I just wanted to share a recent piece that I did for movmnt. Enjoy:
The disease of instant celebrity in the post-pop era.
The scene: A starlet, recently freed from a grueling 72-hour ordeal, careens out of a correctional facility parking lot and dials the first coke dealer she can find in her iPhone. Nothing can slow her down now. She is pissed but giddy over the press she has received. Stupid paparazzi. And the studio keeps calling leaving threatening messages with her manager. Can’t they see she’s having a crisis? No one understands how hard it is to be in the spotlight constantly, she thinks. Of course she parties a little, everyone does. She chucks a fast food shake out the window, hitting an oncoming car. Fucking idiots. No one understands what she is going through.
The unmistakable stench of rot and decay lingers over popular culture right now. Celebrity, once the domain of an elite (and elitist) class of hand-picked talent and well crafted studio production, is now mass-produced. How did we get here? When did fame become an end unto itself? The promise of unlimited access to the means of media distribution was supposed to even the playing field, allowing the cream to rise to the top. Everyone can play; everyone can hit the jackpot; everyone can be famous. Yet the very nature of fame is corrupted by its ubiquity. It is meaningless unless there are those less famous looking up to you. You can have 6,234 friends on MySpace and never meet more than ten of them. Fame is now the crack cocaine of success – cheaper, readily available, self-destructive, and quicker to fade.
Read the whole thing here.
Proof positive that shit does indeed float. Beautifully written. You ask the right questions, and nail the subject(s) to the wall. Kudos.
Michael
Posted by: mymymichl | Friday, March 07, 2008 at 01:56 AM