Web fame is a strange thing. Take Perez Hilton, who for years made a living from shock. Now more contrite (i.e. maturer), he assumes we are all still interested in his transformations. What he is is a tabloid titbit, peddling tabloid titbits himself. Hardly Nobel prize material. The web is still very two-dimensional, and therefore disposable. The only way for people who are famous on the web to continue being famous the next week, is to do something else to keep them famous. Fame on the web is incredibly fragile – it is easy to get noticed for a short timespan – just do something degrading that goes against your moral fibre. Offence is an easy way to get attention. And a lot easier with the amoral web. Just shout and run away.
What strikes me most about web fame is how difficult it is to sustain – it is understandable that comparisons with Andy Warhol famous statement that everyone would be famous for ten minutes. For your average Joe, that is probably about all we can expect. Do we need it? Probably not. But the negative effects can be huge, not least the anti-climax of your fame disappearing as quickly as it arrived. Or even worse, the backlash. There are those who will revel in any kind of notoriety, even if teetering dangerously on the edge of morality.
It is less about the web itself, but more to do with fact it provides a platform for this to happen. Something that was never envisaged in the early days of the Internet. With availability of new technology, comes with it many surprises and applications that could have never been predicted at inception point. If you consider of the influence of television and telecommunications, it is not that surprising to have a huge evolutionary move forward on the back of it. It is how we evolve in any event.
As well as the fame-hungry, there are the more aware that use this “web fame” to promote and market something or someone. It may be a product or even a cause. Now that is smart. It is an interesting application of the same concept – to grab our attention, using diverse means, sometimes completely unrelated to what it is trying to promote. Grabbing attention is the first thing to do, if you are trying to sell something to someone.
jaffamonkey 