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Celebrities are wealthy, generally speaking.  I got to thinking, though: how do they get that way?  The answer is obvious for certain classes, for example, socialites.  They inherit money.

Some other celebrities are well-paid for their work: think movie stars and Damien Hirst and certain other well-compensated artists.  This makes sense.  If Will Smith is an actor that America wants to pay to see, then the studios will pay him well.

Then there are the celebrities that initially stumped me, namely, recording artists.  The music industry is famed for taking a huge bite out of record sales, so it seems unlikely that someone like Ashlee Simpson could accumulate wealth through that route alone.  In fact, it seems clear that in many cases it is endorsements, magazine cover deals, and things like that that generate income.  In other words, for certain celebrities their marketable skill is getting attention. (see image)

My provocative theory on this is that these people, whether through attractiveness, salacious appeal, or representation of a potent cultural myth, operate on people like attention grabbing headlines or spam email subjects–they turn heads.

Lady in Red

In my obsessive reading about the financial crisis I stumbled on an interesting little section of an interview with Erin Callan, former CFO of Lehman, wherein she described her experience of becoming a Wall Street celebrity:

What mistakes did you make?

You can’t be naive about the press. I had a lot of positive exposure but didn’t recognize the opportunity for significant negative exposure. Exposure becomes celebrity, and you get a persona. That persona got away from me and the firm. There were so many pieces to it, not least of which was the phenomenon of a woman CFO on Wall Street.

Any PR person (or famehungry microcel) knows you have to have a persona.  People don’t have time to get to know you and understand your context and personality.  They have time to look at a picture of you and a headline, and then they generate a web of inferences that informs their idea of you, or, more accurately, “you.”  Yet this description of the process is brief and incredibly clear.  You get “exposure,” and then follows “celebrity,” and then you get a “persona.”  If you were consciously playing the game you would have figured out your persona first, then set about seeking the requisite exposure to become a celebrity.

All this brings up the question (it DOES NOT “beg the question,” see here): does the way that celebrities come into being make any sense?  Is it fair?  Is it sensible to apply the concept of fairness to it?  And fair to whom?

These questions are interesting, but here in the post-post-modern 21st century we should go a step further, and redesign our approach to celebrity from the ground up.  Oh, wait, some charming young people have done just that (and they gave me a job)!

Gossip Girl in Real Life! Who knew?

Celebrity. What does it mean to you? Close your eyes and what do you see? A glossy tabloid? Red carpet B-roll? Making it in WWD before you graduate from high school? These, at least 2 for 3, are certainly traditional interpretations. But, maybe 3 months ago celebrity meant that guy you follow on Twitter or maybe even yourself. Perhaps a month after that it was Barack Obama and now it’s some Alaskan hockey mom who, be her pig or pit bull, is definitely wearing lip color of some kind. What’s with the spastic flip-flopping? We’re redefining celebrity so regularly, it is getting difficult guess who the next protagonist will be. They just seem to be getting less sexy and more relevant to every day life. Sensible superstars if you will.

With the Dow recording its biggest closing point drop in history, we suppose it’s just a matter of time before economists become limited edition Barbie dolls or better yet the models that save Eleanor Waldorf’s show under the tents at Bryant Park. Right, Gossip Girl references (and not just because everyone else is doing it)—there to prove that while the face of fame may be evolving, traditional celebrities still fuel the fire. Tinsley Mortimer still makes guest appearances. We still care. And there celebrity goes again serving its function as distraction from everyday woes (only the woes have gotten bigger).

Is there a point when, in relation to the state of the world, that distraction just becomes annoying? And isn’t that the most depressing thought ever? Too much mundane or worse yet, merit-based fame in this country, and it may just be time to pursue that foreign visa.

the myth, the man

So is Henry “Hank” Paulson a celebrity now?  He’s on the cover of Newsweek, and his recent Google Trends seem to indicate as much.

Well those are certainly numbers any up and coming influential would envy!  And he’s even sort of a New York City figure, having been the CEO of Goldman for a couple of years.  And yet, I find myself hesitating to celebrate him.

What rich, thick insights can be drawn from my intuitive resistance to Paulson-mania?  As I wrote recently, “celebrity” now carries with it a sense of shallowness, of inauthenticity, and of–how to put this delicately?–dumbness. Perhaps I resist thinking of Paulson as a celebrity because my subconscious framing is all wrong.

I find it interesting to meditate on these sorts of liminal cases.  Are politicians celebrites?  What about Arnold Schwarzenegger?  Once you become a “celebrity,” are you one for all time?  (Before you answer, think a moment on Corey Haim.)

Photo from Getty Images by J.D. Pooley

Watching Barack Obama’s speech at the culmination of the DNC, one could perhaps sympathize with the McCain campaign’s allegation that Obama is a celebrity. The event was masterfully staged and choreographed. Insofar as all political speech is a kind of theater, Obama performed exceptionally. Of course, McCain means something specific when he calls Obama a celebrity. He means that Obama thinks he’s better than you. Obama, the subtext goes, isn’t one of “us” — he is one of “them.” The elites, the wealthy, the snobs, the lazy heirs and heiresses. One could spend a long time noting the irony of this, but let this brief pop quiz suffice:

1) How did John McCain come into his own personal fortune?
2) Which major party has run a presidential candidate in the last thirty years whose prior occupations included Hollywood Movie Star?

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