I do not want to be famous, but I’m pretty sure that Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame prediction has come true. With blogs and stuff like You Tube, everyone can be famous (read: downloaded) for at least a brief moment in time.
Now until very recently, I had always thought fame would be the cat’s pajamas. See, I’ve always envisioned fame to be this happy place full of comped meals, designer clothes, weekends filled with parties and men and theme music. In my head, the famous walk around to theme music. I’m not sure what my song would be, but it would pop into everyone’s head whenever I walked by.
As a teenager, I even did some television work. Yes, it was a German soap opera, and I had to wear a bikini, but it was still TV. Of course, I have yet to hear someone say, “Hey aren’t you that chick from blah blah blah?”
Now that I write a weekly column, I’m getting actual attention from the public. Suddenly, I’m not as extroverted as I thought I was. Then again, maybe I’d enjoy my mediocre level of “fame”–if you can call it that–if it was more positive than negative. Fame wouldn’t be that bad if everybody loved me—I could roll with an inbox full of love letters.
Being in the public eye can be uncomfortable. I’m unnerved when I think about how many people out there have formed opinions of me without actually meeting me.
Of course, I judge people I don’t know all the time and totally enjoy every minute of it. In fact, one of my favorite web sites is The Superficial (www.thesuperficial.com), which is loaded with snarky, sometimes mean entries that make fun of our favorite celebs for no particular reason at all.
The interesting thing is that all of us are far more talked about and famous than we think. Chances are, if you spend any amount of time on the Internet there is someone somewhere talking about you.
Frightening? More like fascinating.
I recently sold a pair of designer jeans on eBay. The day after they sold, I got a lovely email from a reader on another island asking me if it was me who sold the pair of True Religions on eBay. I laughed out loud at what a small world it really is, even on the web which seems to go on to infinity and beyond, then told her that yes, I did.
Come to find out she belongs to a forum that discusses and loves designer denim (don’t laugh—I’m a member of forums on pole-dancing and crochet) and evidently there was a thread of people discussing my jeans.
My jeans!
And I’m not talking about a couple of verbal exchanges, here—I’m talking a full-on discussion about the details and nuances of my old jeans. After reading the exchange, I immediately discovered two things.
First, that we’re all famous for something. And second, that someone seriously scored when they bought my denim.
Starr Begley would like to congratulate Britney Spears for wearing panties today. MTW
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