Jakob Lodwick became a millionaire brokering hipster attention on video-sharing site Vimeo. Now, years later, the former dealer can't stop using, and it seems to be driving him crazy.

After a fameballing bender that included (naturally) a dalliance with fellow attention crackhead Julia Allison, Lodwick tried to go cold turkey and quit the internet forever.

Fat chance. The budding young Objectivist now has his own record company, with its own precious blog.

And though Lodwick still abstains from personal blogging, he knows how to get a contact high. Instead of posting videos of himself all tripped out, as he might have done in the past, the former College Humor collaborator showed up to a New York Web networking event with his shirt off and his serial-killer glasses on. Lodwick was, we are told by an attendee, the only half-naked person there. As former Gawker video whiz-kid Nick McGlynn's photoset shows, some other attendees went with blazers and buttoned-down shirts.

Lodwick had to know his pictures would make their way to the Web and, sure enough (via McGlynn), they have. See shots above and below. Lodwick's unquenchable thirst for attention is starting to worry us slightly. Is he getting desperate? But at least it helps maybe solve a riddle:

We've been trying to figure out the point of protocelebrity at a time of scant reality-TV payoffs and declining Web advertising. Maybe the answer is simpler than we thought: For some addicts, fameballing just feels really, really good.

(Photos by McGlynn)