Impossible Is Nothing (video résumé)

Impossible Is Nothing is a 2006 video résumé by Aleksey Vayner (formerly Aleksey Garber, died 23 January 2013)[1][2] which became an Internet meme.

Frame from title video illustrating ballroom dancing scene.

History of job application

In October 2006, Yale University student Aleksey Vayner applied for a job with UBS, an investment bank. Amused by Vayner's apparent puffery, an unknown member of UBS staff emailed his application materials to other investment banks. The video was posted on various blogs, then YouTube, where it became an immense viral Internet phenomenon.[3]

Summary

The video opens with an apparently scripted interview between Vayner and an offscreen voice, which consists of a single question, to which Vayner gives a lengthy response. Using a considerable amount of business jargon, Vayner praises himself and shares his various insights on success, talent, and overcoming adversity. Interspliced with the interview are clips of various feats purportedly performed by Vayner, including bench pressing, skiing, playing tennis, ballroom dancing, and karate-chopping a stack of bricks. The video ends with a dedication to Radomir Kovačević and a credits sequence.

Features

Vayner's job application includes:

  • Cover letter
  • Resume: one and a half pages
  • Writing sample: eight pages
  • A glamour shot of Vayner
  • Seven-minute video that features the following feats by Vayner:
    • Interview: gives advice for achieving life goals
    • Bench press: 495 pounds (225 kilograms)
    • Downhill skiing with jumps
    • Tennis serve: 140 miles per hour (225 km/h or 63 m/s)
    • Ballroom dancing with a female dancer
    • Karate chop: seven bricks broken

Dispute with IvyGate

Legal threats by Vayner against UBS, YouTube, and various blogs did not slow its progress, only providing further fodder, subject to the Internet Streisand effect. One blog, IvyGate, became famous due to its disputes with Vayner. When Vayner emailed a cease-and-desist letter demanding that IvyGate remove "Impossible is Nothing" links from its website, the blog instead published the threat and taunted Vayner to sue them. In further investigating the incident, IvyGate learned and published[4] that:

  • Youth Empowerment Strategies, a charity Vayner said he started, claimed a "four star" rating by Charity Navigator on its website, when in fact the charity did not exist (other than an organization by the same name unrelated to Vayner) and did not receive the rating. According to The New York Times, Vayner defended himself by saying that "he had outsourced the design of his charity's website to companies in India and Pakistan and had no role in placing the Charity Navigator banner on it. Vayner told a reporter that he had the banner taken down immediately when he learned that the group had disclaimed the banner, some time around 15 September. When a reporter then told Vayner that the banner was still on the site as of the preceding week, Vayner clarified that he had sent notification to take down the banner."[5] Trent Stamp, the president of Charity Navigator, has stated that he believes Vayner should be expelled from Yale for this.[6]
  • Vayner Capital Management LLC, a hedge fund Vayner says he started, had a complete website describing its personnel and investment strategies. The firm did not exist and the website content was plagiarized from a firm in Denver, Colorado.
  • Women's Silent Tears, a book Vayner self-published on the Holocaust, contained passages lifted verbatim from various Internet sites. Vayner claimed that the text was a "pre-publication copy".[5]

Other details

Other investigating publications learned that Vayner has variously claimed the following:[1]

Rumpus Magazine, a Yale University tabloid, had already exposed Vayner as a possible fake before attending Yale.[2]

Aftermath and development of meme

The Internet meme surrounding "Impossible Is Nothing" spread in typical fashion: by word of mouth on blogs and by Internet, then covered both as a meme and a human interest story by major newspapers, which further accelerated growth. After the first phase of popularity, blog posters and others began adding their own fanciful contributions to Vayner's legend. These include several classic meme features:[1]

  • Hyperbolic statements of accomplishment: Vayner is licensed to handle nuclear waste, must register his hands as lethal weapons, and participates in Tibetan gladiatorial contests.
  • Actor Michael Cera created a parody video, "Impossible is the Opposite of Possible".[7]
  • The US sitcom How I Met Your Mother featured an episode entitled "The Possimpible" in which a main character has a video resume that is a clear parody of "Impossible Is Nothing."

Vayner did not receive a job offer from UBS or any other bank, so he took a leave of absence from Yale.[4]

Subsequent work

In January 2008, Vayner set up a website promoting his book, Millionaires' Blueprint to Success.[8][9]

Cracked.com, an Internet humor site, pointed out that his book is extremely similar in layout and content to a book titled Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker in their article "Where Are They Now: Six "Stars" From Embarrassing Viral Videos,"[10] about the aftermath of several viral videos.

Vayner appeared in Winnebago Man, a 2009 documentary about Jack Rebney, whose profanity-laced outtakes from a Winnebago industrial film also became an Internet meme. In it, Vayner discusses his video resume and seems to accept that his unwelcome fame is simply a part of who he is.

Death

On 23 January 2013, the Ivy League blog IvyGate reported,[11] and Gawker.com later confirmed,[12] that Vayner had died of unknown causes. A relative later said he had been told Vayner apparently had a heart attack after taking medicine of some kind.[13]

gollark: I, for one, generally prefer automating the boring whatever to people having to do it manually, except if there is unmitigable unemployment (nobody seems very sure about whether this is the case) things aren't really set up to deal with it.
gollark: Greetings, mortal.
gollark: Using it for evil would be mean, and thus impossible.
gollark: You should publish your SSH private key here, so that people can fix it.
gollark: They don't make them *that* lethally radioactive, and plutonium ones only require about 3 reactors to make.

References
  1. McGrath, Ben (23 October 2006). "Aleksey the Great". The New Yorker. Retrieved 5 July 2007.
  2. "Craaaazy Prefrosh Lies, Is Just Weird" (PDF). Rumpus Magazine. May 2002. Retrieved 5 August 2007.
  3. Lener, Lisa. "How Not To Get A Job". Forbes. Archived from the original on 3 June 2007. Retrieved 5 July 2007.
  4. Kaplan, Thomas (25 October 2006). "Vayner faces public criticism". Yale Daily News. Archived from the original on 6 June 2011. Retrieved 8 May 2011.
  5. de la Merced, Michael J (19 October 2006). "The Resume Mocked 'Round the World". The New York Times Dealbook. Retrieved 5 July 2007.
  6. Stamp, Trent (10 October 2006). "I'm Not Laughing". Trent Stamp's Take. Archived from the original on 11 July 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-05.
  7. Cera, Michael (20 December 2006). "Impossible is the Opposite of Possible". YouTube. Retrieved 5 August 2007.
  8. Rovzar, Chris; Pressler, Jessica (7 January 2008). "The Return of Aleksey Vayner". New York Magazine. Retrieved 8 January 2008.
  9. Aleksey Vayner. "Aleksey Vayner". Archived from the original on 9 January 2008. Retrieved 2008-01-04.
  10. Howard Perez. "Where Are They Now: 6 "Stars" of Embarrassing Viral Videos".
  11. Aleksey Vayner reported dead in New York, IvyGate, 23 January 2013.
  12. Confirmed: Aleksey Vayner, the Yale Grad With the Infamous Video Resume, Is Dead Archived 25 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine, 2013-01-24.
  13. Notorious video resume job-seeker Aleksey Vayner, of Queens, died Saturday at Jamaican Hospital after possible drug-induced heart attack. New York Daily News, 25 January 2013.
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