De’arra and Ken 4 Life are just your typical couple trying to live their lives. Except they’re doing it in public, for millions of fans.
He noticed her right away when she came in the door: Big dark eyes and a ballerina’s build, her nails glistening blue-green in the lights of the Chipotle. He was a year out of high school, a gangly shy kid about to start a job at Home Depot, but he wasn’t too shy to go over and ask for her number.
She wouldn’t give him her number. But she liked him enough to give him her username on the messaging app Kik.
Later, when he wasn’t looking, she took a picture of him with her phone—from the back, sloped shoulders, hair poufing out from his floral ball cap.
BY 10 a.m., there’s already a line down the sidewalk, wrapping around the corner of the Roulette theater in Brooklyn: big kids in high school and even college, all the way down to little ones holding Mama or Daddy’s hand. They’re mostly still bundled up in coats and parkas on this early-spring morning, and the wind makes the VIP tickets in their hands tremble. Those tickets cost about $100 apiece. For them, it’s worth it, because they’re about to meet DK4L.
DK4L: That’s De’arra and Ken 4 Life. De’arra Taylor, 21, and Ken Walker, 22, are not singers or comedians or actors. What they are is a couple. They’ve been dating about three years, and they’ve been making YouTube videos together for almost as long. You’ve never heard of them, unless you’re one of their 3.6 million YouTube subscribers, in which case you’re obsessed with them.
To their fans, they’re as beloved as Beyoncé and JayZ, except that you never get to see Beyoncé and Jay-Z try to put on 100 layers of clothes at once, or fill a giant balloon full of soda and Mentos, or just walk around a mall goofing off. That’s DK4L’s shtick: doing random things—but doing them together.
Bu hikaye New York magazine dergisinin August 7–20, 2017 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye New York magazine dergisinin August 7–20, 2017 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Reality Check
Joseph O'Neill's realist novel embodies the best and worst of the genre.
An Atlas Who Can't Carry
J.Lo's AI-friendly flick flattens its own world.
Billie Doesn't Have to Do It All
The singer's gleefully disorienting third album doesn't hit every note it reaches for.
A Hollywood Family's Grudges
In Griffin Dunne's memoir, The Friday Afternoon Club-about growing up the son of Dominick Dunne and the nephew of John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion-both acid and names are dropped.
Quite the Tomato
A summer appetizer from a seriously ambitious restaurant.
This Cooking Can't Be Pinned Down
Theodora's menu is all over the map. That's what makes it great.
Answered Prayers
Brooklynites Cristiana Peña and Nick Porter had a dream to live in an old church upstate.
INDUSTRY Goes for Broke
With a new Sunday-night time slot and Game of Thrones's Kit Harington co-starring, can this buzzy GEN-Z FINANCE DRAMA finally break out?
THE SECRET SAUCE
As Marcus on THE BEAR, LIONEL BOYCE is the guy everyone wants to be around. He's having that effect on Hollywood too.
The Love Machine
LOVE IS BLIND creator CHRIS COELEN drops a new group of singles into his strange experiment-and wrestles with all the lawsuits against the series.