On and around yesterday's topic of nobodies:
People say everyone wants to be famous these days. Actually, I would have been more likely to say that ten years ago. But now we know that there's actually a tiny percentage of the American population that doesn't want to be famous. They're the ones who don't have a Facebook account.
The rest of us? Yeah, we want to be famous.*
In my twenties, I remember talking straight up with my wife about how I hoped to be interviewed by David Letterman one day. Shameless vanity is typical of young writers, who actually have a path, however unlikely, to some version of fame. ("The best fame is a writer's fame," Fran Lebowitz says. "It's enough to get a table at a good restaurant, but not enough to get you interrupted when you eat.")
But until the advent of Facebook, Twitter and Super Nanny, most people not named Lee Harvey Oswald couldn't imagine how they would ever become famous.
They never had the whiff of fame that 46 views of your YouTube video gives you, and unless they got up a head of steam and ran for town councilman, they lived and died without ever knowing firsthand that being known about by strangers is as fulfilling as eating cotton candy.
But these days the cotton candy is flying off the shelves, because the people who wanted to be famous all along are finding ways to feel like they're famous.
The trouble is—and I hope they will learn this—there is no such thing as being famous. There are a thousand such things.
There is having 123 Twitter followers, some of whom you have never heard of.
There is being well-known in a small and insulated circle. By that measure, I am famous, and have been for 15 years. But then, you—and only you—already knew that.
There is being well-known in a slightly larger, well-insulated circle.This is the level of fame you need to get an obituary in The New York Times, where more people learn about you upon your death than ever knew about you during your life. (I read the Times obits to meet new people.)
There are Tanya Harding, Philip Michael Thomas and Rickey Schroder. And there are the Beatles.
Thinking you want fame is like wandering into a bar and saying, "Booze, please."
The next question is, "What kind?"
* The only person who I know who does not want to be famous, even secretly and for only five minutes a month, is my wife. Sho is truculently unimpressed by fame. One afternoon some years ago well-connected movie-producer friend called to ask me what I knew about a young actress he was thinking of using in a movie. I didn't reognize the name, but I called downstairs, "Cristie, Tony's on the phone. He wants to know, do you know who Lindsay Lohan is?"
Cristie yelled back, "Oh, for Christ's sake, is Tony bringing Lindsay Lohan over for dinner?"
You reaalize, of course, that when we’re all famous and your wife isn’t, she’ll be the most famous one?
I believe you can tell a lot about a society or a culture by the people upon whom it confers fame. And if you buy that premise, then I don’t know how anyone could think much of our society or culture.
@Glynn. You’re right. She’ll be like Oprah.
@Robert: Yes, there are a lot of famous mopes, but there are also Willie Nelson, Dustin Hoffman and Toni Morrison. Granted, they’re all nearly dead, but let’s enjoy them before they join Kurt Vonnegut, Studs Terkel and George Carlin.
True enough. Unfortunately, today The Situations, Kim Kardashians and Levi Johnsons outnumber the Kurt Vonneguts and Studs Terkels.
Real fame is kind of endurance sport. There are the famous who come and go (until you’re reminded of them by some odd Norwegian lip synch video). Then there are the ones who linger – and I mean linger in a good way, not in a bad cheese stink kind of way.
The ones for whom fame is this kind of less intense but enduring type of thing are the Vonneguts and the Terkels. It endures because they actually had some substance behind them – some genuine contribution, talent, or genius to share.
I was thinking about this last night when I was watching Letterman. He had John Mellencamp on and so I put off going to bed to hear him. I don’t actually have a single John Mellencamp song in my music collection. But every time I hear him, I think there’s a reason he’s still kicking around. And so there he was, at the tail end of Letterman, with no band and nothing but his guitar and his smoker’s voice performing a new song built out of some splendidly simple lyrics wrapped around some chords. And it was beautiful. You won’t likely see Mellencamp on the cover of People or amidst the swirling graphics of Entertainment Tonight. But he’s famous in that enduring and more hard-earned way, and not just famous for being famous. If I could be famous, I’d rather be a John Mellencamp kind of famous than a Kardashian kind of famous. I could live with myself and my fame that way.
Yes, good point, Rueben. And even people who are important or famous for a long time are largely forgotten today.
When I was in Baltimore I went to the home of H.L. Mencken, the most important American commentator of the first half of the 20th century.
The house was in a ghetto, and in the front window there was a sun-faded poster photograph of him, slouching from its moorings.
Meanwhile, who was the most important communication professional of the 20th century? I bet half of us don’t even have a guess.
The only substantive thing we can do good and useful work. Fame is useful only to the extent that it helps us spread our good work further.
Bill Murray once said that if you dream of being rich and famous, try rich first.
Your wife is already famous. The kids she teaches will remember her for years to come. And they talk about her. They talk about the difference she’s made in their lives. That’s the kind of fame we should all hope for.
Rou dat.