The "Dr. Michael Samuels" mystery - potential clues

[The Mute Poet]

Ok, we've all seen this "Dr. Michael Samuels" stuff floating around on youtube for sometime now, and I just wanted to raise the question (if, indeed, it hasn't already been asked) - just what exactly is going on here?

For those of you who don't know, Dr. Samuels seems to be someone posing as an allergist who seems to claim to require a woman as an actress for an allergy commercial. Judging from most of the auditions posted so far, he asks the prospective models to talk about their allergies, say specific phrases such as "call Dr. Michael Samuels for an appointment", and also provide a sample of themselves sneezing (most of which seem to be real). I think most of us here would be hard-pressed to argue that this doesn't wreak of a fetishists work...

My question is - where is the actual add that these auditions are responding to? One would assume that it would be on youtube, since all the videos that allude to it we have are from the site, yet a search for "Dr. Michael Samuels" returns virtually nothing. It seems like the ad would appear to be reletively legitimate, since many of the women seem to be putting some serious effort into their videos, so that led me to the suspicion that maybe, just maaaybe our "Dr. Michael Samuels" might not be the ingenious invention of a fellow fetishist after all, but a bona fide doctor who happens to share the fetish and is taking advantage of (abusing?) his office in order to gain acces to new sneezing material. That led me to attemp a google search for information on our Dr. Samuels. There I found this:

http://www.michaelsamuels.com/

http://web.tampabay.rr.com/lymecfs/samuel.htm

The first site gives a brief biography of the only Dr. Michael Samuels prominantly mentioned anywhere in the search. That in itself isn't much of anything, though it does mention that he works primarily with cancer patients. That fact, coupled with the fact that the star of the newest Dr. Samuels audition claims "cancer patient" is her occupation on her youtube bio:

http://www.youtube.com/user/woodward333

Also, Samuels' clinic is said to be in Marin County, California and the woman claimed to live in Ojai, also in California, and within driving distance of the clinic.

I dunno, the whole thing just seems a bit fishy to me... insights anyone?

- Edited to say that I hate not being able to spell (see title haha) - mods feel free to help me out (winks)

[Demosthenes]

I had thought about this some recently... I think it was when one of the Youtube users complained in their comments about not getting a job for their audition.

You know I don't really care, and this is pure speculation... But it is possible that someone is going around advertising for allergy models. He asks them to send in an audition tape and then when he gets what he wants, splits because there is obviously no real job he can offer them. Sort of a sneeze fetish con-man.

Obviously I don't know the actual situation, but that alomst sounds funny to me.

It is strange that we can't find any reference on the internet. Which also leads me to believe that he's soliciting the allergy auditions somewhere off-line. Then maybe some of them just use Youtube to send it to him because it's easy. We could just be seeing the tip of the iceberg in terms of how many audition videos our mastermind unsub has managed to obtain.

[King_of_the_ruins]

It's really hard to say, but with all the wierdos, nutjobs, crackpots, scammers out there, anything is possible. Although on the other side of the coin, if we're getting material, why complain?

[resolution]

Yeah, I think your theory sounds rather reasonable Demosthenes, it has been my assumption for a while. This has gone on for too long, this doctor would have found someone already. Also a link to the internet site where the "Sneeze Queen" Youtuber says they found the ad for the allergy audition had been given on the page of the same video in a comment. I visited the site briefly but didn't find anything of interest. I should have kept that site address and looked more thoroughly later, maybe it would have offered more clues.

[shishio]

i think it was avalon

[The Mute Poet]

That could make sense, if somebody took out an ad on avalon's site claiming to be a doctor alot of people could think it was authentic, without much in the way of varifying it. It would also explain why we can't find any traces of it in searches. Did anyone see anything interesting on the site before the video was deleted, by any chance?

It'd definitely be interesting to get to the bottom of this mystery, though I should probably make it clear that I largely adhere to king_of_the_ruin's "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" policy - I'm just too curious for my own good haha.

[Lynne]

um.... duh? Of course it's a fetishist I have a few suspicions as to who, as well.

[resolution]

Imagine what sort of collection he must have. We only see the ones that the creators for some strange reason also decide to post on sites like Youtube and Myspace.

Uh oh, I just typed "Dr Michael Samuels" into a Google search and this thread now comes up third on Google's list. If anyone else seeing that ad types his name into a Google search to verify who he is...well you know. Maybe that's why this thread has never been made before.

