MTV Hires Gabi Gregg as TJ for $100,000 per Year

by Jordan Yerman | August 10, 2010 at 02:10 pm

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Gabi Gregg Lands Sweet Gig as MTV "Twitter Jockey": $100k per Year

Gabi Gregg, a 23-year-old fashion blogger who runs the Young, Fat and Fabulous, was selected from five finalists to be MTV's first-ever TJ (Twitter Jockey). As @gabifresh, Gabi already had a big following, but her quest to land the TJ job has seen her notoriety grow.

How did MTV decide at whom to throw all that cash? Via the format which the network pretty much invented: Reality TV. Gregg, along with four other finalists, had to compete in a series of challenges in a contest called "Follow Me".

Aside from tweeting, Gabi will be maintaining an MTV TJ blog.The day-to-day specifics are still up in the air, but, for a hundred grand, I desperately hope it involves more than tweeting.

Gabi Gregg now joins the hallowed hall of MTV personalities, such as Adam Curry, Kurt Loder, Downtown Julie Brown (wubba wubba), Miss Julie Brown, Sway, and Gideon Yago.

After chaotically managing multiple Twitter accounts, MTV decided it should streamline, pick just one (@MTVTJ), and find some social media-savvy youth to man it. They would pay this youth a $100,000 salary to schmooze with performance artists and "engage, educate, and entertain" its audience through its Twitter. And as MTV is wont to do, it located this youth through a series of televised challenges and crowd-sourced voting.