended universe. Soon she will appear in a horror movie opposite Gary Busey’s son.

Blonsky is the bard of Cameo. She excels at the projection of intimacy. She takes a few spare details about her subject — an upcoming birthday, a career milestone — and spins them into a sugar-voiced pep talk filmed as a dim, shaky selfie.

Cameo is an intriguing new development in celebrity-fan relations. Commoners have always had a tenuous relationship with the stars. Their images and life stories exert a strong gravitational pull over our own, and the internet has provided the opportunity for the masses to yank back.

Browse an array of available Cameo “talent” — the list includes The OC star Mischa Barton (current rate: $75), the NFL Hall-of-Famer Terrell Owens ($350), the former boybander Lance Bass ($125) and a raft of Real Housewives socialites — and choose your favourite player.

If the celebrity accepts the request, a video will materialise in your inbox within a week. If he or she does not, you will receive a sad GIF and will not be charged.

Steven Galanis, a former LinkedIn account executive who is CEO of Cameo, realised a couple years ago that “the celebrity selfie is the new autograph” and set out to democratise the experience with the help of co-founders Devon Townsend, a former Microsoft engineer, and Martin Blencowe, a producer and NFL agent.

Galanis did the math: Maybe three hours at the event, plus one hour of travel each way, amounted to about six dollars a minute. But boil an “appearance” down to just the few minutes is takes to shoot a video, and such experiences could be made available on a wide scale — “the greatest gift ever, and cheaper than a ticket to a Knicks game,” Galanis said.

Dina Lohan, best known for giving birth to Lindsay, has struggled to adapt to the form. In her Cameos, she regularly appears perched in a striped armchair next to an enormous silk curtain contraption, filmed from across the room by an unseen handler. Her messages come off as scripted and rote, which, of course, they are. She has received such feedback from users as “She said 31st birthday instead of 35th” and “She doesn’t seem to be having fun.”

When I requested a Cameo from Jon Gosselin of Jon & Kate Plus Eight, he made sure to casually drop this: “I’m so busy I had to do it from my car.” $40

Rebecca Black, who rose to infamy as an awkward teenager in 2011, when a low-budget music video for her puzzling and atonal single, Friday went viral, has re-emerged on Cameo, where she seems to have found her calling. Now 21, she is suddenly gorgeous and self-assured. In her videos, she appears winkingly gracious to her “fans” for listening to Friday, then performs a twee ukulele version. Her voice sounds amazing. $30

Except for Lohan. Instead of repeating the tongue twister, she sat in her chair, told “me,” I guess, that she had just returned from opening Lohan Beach Clubs in Greece, and wished my family “love, laughter and great health.” She did not say my name. $75