You Won’t Be An Internet Success. Phew!
You really should be relieved.
You’re the opposite of Truman. No one is watching you, but you’re the only one who thinks they are.
I hope you don’t want to be famous. If you do, I have something to tell you that you may not like. Not gonna happen. I know, you’re petulant. You got published here, featured here, you work there, you’ve been retweeted and your toots have been boosted. Well, sorry to tell you this, but your promise is about at the same level as all those NFTs that were supposed to become the digital Mona Lisas of tomorrow. I can see you’re getting upset so perhaps you should step away from the laptop before you read my next thing: you don’t really want to be famous. At all. Not even microfamous. Even if Bronze Age Pervert gave you a shout, your life would not be what you wanted. You will need some convincing I see. How about this: first I convince you that this fame you seek is too meager and fleeting to make sense pursuing. Then I will show you that you do not want this fame anyway. That you are just fine with very few people knowing what you look like, sound like and think about.
Not Gonna Happen
For one, Gen Z’s #1 career choice is to be an influencer. Now, young people wanting to be famous isn’t new, it’s true. In the ‘60s, there were garage bands everywhere. But “rock star” was not the #1 career choice of first wave baby boomers. “MTV star” was not the #1 career choice of ‘80s teens. So even if you are a Gen Z reader of this, everyone you know your age and younger is competing against you. And they aren’t even competing against you for an audience, but for an algorithm.
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Yes, that is a Louis CK video. No, I am not sweeping his transgressions under the rug. His story is relevant to his discussion. For maybe twelve years, Louis CK’s stand-up was considered the best possibly ever, let alone of his time. The day the Times article got him canceled, even other comics were afraid to come forward and defend him. His friends had to keep their distance to get the stink off them. But everyone outside the blast radius discarded him overnight. His fan base has regenerated somewhat, but that’s not my point. The speed with which we dropped celebrities towards the early MeToo years was telling. Especially compared with how much more reluctant the web was to throw Biden and Clinton (both who have been accused of rape) under the bus.
Why not them you ask? Several reasons, but I say one of the biggest is that your average netizen did not see Clinton or Biden as competition. Celebrities though? Now with CK down, your tweet moves up the deck a notch. To be sure, this was CK, a true genius, Unethical, deranged genius, but genius. Even if you are lucky enough to win the influencer scratch off sweepstakes, you will not need a scandal to fall as quickly as CK did.
Where did this entitlement come from anyway? The question linked to above wasn’t “What is your dream job” but “What is your career choice?” Social media is involved, but the roots are deeper and go further back. As Christopher Lasch has pointed out numerous times, the culture of narcissism developed in the vacuum of ego ideals that the ‘60s hippies took down. The counterculture did an admirable job defying the bourgeois order of the suburbs. But instead of truly remaking the world in their image, most hippies moved to communes to make their own alternative communities. Though many hippies may have gone off the grid, the ethos of doing what you like remained. Turns out most people in the ‘70s wanted to live the rock and roll lifestyle of getting fucked up and getting laid. Sex and revelry were always popular, but for all these centuries, these were hidden, shameful pleasures that were to be carried out in secret, while serving your family and community was what you did publicly. By the ‘70s, though, you got high after you punched out and drove around aimlessly. Each decade after the Me Decade turned to a more distorted, blurry photocopy of the ‘70s narcissism until our current moment.
The Boomer generation is full of failed radicals that have difficulty letting go of the ‘60s dream entirely. Plenty of Millennials, then, are failed creators that are still holding out hope for a return to Twitter camelot. And before we lose perspective, let’s remember two things: first off, I only recently snapped out of my dreams of fame myself. And often times, I am seduced back into those daydreams by a narcissistic culture on and offline. So this is not about shaming you. It’s about freeing you.
You wanna be a daredevil? Fine, jump out the plane, pull the ripcord. But know there are very few places left to land. It’s all tiny isthmuses of fleeting fame down there. The attention economy is undergoing inflation. A million followers is not enough anymore. But you are.
You Don’t Want It
You hated that, right? When I said “you are enough.” Felt cheap, hollow, phony, right? Guess what? This is how praise and acclaim feels too! All parasocial affection reads as false. I mean, come on! They don’t even know you!
That’s just one reason you don’t want to be famous. Another reason: you may believe that you want to leave the herd and take your rightful place in the Hollywood pantheon with all the bronzed gods. Meh, I don’t know, I think you like the herd. And what’s with all this condescending imagery anyway? Movies love to imagine 9 to 5 jobs as prisons that must be broken out of. Turns out, some people find those jobs rewarding. Yes, there is plenty of exploitation happening in Cubicle Country. But it also happens in Hollywood, thus the strike. Speaking of, unlike previous writer and actor strikes, there is much resentment this time around over the prioritization of the Hollywood strikes over the auto workers’ strike in the media.
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Since the pandemic, there has been an increasing rift between Hollywood and the little people that has become impossible to ignore. Left and right wingers are both disgusted with Hollywood celebrities. Is this your dream? To be so out of touch with everyday people that your humanity is purged and you become a fame obsessed Bowie alien? Are you sure you are a failure if you remain a commoner until you die? Was a time when poets like Whitman and Sandburg glorified everyday people. Stanzas full of men with broad shoulders and women with sturdy legs. No? You want to stab yourself with Ozempic till you become a deflated Kardashian doll?
You don’t want fame. You want recognition.
Attention is a broader category than recognition. Recognition is a specific and rarefied form of attention. I actually tend to think of it, as I’ve been constructing this in my head, there’s attention at the lowest level, then there’s recognition, and there’s love, as the three ascending forms of human engagement.
Recognition may be a tougher one. We are in a loneliness epidemic, social media is on the decline and third places are rare. Love may seem rarer, so for now self-love may be what is needed.
Self love? You write this weird, second person rant and it ends up being a goddam Dove ad? Besides, isn’t self-love narcissism?
No, the opposite. Seeking sex with others is and should be valued over masturbation. But seeking validation should be the exact opposite. Of course, our society now has it backwards. More and more people prefer porn to dating but also seek TikTok validation. And this search for validation is the very genetic code of narcissism. A lack of this validation leads to narcissistic rage, possibly collapse. When you love yourself, you don’t think you’re amazing. You see yourself as human. You see your humanity and laugh at yourself. Lo and behold, other people like that and feel relaxed around that. And that’s what you want. Recognition. And that’s worth more than all the NFTs money can buy.
Good to see someone use narcissism correctly. And to understand it is about validation of an artificial persona projected on to the world. Exacerbated, of course, by the fakery of the digital world. What is the fame you discuss if not a form of this? It cannot ever be satisfying. It is more like an addiction.
The Louis CK video was good. He is correct. Adapting your content to better match the algorithm is absurd. Especially in a world of fake where people increasingly seek something authentic.
Another great post! I have a feeling Gen Z's desire to all be influencers is more rational that it appears. I don't think it's "fame" they're seeking, but insurance against the modern job market which offers essentially zero financial security or personal autonomy. I think they understand that if one can shape onesself into a valuable brand, it's much harder for them to be taken advantage of.
If Millenial culture could broadly be defined as "an attempt to reclaim authenticity", I think Gen Z is correctly identifying that failed effort and giving up on authenticity altogether. Is this good for, y'know, the soul of mankind? I don't think so. But I do think they're reacting rationally to a world they were born into that doesn't appear to care about their future.
(Also while I thought the Louis CK video was great, it's real fuckin' rich to hear him of all people waxing nostalgic about the pervy old gatekeepers of yesterday. I would rather cater to an unfeeling algorithm than the whims of a Weinstein.)