Where Fame Comes From?

Most systems have some sort of currency. Market economies have money. Cells have ATP. The fame game has attention. The currencies are often taken for granted; I don’t think why I can exchange a sweaty handful of bills for a sweaty handful of Bud Light–I just do it, and all is well.

In fact, it’s sort of unseemly to talk openly about currency in itself.  Talking about jobs among friends, we pass off money as a tangential factor: “The money’s better, sure, but I’m really excited about . . .”

So it is with attention.  We don’t say, “Gosh I enjoy staring at hot babes (dudes, cars, gadgets, whatever)”–in fact, in those cases, we don’t even say anything.  The reaction is internal and, often, unnoticed.

The name for a big pile of money is wealth; a big pile of attention is fame.  The difference is that people have spent a lot of time studying how money works.  One can, for example, get a PhD in economics.  When it comes to attention and fame, though, we act as if there’s some sort of alchemy that happens.

Really, though, fame comes from attention, and attention comes from individual people–from you and from me.  It’s time we start analyzing how people accumulate our valuable attention.

jamie lynn spears and penis enlargement pills are very similar

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.

Ms. Pac-Man

Our crack research team (i.e., myself) has been crunching numbers and tracking down interesting data points (i.e., what genders are Kristian Laliberte, Jamee Gregory) and we have discovered something pretty weird, actually.

Recall my last post, wherein we learned that 17 of the 25 People Magazine Hottest Celebs were women.  That is 68% of the list.

Of the top 50 Fame Game profiles as of November 20th, 2008, 34 were women.  This is 69.39% of the total.

The numbers are almost the same, which raises a few observations:

First, a banal one: it may not be as surprising as it seems at first, since the lists come from the same time period (roughly) and purport to measure similar things.  Note, however, that the actual individual celebrities in both lists are different, so it would seem we are seeing some sort of wide effect, and not simply repeated analyses of the same data.

Second, it’s interesting to think about the industries the two lists draw from.  People is overwhelmingly movie and tv stars, while Fame Game looks more at socialites, fashion moguls, and politicians.  It is a little counterintuitive that the proportion would be so similar between two different areas.

Third, of course, none of this is statistically solid–yet.  I plan to get into the larger Fame Game database and perhaps find out some more solid trends.

And of course, look forward to some work on race and celebrity.

ladies in red.

I sought a theme (for a blog post), and sought for it in vain.  Until, that is, I discovered People Magazine’s list of the 25 hottest celebs.  One thing leaps off the page as something many of these people have in common: most of them are ladies.

Fully 17 out of the 25 are women–that’s almost 70 percent.  Two divergent responses occurred to me:

1) It’s good that there is an area of society where women are comfortably in the lead.  These women are wealthy and successful.

2) It’s troubling that women dominate the celeb arena, an arena that is driven by interest in sex, glitz, and scandal.

To be honest, it is not immediately clear what to make of this.

Some other interesting factors include the power of celebrity couples (tomkat are sitting at #1 and #2) and the whiteness of the faces.  Perhaps there is something to be analyzed about the race of celebs in a future post.

Look for a follow up soon wherein I study the recent famegame 2008 wrapup with an eye towards race and gender.

Photograph of Governor Spitzer, with his wife Silda Wall Spitzer, during his apology to his family and the citizens of New York by Mary Altaffer/AP

I used to work at a publishing house, and one day I overheard a conversation between two publicists.  An author had called, having just read a terrible review of his book.  The publicist had told him that there was “no such thing as bad publicity.”  As she recounted this story to her co-worker, they both had a good laugh.

They both seemed pretty sure there was precisely such a thing as bad publicity, and the bad review was a fine example of such.

I bring this up apropos of the recent news post on Fame Game that describes the trends and attention we have tracked this year.  It’s worth reading in full, but the one that caught my eye was:

Top NY Politicos: New York Locals Win the Race, Scandal Propels Spitzer to New High . . . Eliot Spitzer (6) rises to the top 10 in the wake of scandal.

So Eliot was getting attention, but is there anyone who thinks that it was good attention?  He will almost certainly never be a politician again.