[Demosthenes]

HAAA Ha haaa haa! Sorry but that cracks me up!

Of you know that means that whoever this "Michael Samuels" is, he's reading this as we speak!

[resolution]

HAAA Ha haaa haa! Sorry but that cracks me up!

Of you know that means that whoever this "Michael Samuels" is, he's reading this as we speak!

Yeah, and so may anyone thinking of responding to his ads.

[The Mute Poet]

S'alright, I just did several searches and the forum never even came close to coming up for me - only obscure references to doctors who sort of shared samuels' name. We should be able to continue laying low (laughs at how that sounds) but it sure would've been cool if all the audition videos hadn't been removed so that we could still circumspectly ask about where the ad was from...

[Bombast]

Quick Lynne, delete this thread.... please? I don't want these auditioners to be sneeze free!

[The Mute Poet]

Quick Lynne, delete this thread.... please? I don't want these auditioners to be sneeze free!

Bwahahaahahahahaha... just... oh man, that's too funny!

[Bombast]

BTW, Avalon Productions is also based out of California, in Sacramento.

[resolution]

S'alright, I just did several searches and the forum never even came close to coming up for me - only obscure references to doctors who sort of shared samuels' name. We should be able to continue laying low (laughs at how that sounds) but it sure would've been cool if all the audition videos hadn't been removed so that we could still circumspectly ask about where the ad was from...

Your right it's different now, I just searched, Whew...good.

[lk]

I posted about this in the YouTube/Justin.tv thread just now, but I wanted to say something in this thread as well. Here you will find Nekomimi_Lisa from Justin.tv making an audition video for a Dr. Michael Samuels "commercial":

http://www.justin.tv/nekomimi_lisa/110004/...deo_for_allergy

Watch the clips from surrounding times, especially those preceding this highlight, and you will hear Lisa explaining what she is doing. She explains that she was contacted and asked to audition for a commercial by someone who saw her "sneeze attack" highlight on her site. She also speaks of possibly going to Chicago to do the commercial. Whether the reference to Chicago is some sort of clue to the location of "Dr. Michael Samuels," or his creator, or whether this is just some sort of false lead, I will leave to more assiduous detectives to determine.

[Bombast]

Do you have the time where she talks about the sneeze attack video?

[lk]

Do you have the time where she talks about the sneeze attack video?

1:47 pm and after (11 May 2008).

[Hypnos]

A bit of conspiracy! Oh, what fun! Harking back to the golden days, this is...

[lk]

More fetishist(s) behaving badly:

http://blog.bobbinbeam.com/2008/03/24/bewa...ition-scam.aspx

http://blog.bobbinbeam.com/2008/07/11/fema...ition-scam.aspx

http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-49584/TS-99602.mp3

(podcast, discussion starting at 6:30)

[The Mute Poet]

A mystery wrapped in a riddle... layers upon layers of enigmatic goodness...

I think it's funny how the voice acting community doesn't know whether to laugh or panic over this. I suppose it is quite creepy though. And still apprently based out of the Southern West Coast as well...

[resolution]

Haha, look at the response to the article.

http://blog.bobbinbeam.com/2008/03/24/bewa...veyResultsChart

[Trillium]

Another "audition" that I thought you'd all enjoy (if you haven't seen it already). Don't know if this is the right place to post it, so sorry if it's not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SObju_G0syg

[count tiszula]

That I think is the classic Dr Michael Samuels one, first disappearing then reappearing.

It is interesting that the voice over lady says that if offered money she would sneeze. But then, why would she not? To the wider world sneezing is not the awful polluting sin that it seems to some people here. The sneeze vid artists must be kicking themselves for not realising before that they can make money by doing what they would do naturally anyway, and fully dressed....

In a way, It's quite surprising that this sort of phone call has not been popularised before, given the general nature of the dirty phone call, in which the essential point seems to be just to hear the female voice.

I still hope we will eventually find Dr Samuels; what stories he could tell......

[Bombast]

I remember the lady from Atlanta. Apparently her husband shot the video and posted it on You Tube. In the comments section someone asked, seemingly innocently enough how he found out about this call for auditions and he gave the name of an outfit in California which seemed to be legit because they had their own website and everything. I think the video was pulled in the next couple of days and no one has reposted it as has been done with some of the others.