This two-part video features Dr. Skullface, one of a cast of characters I create and perform as part of an ongoing project that explores how people--especially amateurs seeking celebrity-- create personae by embracing and subverting cultural clichés. Visually this project merges sci-fi and Internet motifs and highlights the low-tech special effects these genres share. Science fiction functions as a barometer of social preoccupations (e.g. the Star Trek of the 1960s created an optimistic future of racial equality; the sci-fi films of the 1950s reflect Cold War fears.) The Internet (YouTube, Myspace, etc.) offers this social commentary without the control of top-down cultural producers. The individual controls the message, however awkward the result, yet the individual must contend with predetermined cultural narratives. Dr. Skullface is a bodiless alien hip-hop star. In part one of this video, he flies down from the night sky and hovers in the forest as he sings. In part two, he explains his mission on “The Tonight Show” as the audience laughs and applauds. I developed a hip-hop character because the conventions of personae are uniquely strong for musicians, particularly within hip-hop video. No matter their actual life story, most hip-hop artists present themselves as if they came from the ghetto, spent time in jail, and now enjoy an extravagant lifestyle. The videos' crude production emphasizes the artifice of the hip-hop persona. The absurdity of the Dr. Skullface premise--that a flying, alien skull has come to Earth to be a hip-hop star--combined with my use of low-tech computer effects raises questions about the role of fabrication and artifice in the creation of identity. My project addresses not only the slippery definition of celebrity in the age of globalization but also the layers of fiction and self-creation that have become commonplace in our culture.