The other thing that is clear from the list is that Fame Game has got to expand to other, less-great cities.  Politicians and socialites seem pretty geographically bounded (obviously), and it would be interesting to see the other local ecosystems.

It seems to have been a good year for Fame Game.  Perhaps one of the tasks of this blog in the coming new year can be to add depth and analysis to the raw data we collect so well.

at least signatures are unique

A recent item on the Popwatch blog caught my attention with an opening sentence that recapitulates a common view about celebrities:

“In an era when manufactured “celebrities” are as common as drab backyard sparrows, Eartha Kitt, who died on Christmas day of colon cancer at age 81, was the kind of strange, wondrous, exotic bird you lay eyes on once and never forget.”

Celebrities, now as in the past, are not common, and they are not drab–one of their main features tends to be attractiveness.

The author, it seems, is making a generic distinction: Eartha Kitt, goes the claim, was unlike any other celebrity, a rarity even in that rarefied company.  And this got me thinking: what are the genres, or types, or cylon-style models, of celebrity?

The first that comes to my mind is the young, female pop star.  Madonna (once upon a time), Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Miley Cyrus.  All balance innocence and lasciviousness in a way that awakens the interest of millions.

Or the young comedy male.  Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Jim Carrey–all of whom balance awkwardness and a heart of gold to attract women and men alike.

Perhaps these shorthand sketches miss a lot more than they capture, but I think there is some truth to the idea that there are cultural niches that exist, and celebrities inhabit them for a time.

trick question: you win.

As I have noted in the past, one thing many celebrities share is an unusual level of visual appeal.  They tend to be visually striking, to be memorable.

Now I have found a website that makes it possible to blend different celebrity faces together, and the results are intriguing. Morphthing provides a stable of celebrity headshots and gives you the ability to morph them together. Aside from the delicious irony of creating an Angelina/Jen hybrid, the resulting photos give me a sort of confused feeling.

Because celebrity faces are like brands: they are iconic. It looks weird to see traces of Jennifer Aniston lurking in an unknown face. The faces of celebrities are part of our subconscious cultural library.

Contrast this with the simpler experience of a site like Face Research, which I have frequently used with fascination, but with no resulting confusion.

Both tools can create faces of haunting attractiveness, but only with the celebrities does the result touch on our internalized cultural referents.  It’s a sort of uncomfortable equilibrium: attractiveness (which is related to conforming to a cultural norm) is a great help to becoming a celebrity, but once you are a celebrity, your unique look becomes one of your most valuable assets.

even your living room has a red carpet

The New York Post’s Page Six Magazine reports on a recent development that brings up a few questions for anyone interested in celebrities. It is now possible to hire people to create celebrity-style spectacles for “regular” folks:

Whispers of “Who was that?” can be heard. Ashley Tisdale? Miley Cyrus? One of the photographers has the answer: “Ariel. Don’t you know who she is?” Probably not. In fact, Ariel Jacobs is just a regular teen from Island Park, Long Island, celebrating her sweet 16. The shutterbugs? Hired by her parents from Celeb 4 A Day, a company that provides A-list experiences . . .

One of the first things that jumps out is the phrase “just a regular teen.”  Ariel, in other words, is not an authentic celebrity–is not, that is, someone whom paparazzi would photograph for free.  But what is it that makes paparazzi follow someone?  It’s money.  In the celebrity gossip mag world the money comes from customers desperate to gawk at familiar faces.  I would perhaps not blow too many minds by pointing out that many of the most photographed celebrities possess no visible qualities beyond those they share with Ariel: teen-aged, cute.

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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)!

Sometimes it really happens like this

It’s been a bad week for anyone even remotely connected to the American economy–and it’s only Tuesday!  It’s been an especially bad week for people whose primary connection to said economy was a job at Nick Denton’s Gawker Media blogs.

