The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Dubious Categories of Fame

Posted on | May 16, 2013 | 13 Comments

Ace of Spades has at times discussed the bizarre delusion of becoming “blog-famous,” as if someone with a blog could get a double mastectomy and thereby enjoy fame equivalent to being Angelina Jolie who is (you may have noticed) a Hollywood movie star.

Hollywood movie stars are famous, by definition.

A blogger who became a Hollywood movie star would also be famous — not for blogging, but for starring in movies.

TV defines fame. People on  TV are legitimately famous. That’s it. Nothing else counts. So the notion that your blogging will make you a celebrity is a delusion. Famous people on TV may have blogs, but it isn’t the blogging that does it, it’s the being-on-TV thing.

Successful is one thing, famous is another, and it’s important to keep the difference between those concepts clear in your mind.

This is not a random meta-philosophical musing, but is instead inspired by the phrase “Internet celebrity” in a headline:

Internet celebrity sought
in Clark man’s murder

A desire to be famous as “Kai the hatchet wielding hitchhiker” — gosh, I don’t know, maybe it’s a sign you’ve got problems. Or something.

 

Category: Crime

Comments

13 Responses to “Dubious Categories of Fame”

  1. ThomasD
    May 16th, 2013 @ 4:16 pm

    Old habits are hard to break.

    or

    When all you’ve got is a hatchet everything looks like the back of someone’s head.

  2. K-Bob
    May 16th, 2013 @ 4:40 pm

    I was famous, once.

    Then a couple days later, the other kids in kindergarten learned to tie their shoes, too.

    Now I pretty much do whatever I want. I’ll take that over fame any day.

  3. Scribe of Slog (McGehee)
    May 16th, 2013 @ 4:55 pm

    My fever dream is to be Earth’s first trillionaire, but have nobody else know it.

  4. Scribe of Slog (McGehee)
    May 16th, 2013 @ 4:55 pm

    Uh-oh. #FlaggedForAudit

  5. Bob Belvedere
    May 16th, 2013 @ 5:08 pm

    I’m rather infamous – does that count?

  6. Kevin Trainor Jr.
    May 16th, 2013 @ 5:27 pm

    Kevin Trainor Jr. liked this on Facebook.

  7. K-Bob
    May 16th, 2013 @ 5:44 pm

    Absolutely.

  8. richard mcenroe
    May 16th, 2013 @ 6:03 pm

    Does a BOLO poster at the Registration desk of .
    every Marriott hotel count as famous?

  9. Mike G.
    May 16th, 2013 @ 11:18 pm

    My brother and a buddy used to go on occasional cross country forays. They had BOLO’s in every Pizza Hut between NC and Seattle, Wash. for “Dine ‘n Dash.” Good times.

  10. Good Stuff
    May 17th, 2013 @ 3:45 am

    Elly Tran Ha is still a Vietnamese mystery model who decided that showing pictures of herself and her cleavage might help the internet readership of her blog… the blog that no one seems to be able to find. One of the best online self promotion campaigns I have seen.

    The internet made Elly Tran Ha famous and a movie followed. — http://pinterest.com/goodstuffsworld/elly-tran-ha/

  11. richard mcenroe
    May 17th, 2013 @ 10:23 am

    My take on it was, “If they didn’t want naked people walking through the lobby, they should have put the bar out by the pool where it belonged.”

    And thank God so much of my life took place before the Internet and cell-phone cameras.

  12. richard mcenroe
    May 17th, 2013 @ 10:24 am

    Just a heads-up: Googling “tran” and “model”… not a good idea.

  13. I’m just as famous as Angelina Jolie, within our respective circles of people who’ve heard of us. | The TrogloPundit
    May 17th, 2013 @ 11:22 pm

    […] I dunno what Stacy McCain is talking about. […]