At a restaurant the other day I overheard a woman paraphrase the famous Andy Warhol quote, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” She was referring to a video her son recently posted on You Tube. She told her rapt friends it had “hundreds of views!” For her, and likely her boy, that meant fame.
But is that what Andy Warhol meant? Yes and no. Remember, he was looking at fame through the lens of mass media. Warhol and his Factory defined popular culture, essentially creating it. Before him fame via artistic creation (be it painting, literature, photography or films) was the providence of a precious few, those who earned it with their talents and/or exquisite connections. After Warhol, fame could mean anything from getting a bad haircut to getting arrested.
I won’t belabor the obvious. The Internet and social media have made getting famous a whole lot easier for the rest of us. In this sense Andy was a prophet.
And yet.
In a world where everyone and their teenaged sons are famous for a few minutes, what exactly does “fame” mean? Are there a certain number of views, likes and followers that can deliver one into fame? Surely, it’s more than several hundred. But even gaining many thousands of online friends can’t equal the popularity of the most random of reality TV stars. And, in turn, can one honestly compare a reality TV celebrity with, say, Audrey Hepburn or Jack Nickolson?
For 15 minutes…
Forever…
As more people become sort of what is considered the pinnacle and whom would we find there? George Clooney? Bono? Ghandi?
Hard to say. But surely Joe the Plumber (remember him?) or some opera-singing five-year old wouldn’t be there. Or might they? After all, aren’t those the knuckleheads Andy Warhol was talking about when he said his famous bit about fame? And besides, wasn’t Justin Bieber just a Canadian falsetto on You Tube?
I wonder. If everyone today is capable of being famous can fame even exist anymore? By definition don’t we need lots more un-famous people in order to appreciate the ones that already are? Remember your Dr. Seuss. As soon as all those Sneetches finally got stars on their bellies the stars lost all of their meaning.
Back in the day my father said his 15 minutes came when the Wall Street Journal rendered his portrait in those iconic black dots. That trumped merely just getting his picture in the paper, which, by the way, used to be the quintessential determiner of fame.
I recently read a blog post talking about “access” being the new standard for wealth. In other words, one doesn’t need to own things in order to be considered wealthy -just have access to them. Is fame like that, too?
