All I want from my local meteorologist is their best approximation of what the weather is going to be. It’s nice if they can add a little flair or personality to their presentation of that approximation, but it’s not essential. Anything outside the scope of that seems totally irrelevant. In particular, I have absolutely no interest in the legal, consensual activities my local meteorologist participates in while off-duty. But apparently, this isn’t the case for Spectrum News NY1, an NYC station that recently fired meteorologist Erick Adame after anonymously receiving images of Adame participating in an adult webcam site. Again, I have to ask: what the hell does that have to do with reporting the weather?
According to Adame, who spoke out about his termination via an Instagram post yesterday, he had been utilizing an adult webcam site in his own home to interact with other men, consensually and unpaid (for what it’s worth, there’s nothing wrong with being paid for camming, either). In other words, this was an entirely amateur, private, legal activity. It just so happens that this activity was documented on camera, on the Internet, and then wielded against him, potentially by a fellow participant who happened to recognize him and for whatever reason wanted him exposed.
As he further elaborates in his post, Adame understands that showing his face in a sexual context on camera, even if he expected it to remain within the confines of the cam site, qualifies as exhibitionist and therefore risk-seeking bevahior given his profession. This is something he says he’s working through with a professional. But beyond this, Adame is approaching this situation without shame, and rightly so: “I don’t apologize for being openly gay or for being sex-positive — those are gifts,” he says in his statement. Directed toward any potential future employers, he continues “please judge me on the hundreds, thousands of hours of television that I am so proud of and that my employers always commended me for, and not the couple of minutes of salacious video that is probably going to soon define me in our ‘click-bait’ culture.”
This latter point makes me feel a tinge of guilt for even writing about this now. Can’t we just let this all blow over? Wouldn’t it have just been better for Adame’s original employers to say “maybe don’t get caught doing this again” and move on? Or really, maybe even just say nothing, at all. Truly, it does not matter. Adame being a sexually active adult does not impede on his ability to tell me whether or not it’s going to rain on Thursday. Here’s hoping Adame will soon have the opportunity to do what he does best with the same privilege of separating his work and home life that many of us already have.
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