Well, some of them.  Even as Denton announced that some of his sites would be cutting staff, he also revealed that some would be hiring.  So where does the cowboy of the frontier of the blogosphere see the future of the herd?  His memo splits up his blogs into three categories:  appealing, poised, and . . . experiencing layoffs.  Below is my quick gloss of the outcome:

APPEAL
Gawker; Lifehacker; Gizmodo; Kotaku
- New York celeb gossip, computers, gadgets, video games

POISED
Jalopnik; io9; Jezebel; Deadspin
- Cars, Science-Fiction, Women’s Interest, Sports

CUT
Valleywag; Defamer; The Consumerist; Fleshbot
- Silicon valley insider, LA gossip, consumer issues (the irony!), sexy time

This pattern seems to indicate that interest in celeb gossip and high-tech shinies will remain strong (at least, that’s Denton’s prediction). Gawker is perfectly capable of handling occasional California gossip, so Defamer and Valleywag make natural targets for cuts. Fleshbot was always, in my opinion, a weird part of Gawker media. Porn is not exactly rare on the internet, and commentary isn’t a big element of its appeal.

The real hilarity lies in the cuts at Consumerist, perhaps the most obviously useful during a terrible economic downturn of all the Gawker properties.  Seems like celebrity sells better, though.

In line with Chelsie, though, it seems clear that traditional celebrity isn’t going anywhere. Whither microfame, though? How much time will people have to overshare when they’re sending out resumes by the dozen? How much will can people muster to choose better idols when winter’s coming against a backdrop of punishing recession?

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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Wired Magazine, Time Out NY, and New York Magazine — respectively.

[update: the whole post, now!]

One can hardly rush down the steps of the subway station without tripping over a magazine promising to explain this strange phenomenon of internet celebrity while, as a special bonus, also giving away the secrets of becoming internet famous. New York Magazine, Wired, Time Out New York, Wired again — it seems readers are desperate for this sort of thing. Therefore, we present the Play Blog guide to achieving internet fame and all its attendant pleasures . . .

1. Be Attractive. This cannot be stressed enough.  The internet is a visual medium, and so is the real world.  Attention is the lifeblood of celebrity, and being attractive is a great way to get attention.  Think about it: most celebrities are good looking.  Not just actors and models, but crossovers from other arenas as well.  At least have a good body for pity’s sake.

2. Be Rich. Having a lot of money will allow you to circumvent a lot of the obstacles that litter the path of lesser humans trying to reach internet fame.  You will be able to retain a publicist, penetrate the most exclusive scenes, and undertake elaborate PR stunts.  Bonus: your wealth will fuel your celebrity as it enhances your ability to symbolize concepts that inspire passion in people, that is, people will be eager to discuss why someone should have so much wealth at all.

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photo courtesy of Platon; slightly altered

Here’s a conversation I imagine has been taking place in your hipper editorial conference rooms lately:

EDITOR: Guys, we need a story that’ll show readers we’re “with it,” and also one that will get people to buy the magazine.

REPORTER 1: I’d like to meet an attractive woman!

REPORTER 2: I’d prefer to work from the office if I could.

E: Hold on, my 9-year-old just emailed . . . oh, weird. Here’s some guy dressed in–is that from Tron? Wow, think of how long that must have taken.

R1: Oh yeah, I love Tron guy.

R2: Me too.

(pregnant silence)

E, R1, R2: Let’s do a story about internet fame, as if it’s some new phenomenon, and totally differentiable from fame generally.

E: Also try to format it like a list, like a how-to. Readers love that.

A volley of stories on Internet Fame have appeared recently.

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Prada Deathcamp

Tom Sachs and Prada

Tom Sachs appropriated Prada’s brand as parts, from which he built a series of art pieces. His works proposed uncommon connections to the audience, asking questions that unsettled their assumptions about the relationship between marketing and the creation of culture.

Prada had a choice. They could sue for trademark infringement, hoping to regain total control over their brand identity in the cultural space. Or they could adapt to the artwork by sponsoring it and thereby becoming participants in answering the questions that the artworks proposed.

Honest Participation

The free play of art and culture vitalizes society, by interrogating its foundations and by expanding its boundaries into new conceptual territory. Brands, meanwhile, try to supply the public with things they want. In the past, brands relied on traditional advertising to power sales of these products, but these methods are becoming useless as people learn to ignore these propagandistic communications. At Fame Game, we offer the opportunity for brands to sponsor arts and culture—not as another traditional advertising method, but as a new approach to marketing altogether.

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