Fifteen Minutes of Fame

August1991 · September 8, 2006

Louis XIV was a guarded celebrity. Charlie Chaplin was a modern world's celebrity. Chaplin was the first person that ordinary people recognized in the street. (Before Chaplin, Kings had printed portraits but no one really recognized the face. It took moving pictures to create celebrity or fame.)

With Chaplin, the Holy Grail of status started on its most recent inflationary path of lost value.

John Mark Karr:

The district attorney’s office in Boulder, Colo., decided today not to file criminal charges against John Mark Karr in the killing of the child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey because his DNA did not match the evidence found at the scene of her death 10 years ago.

NYT

Natascha Kampusch:

She did not answer all the questions, let alone dispel all the mysteries. But Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian schoolgirl held captive in a windowless cellar for eight years before she escaped two weeks ago, went public with a revealing, often harrowing account of her ordeal.

IHT

jbg · September 9, 2006

Interesting. But connection to thread title?

Electric Monk · September 12, 2006

I think the point that August1991 is making is that the relatively modern phenomenon of celebrity can come about through no direct intention of your own, but merely through happenstance and media exposure. I.E: the Paris Hilton sex tape. I mean who would know about her if the tape hadn't been seen by millions online, but now she even has her own album and appears on numerous television programs. (shudder)

August1991 · September 14, 2006

Kimveer Gill and Dawson College

Kimveer Gill, 25, who opened fire on students at Dawson College yesterday before being killed by the police, had left a chilling self-portrait on a website.

Daily Telegraph

August1991 · September 29, 2006

Leanne Domi's kids:

At all times, my highest priority has been to minimize the pain of this ordeal for Carlin, Max and Avery. Leanne and I will no longer be married but we will remain parents for the rest of lives. Like any Dad, I love our children enormously. I want them to grow up enjoying a healthy and strong relationship with both their Mother and their Father.

CNW

Michael Hardner · September 29, 2006

Celebrity arose as a phenomenon of massive point-to-multipoint communications. First it was the cinema, which gave Mary Pickford and the like stardom, then radio which helped the rise of Hitler, next television and so forth.

The next generation is much more engaged in multipoint-to-multipoint communications which seems to indicate that stars and celebrities will fade somewhat in our imagination.

August1991 · September 30, 2006

Anna Nicole Smith:

The woman redefines wacky. No question about it, she is the reigning queen of drama and, thus, more than a little exhausting. In three short weeks she has given birth to a child whose paternity is uncertain.(Two men are claiming to be the father.) She has lost another son, felled at the age of 20, seemingly by a cocktail of drugs. And she has gained - at least according to news reports yesterday - a new husband. It begs that old film title game again: "Two Fathers, a Baby, a Wedding and a Funeral".

IHT

August1991 · October 4, 2006

Nickel Mines, Pa.

"Today in Nickel Mines and Bart Township, the larger community of which it forms part, there was the disconcerting sight of horses and buggies making their way past dozens of satellite trucks.
"Camera crews stood by their cars and vans, drinking coffee from McDonalds cups, as some Amish families continued about their daily business: farming and taking their children to the other local schools, which have re-opened.

"At least 200 journalists have parachuted in, descending with satellite dishes, cameras, cables, mobile phones and microphones into a community that shuns modernity, that bans telephones from people's homes.

"Right now there is an uneasy peace between the press and the Amish, but it is unclear how long that will last, with the funerals of the girls killed in the shooting coming up.

Times

geoffrey · October 4, 2006

Good case of complete disrespect from the media, I can't believe anyone trusts journalists anymore. They are complete filth.

August1991 · October 4, 2006

Good case of complete disrespect from the media, I can't believe anyone trusts journalists anymore. They are complete filth.

I saw the same at Dawson College in Montreal. It's a strange high tech refugee camp of tents, cables and coiffed talking heads. They're doing a job, and in their own minds, an exciting job it is.

Psychology textbooks usually give scant reference to curiousity yet curiousity motivates people. Journalists are not "filth". They are usually just ambitious and curious. They provide answers to our own curiousity.

Michael Hardner · October 4, 2006

Good case of complete disrespect from the media, I can't believe anyone trusts journalists anymore. They are complete filth.

Why are they filthy ? They drank coffee in front of Amish people...

Who should we go after first - international arms dealers or cameramen ?

Hicksey · October 4, 2006

What I cannot understand is how people want their own Fifteen Minutes of Fame. I have watched the press and the general sense they get that the lives of celebrities are everyone else's business regardless of whether that person wishes to share it or not.

If I had to have fame to get rich I'd tell them to keep the money. I'd even go so far as to try to keep it quiet if I won the lottery. Who needs a bunch of friends they never had in the first place?

To take it even further, I am baffled that all these idiots (say what you will, that is how I view them) feel the overwhelming need to go on shows like American Idol and the like and make asses of themselves before millions of people. My pet name for that show is American Idiot.

