“We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods,and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”
Ten years ago, you might have called a friend on the phone: “Hey, are we still planning to meet at the bar at 8 tonight?” And it was just a phone call between two people. Now, you write the same sentence on someone’s Facebook wall, and it is immediately cross-posted to the Facebook “news feed” of your 728 Facebook friends. And all your friend’s friends as well! It’s not just a note. It’s on a news feed; it’s news! And when you pass out drunk on the steps of said bar, those pictures will also be news. Everyone knows. The whole world is following the drama of your social life, just like you always dreamed.
Just a few years ago, you would have needed Brangelina-level tabloid coverage to live such a public life. But now, the internet, as it has done for so many things, has made celebrity into a D.I.Y. project.
--Fight Club (movie)
“There are 3 things all men should know, and it’s time you did too. You’re never going to be famous, you’re fatter than you think, and… [women] don’t keep wearing stockings.”
--Coupling (British television show)
Most of us spent our childhoods planning for the fame and fortune that never really came. Somehow, nobody on my little league baseball team made the majors, and nobody from my fifth grade class is a movie star now. Quite a shock to all of us, I’m sure.
And it’s too bad, because we were all mentally prepared for exposure. We were ready for hordes of people to react to our every public comment, and we were totally psyched to see the tabloid pictures of our excessive partying. We needed some place to put all these unused skills to use.
This is why we’re very fortunate to have grown up into the age of social media. The internet is now the fame-simulator for the un-famous. Andy Warhol said that someday everyone would be famous for 15 minutes, but he may have underestimated. If you have a Facebook account, everyone is famous ALL THE TIME.
Ten years ago, you might have called a friend on the phone: “Hey, are we still planning to meet at the bar at 8 tonight?” And it was just a phone call between two people. Now, you write the same sentence on someone’s Facebook wall, and it is immediately cross-posted to the Facebook “news feed” of your 728 Facebook friends. And all your friend’s friends as well! It’s not just a note. It’s on a news feed; it’s news! And when you pass out drunk on the steps of said bar, those pictures will also be news. Everyone knows. The whole world is following the drama of your social life, just like you always dreamed.
And while you have “friends” on Facebook, you can do even better on Twitter, where you gather “followers,” who are ready to worshipfully follow all of your 140-characters-or-less witticisms.
I don’t mean to sound too cynical. I know I’m glad to unleash my inner celebrity and celebrate a little bit when I’m alerted that 14 people have liked my Facebook status. “They like me! They really like me!”
I think advertising can take advantage of this by letting people bypass the whole celebrity endorsement thing, and allowing people to be their own celebrity endorsement. That’s one reason why I like, for example, this Oreo Moments Gallery. It’s a nice little way to make people waste time thinking about Oreos, looking at pictures, videos, stories, etc. But the biggest connection to the Oreos happens when, inevitably, people say to themselves, “You know what this site really needs? A picture of ME holding some Oreos… Everyone will see it!”
Similarly, New Think had no trouble finding volunteers to flash the “E” for the “be the E” campaign on the fortieth anniversary of Earth Day. There’s nothing like the opportunity to have your face shown for 0.7 seconds on an advertisement in Times Square!
Give people the chance to be famous. They won’t settle for just 15 minutes anymore.
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