Contest aims to polish Cleveland’s image after drubbing on YouTube
CLEVELAND — Come to Cleveland, where the economy is based on LeBron James, the streets are filled with drifters and broken-down homes can be had for the price of a videocassette recorder.
A comedian’s sarcastic You- Tube music videos trashing Cleveland have so unnerved tourism officials that they came up with a contest, asking residents to fire back with their own videos showing the city is not really the “Mistake on the Lake.”
But take it easy, Cleveland. Mike Polk, 31, a hometown comic and video producer, said his two videos — which also maligned the city for such things as its abandoned buildings and polluted waters — were all in fun.
“I don’t really believe all of the fish in Lake Erie have AIDS,” said Polk, whose You- Tube contribution to Cleveland’s inferiority complex landed him a job judging the mostly feel-good contest videos.
The winner of the contest sponsored by the city’s travel promotion agency, Positively Cleveland, will be announced today.
Entries had to cost $2 or less to produce, be no more than 2 minutes long and highlight favorite spots and the “unexpected side of the area about which tourists may not be aware.”
The winner gets a Cleveland travel package, including a stay in a downtown hotel, dinner and passes to attractions.
Polk’s favorite spots? The Playhouse Square theater district and corner music clubs.
But there’s another inescapable part of Cleveland, including a dwindling population, shrinking manufacturing base, a high poverty rate and rampant foreclosures. Polk hits on many of the anti-highlights in the bare-knuckle video:
• “Here’s the place where there used to be industry,” the song says against a backdrop of urban desolation.
• “Cleveland leads the nation in drifters,” the video warns.
• The city’s economy is based on the Cavaliers’ James, Most Valuable Player in the National Basketball Association.
Samantha Fryberger, director of communications for Positively Cleveland, denied any hard feelings about Polk’s video ribbing.
Polk said that unhappy Clevelanders are silly to suggest he shouldn’t point out the city’s shortcomings.
“I love the city or else I would have left a long time ago,” he said. “But I’m also realistic, and I’m not going to pretend like there aren’t a lot of negatives around here.”
Still, Polk offered Cleveland a glimmer of hope, ending one video with the chant: “We’re not Detroit.”
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