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Mr. Greene\u2019s videos have become so ubiquitous on the teen internet that they\u2019re now a meme. Hundreds of young people on TikTok have posted Hollywood Fix parody videos, and YouTubers like Emma Chamberlain have referenced the Hollywood Fix in their videos. People often parrot Mr. Greene\u2019s signature catch phrase \u2014 \u201cThe fans wanna know!\u201d \u2014 in videos and replies on Twitter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cWhenever I have nothing to do, I\u2019ll watch the Hollywood Fix,\u201d said Alana Lintao, 16, a TikToker in New Jersey who creates parodies of Mr. Greene\u2019s videos. In January, she spent hours consuming content on his YouTube channel. \u201cI kind of got caught in a loop and I was binge watching all of the videos,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Becoming a celebrity documentarian \u2014 not to mention an authority on Gen Z \u2014 wasn\u2019t Mr. Greene\u2019s plan when he moved from Dallas to Los Angeles in 2013. He had come to the city for a change of pace. At the time he was working as a music producer.<\/p>\n
Soon after his arrival, he noticed the number of famous people walking around his West Hollywood neighborhood. \u201cI used to live down the street from Karrueche Tran, and I\u2019d see Chris Brown,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
One day, he began snapping pictures of the two with his phone. He called up TMZ to see if someone there would be interested in buying them, and to his surprise an editor offered him $1,000 in exchange for a few photos.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
So began his career as a paparazzo. Mr. Greene started chasing celebrities around town, building connections with valets and service workers who tipped him off to the whereabouts of celebrities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
In 2014, he decided to put some of his content on YouTube. He was doing more video interviews and wanted a home for the stuff that the tabloids weren\u2019t buying. At the time, he said, People magazine and The Daily Mail weren\u2019t interested in footage from, say, outside Jake Paul\u2019s home, but the fans of his young influencer subjects ate the videos up and his subscriber base ballooned.<\/p>\n
By 2016, Mr. Greene was making decent money off his YouTube channel. This spring, it surpassed 1.4 million subscribers. Then, the pandemic hit in March, and suddenly everything changed. Celebrities began keeping a lower profile, stepping out only to walk their dogs or run small errands. Mr. Greene decided that rather than park outside Jennifer Lopez\u2019s house all day hoping for one photo, like other paparazzi, he would cover the stars who were posting openly about their house parties and public outings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe TikTokers are always in groups,\u201d Mr. Greene said. \u201cAll the popular ones pretty much only hang out with popular ones. If you catch one you catch two or three or four. It\u2019s not like if you get Ben Affleck you also get Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez and Madonna. They don\u2019t hang out like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n When BOA Steakhouse, an upscale American restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, opened for outdoor dining in June, it became an overnight hot spot for Gen Z influencers. Mr. Greene parked himself out front and began interviewing the young stars about their lives and drama as they came and went.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Hollywood Fix is very much covering what\u2019s happening on the internet rather than who\u2019s a big celebrity,\u201d said Kai Watson, 19, a founder of The Sync, a commentary channel and podcast. \u201cYou watch a video of a huge celeb walking down the street and it has like 10,000 views, but right next to it is a Hollywood Fix video \u2018Catching up with Charli D\u2019Amelio at BOA\u2019 with 10 million views.\u201d<\/p>\n Part of what has made the Hollywood Fix the go-to outlet for influencers is the relationship Mr. Greene has with his subjects. They know that he has done his research and takes their careers seriously.<\/p>\n Many of these young stars consider a Hollywood Fix interview to be a marker of status. \u201cA lot of up-and-coming creators will say, OMG! I was finally on Hollywood Fix,\u201d Mr. Watson said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n For many TikTok stars, Mr. Greene\u2019s channel is a conduit to the broader news media; his outlet is the first they go to when they want to discuss something new or big that they hope will be covered elsewhere. On Aug. 17, when the YouTuber Elijah Daniel hosted a joke event for his new collab mansion, the Alt Haus, he rang up the Hollywood Fix for coverage as a form of commentary<\/a> on the publicity seekers of \u201cstraight TikTok\u201d (the dancers and lip-syncers most readily associated with the app).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The reality star Spencer Pratt compared Mr. Greene to Ryan Seacrest, whose radio show has always featured celebrity guests and news items. \u201cBack in 2008, when we were famous, Ryan Seacrest would text you and you\u2019d call in and he\u2019d ask what\u2019s going on,\u201d Mr. Pratt said. \u201cAll the TikTokers use the Hollywood Fix how we used Seacrest.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Greene has also built an authority with influencers\u2019 fans. \u201cMy stuff is really fan-driven,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of people make fun of me for saying \u2018The fans wanna know!\u2019 but I have hundreds of fans a day saying \u2018Can you please find this person and ask them this or that? We need to know the answer!\u2019 So I specialize in what people want to know about.\u201d<\/p>\n The openly cozy relationship between Gen Z influencers and the paparazzi represents a sea change in the industry, said Mr. Pratt, who described being \u201cshamed\u201d for the same behavior just years ago. \u201cThese TikTokers have reinvented everything,\u201d he said. \u201cNow it\u2019s cool to film yourself and call the paparazzi and self promote.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Greene said that TikTok influencers have breathed life into the young Hollywood landscape. \u201cAll these kids are young, rich, good looking and live in these mansions,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s like a current version of \u201890210.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n