The College Fix

Sad news today out of Queens, NY. Aleksey Vayner, a 2006 Yale graduate who became notorious after his outlandish video resume went viral online, was found dead this past weekend of a suspected drug overdose.

The Yale student who catapulted to Internet infamy with a disastrous video resume he sent to a prospective employer has died at his home in Queens, New York.

Aleksey Vayner passed away at the age of 29, according to the New York City Medical Examiner –  and reports from relatives suggest that he may have experienced a drug overdose…

It is believed that he decided to go under the name of Alex Stone after the video resume he sent to UBS for an investment banking job in 2006 went viral online and was mocked by millions.

In the video, titled ‘Impossible is Nothing,’ a gravely serious Vayner attempts to prove his mental and physical fitness by talking about the meaning of success while lifting 495-pound weights, smacking tennis balls faster than 140 miles per hour, ball-dancing with a scantily-clad woman and breaking seven bricks with his hand.

‘Ignore the losers, bring your A-game, your determination and your drive to the field, and the success will follow you,’ he says in the video.

The video was forwarded around Wall Street and quickly went viral.

The New York Times called it ‘The Resume Mocked ‘Round the World,’ and Vayner told the newspaper that he thought he might never get a job in the financial industry as a result of the video’s popularity.

While the video became the laughing stock of Wall Street, Vayner said he was not amused.

‘He said he feels like a victim,’ the Times reported in October 2006, three months after the video was recorded. ‘The job materials that were leaked and posted for public view included detailed information about him that allowed strangers to scrutinize and harass him, he said.’

Even before he arrived as a freshman at Yale, Vayner had become known for exaggerating his own feats.

At a 2002 event in New Haven for high-school seniors who have been admitted to Yale, Vayner told current students all about his abilities and specialised skills.

He told Jordan Bassm a freshman student at the Ivy League college that he had taught tennis to Jerry Seinfeld and Harrison Ford and that the Dalai Lama had apparently written his college recommendation…

Attending Yale despite the attention of the article, Vayner arrived with a CV that now boasted he had begun modelling for the price of $200 an hour, written a book about the Holocaust and founded a charity for troubled children.

He also claimed to have won two tennis matches against Pete Sampras, retired from professional martial arts and mastered the art of ‘bone setting’…

However, a dramatic comment left by a friend on Facebook on January 18th, the night before his death, suggests that Vayner’s state of mind may not have recovered from the lashing he took online all those years ago.

‘Do not, anyone, sell this idiot ANY pills!’ it reads, while the rest of the post is written in Russian and says, ‘Damned egoist, pick up the phone, who’s going to take care of mom? [you could] sell your source code and f**k off to costa rica. [even] paypal would pay you 2-3 hundred thousand. pick up the phone, bastard.’

In response, at 11.16 p.m. the same night, Vayner angrily wrote back to his Facebook friend by responding ‘Volodia, go to hell’ in Cyrillic.

The news of Vayner’s passing was first announced in an email to a group of his friends from Yale.

This story is about more than just one troubled individual. It also reflects the way our modern culture of social media can exacerbate and amplify the flaws and mistakes of young people, exposing them to sudden shame or ridicule, sometimes with disastrous consequences.

Read the full story at The Daily Mail.

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