The definition of fame: When, upon walking into a room, you do not know anyone there, but everyone sure seems to know you. In fact, they profess to know all about you, including some of the most private details of your life. All eyes are on you, and people are keeping tabs on what brand of handbag you are carrying.
It's matter of existence that we have all had Andy Warhol's proverbial 15 minutes thrust upon us. Facebook, google profiles, and youtube now allow unsuspecting subjects to be viewed by hundreds of thousands (and sometimes millions) of strangers. Celebrity by intent, actresses, newscasters, sports stars, are common in our media centric society. However, there is that rare individual who just seems to be the subject of public obesession. Even as much as they try to avoid the limelight most of the time, there is just something about them that is so alluring, mysterious, captivating, or outrageous, that they simply draw attention wherever they go. The power of presence, they way one carries themself when they walk into a room... there's something different about them. Something that inspires curiosity, fear, hatred, and intense emotion.
Why the obsession with public figures? People identify with celebrities so much, that this obsession and adoration often turns into it's opposite, loathing and revulsion, in a classic form of reaction formation. Is it a form of escapism? A longing to escape from the boring mundanity of the average lifestyle while delighting in other's triumphs and reveling in their pains to vicariously fill the vacuum of excitement of the average existence? Or ist it really a sublimated form of jealousy? Those who are famous (or notorious, as the case may be) often live a sort of fantasy life; they do things that other people only dream of doing. A whole industry surrounds this perverse fixation on other people's lives, including a cable tv network, and a multi-billion dollar tabloid and publication market force. A celebrity merely needs to brand a product with their name in order for it to become popular, even if they had only a very minimal hand in the product's creation. You may now own a piece of Britney Spears in the form of a cologne, or Tori Spelling jewelry. The public obsession with famous people has become so extreme, that people often spend more time and effort keeping tabs on their famous celebs twitters about their latest bodily function than they do for their own family members.
Public Figures are often the target of intense passions, usually because they are symbols of the ideas, entities or ideals that they represent and work for. The attackers almost never know them personally.
The real losers in life are are not the subject of hatred, but are often nameless, faceless, and carry on their daily activities unnoticed.
It is interesting that although I have achieved a sort of level of fame by own activities, that I always found it ridiculous that some people would seek fame in and of itself, without the power, money, and political* attaché. My apartment building in Hollywood was filled with musicians, artists, and starving actresses lusting after fame, while I achieved mine incidentally, as a matter of course in doing my work. I began to find however, that although I had never intended to achieve fame, that I rather enjoyed not being ordinary. I had always dreamed of excitement in my youth, and I had achieved it accidentally, or perhaps by fulfilling personal dharma by following my own drives to fulfill my destiny. I laugh to myself at the ridiculous simplicity of my act of illusion: In my jeans and scruffy jacket, I'm seemingly nobody--a loser, but in my satin corset and black stilettos I am a Goddess.
Although I have not achieved the fame of an A-list celebrity, I have enough notoriety that I have an entire group of fans contacting me through facebook, and quite a passel of haters. I have decided to publish the worst and most disgusting of the offenders on a separate page. Click here to see their photographs.
*(not as in republican vs democrats, but more of a social type of politics, for those of the literary unsophisticated type among you.)
It's matter of existence that we have all had Andy Warhol's proverbial 15 minutes thrust upon us. Facebook, google profiles, and youtube now allow unsuspecting subjects to be viewed by hundreds of thousands (and sometimes millions) of strangers. Celebrity by intent, actresses, newscasters, sports stars, are common in our media centric society. However, there is that rare individual who just seems to be the subject of public obesession. Even as much as they try to avoid the limelight most of the time, there is just something about them that is so alluring, mysterious, captivating, or outrageous, that they simply draw attention wherever they go. The power of presence, they way one carries themself when they walk into a room... there's something different about them. Something that inspires curiosity, fear, hatred, and intense emotion.
Why the obsession with public figures? People identify with celebrities so much, that this obsession and adoration often turns into it's opposite, loathing and revulsion, in a classic form of reaction formation. Is it a form of escapism? A longing to escape from the boring mundanity of the average lifestyle while delighting in other's triumphs and reveling in their pains to vicariously fill the vacuum of excitement of the average existence? Or ist it really a sublimated form of jealousy? Those who are famous (or notorious, as the case may be) often live a sort of fantasy life; they do things that other people only dream of doing. A whole industry surrounds this perverse fixation on other people's lives, including a cable tv network, and a multi-billion dollar tabloid and publication market force. A celebrity merely needs to brand a product with their name in order for it to become popular, even if they had only a very minimal hand in the product's creation. You may now own a piece of Britney Spears in the form of a cologne, or Tori Spelling jewelry. The public obsession with famous people has become so extreme, that people often spend more time and effort keeping tabs on their famous celebs twitters about their latest bodily function than they do for their own family members.
Public Figures are often the target of intense passions, usually because they are symbols of the ideas, entities or ideals that they represent and work for. The attackers almost never know them personally.
Steve Ballmer egg attack
The real losers in life are are not the subject of hatred, but are often nameless, faceless, and carry on their daily activities unnoticed.
It is interesting that although I have achieved a sort of level of fame by own activities, that I always found it ridiculous that some people would seek fame in and of itself, without the power, money, and political* attaché. My apartment building in Hollywood was filled with musicians, artists, and starving actresses lusting after fame, while I achieved mine incidentally, as a matter of course in doing my work. I began to find however, that although I had never intended to achieve fame, that I rather enjoyed not being ordinary. I had always dreamed of excitement in my youth, and I had achieved it accidentally, or perhaps by fulfilling personal dharma by following my own drives to fulfill my destiny. I laugh to myself at the ridiculous simplicity of my act of illusion: In my jeans and scruffy jacket, I'm seemingly nobody--a loser, but in my satin corset and black stilettos I am a Goddess.
Although I have not achieved the fame of an A-list celebrity, I have enough notoriety that I have an entire group of fans contacting me through facebook, and quite a passel of haters. I have decided to publish the worst and most disgusting of the offenders on a separate page. Click here to see their photographs.
*(not as in republican vs democrats, but more of a social type of politics, for those of the literary unsophisticated type among you.)
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