A few years ago I was teaching a filmmaking class at a summer camp for kids. One day, I asked the students what they wanted to be when they grew up. And most of them gave the same answer. They wanted to be famous. Actually, only about 75% wanted to be famous. The rest wanted to be thugs.
There was a time... and not that long ago... when people aspired to be skillful at some particular endeavor; sports, the arts, car repair, whatever. But mastering a skill takes time... and usually a lot of it... time better spent on other pursuits. Like indulging weapons of mass distraction. One of the students in my class told me that her favorite pastime was signing her autograph. She had no identifiable skills that I was aware of, but her penmanship was truly remarkable.
In a media driven, celebrity focused, narcissistic culture like ours, it's hardly a surprise that fame is the modern equivalent of the holy grail. It makes total sense. The important thing to understand is that, if fame is one's goal, there's never been a better time for achieving it than now. Now anyone can possess the holy grail... and with virtually no effort too.
Various inexpensive technologies have made it possible for the average person to create films, music, books and other art forms that would have been impossible just a few short years ago. The internet, particularly YouTube and MySpace, has made it possible to promote and distribute those art forms, literally all over the world. For free! And perhaps most importantly, people like Paris Hilton, Flava Flav, the Kardashians and a host of others serve as shining examples that in the fame game, talent is an option, not a requirement. Now, perhaps for the first time in all of human history, "anybody" can be a "somebody".
Andy Warhol envisioned a time when anybody could be famous for at least fifteen minutes. At one time, such a sentiment seemed laughably ludicrous. It's not so funny anymore.
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