Fame is overrated.

geoffrey · October 4, 2006

Good case of complete disrespect from the media, I can't believe anyone trusts journalists anymore. They are complete filth.

Why are they filthy ? They drank coffee in front of Amish people...

Who should we go after first - international arms dealers or cameramen ?

I just find it rather disrespectful to crowd around a community in grief and take pictures of them, trying to get an exclusive interview with a heart broken friend or family member.

It shocking that people watch it too, I guess they are only providing a drug to an addicted voyeuristic population.

Michael Hardner · October 4, 2006

I actually agree with you.

The worst, though, is voyeuristic entertainment that exploits the worst human curiousity. It's up to each individual to try to curtail the demand...

Hicksey · October 4, 2006

Are we in the minority or does a majority of people view the vultures and fame-seekers as the fools they are?

I have gone so far as to stop watching the news and started reading instead. At least there we get a smidgen of the good that happens in the world, and I don't have to sit though the garbage to get to something worthy of my time.

geoffrey · October 4, 2006

I actually agree with you.
The worst, though, is voyeuristic entertainment that exploits the worst human curiousity. It's up to each individual to try to curtail the demand...

I'm making an attempt! <_<

August is right by making this connection though. It's our (well not mine, but society's) interest in watching others suffer and die that motivates these types of killers and attention seekers. If people were disinterested in watching others in terror or suffer immensly, it's unlikely that people like Mr. Gill would have attempted such an act out of wanting like he said, to make a notorious name for himself. If people didn't enjoy or demand to read about the suffering of Domi's kids, the divorce wouldn't be first page news.

It's about making people feel superior because they don't have the same problems, I'd generalise it as we have a society with members very insecure of themselves, and they need to see others suffer. It's like the big crowd that watches the media bully beat up the already suffering and disadvantaged.

What happened to the Amish may have still happened, it didn't seem like this guy was an attention seeker, but at least the community would be left to grieve in peace without a 40 foot TV crane zooming in on the dead during the funereals.

I have less respect for journalists than any other profession.

August1991 · October 13, 2006

Here's a thought.

Who should we blame for - how can we explain - this "Fifteen Minutes of Fame"? Sometimes, it's a question of pure fate - wrong place, wrong time. This, I can sort of understand. If you want a quiet life, you truly seek it. (The Amish draw attention to themselves.) IOW sometimes, it's the fulfilment of an exhibitionist's desire.

So, my thought? If you want to sell a used Jaguar, what do you do? If you want to buy an old Jaguar, what do you do? Who wants to be noticed? Who seeks "fame"?

Do women advertise more than men? Or do men seek notice more than women? Who wants to stand out?

Charles Anthony · October 13, 2006

Who seeks "fame"?

People who are afraid of death or who want immortality.

There are more humble ways of creating one's immortality but for those who do not believe in religion or life-after-death or the supernatural, the closest one can get to immortality on Earth is through some form of fame.

August1991 · October 20, 2006

Yohane Banda Mwale in Malawi:

Speaking from crop fields in blistering temperatures, Yohane said, "I'm not really missing David because we have agreed with Madonna that he will visit us here in three or four years time. I am not asking for anything from Madonna, but when David grows up and is brought here and sees our poverty, he will certainly ask his mom to help."

"All Headline News"

August1991 · October 27, 2006

Sheik Taj el-Dene Elhilaly of Australia becomes a World Headline:

Excerpts from a recording of the 17-minute sermon appeared in a News Limited newspaper yesterday.
The Sheik alluded to rapes in 2000 in which four women were separately gang-raped by young Muslim men, including Bilal Skaf, who received a 55-year jail sentence, later reduced.

He said there were women who "sway suggestively" and wore make-up and inappropriate clothes, "and then you get a judge without mercy (rahma) and gives you 65 years," The Australian reported.

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat," the sheik asked.

"The uncovered meat is the problem."

"If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab (head scarf), no problem would have occurred."

Daily Telegraph

geoffrey · October 27, 2006

So what the Shiek is essientially saying is that Muslim men are animals and have no self-control.

From the horse's mouth.

August1991 · October 27, 2006

A more complete text of the Sheikh's speech can be found here.

The BBC also has a text of the speech.

August1991 · November 4, 2006

Mike Jones of Denver, Colorado:

Prostitute Mike Jones, 49, of Denver, claims he was paid for drug-fuelled trysts by Mr Haggard, the former head of the National Association of Evangelicals.
---

Mr Jones said he decided to go public with his claims because of the political fight over the amendments. "I just want people to step back and take a look and say, 'Look, we're all sinners, we all have faults, but if two people want to get married, just let them, and let them have a happy life'," he said.

Mr Jones, who said he was gay and added that he was not working for any political group, said he was also upset when he discovered Mr Haggard and the New Life Church had publicly opposed same-sex marriage. "It made me angry that here's someone preaching about gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex," he said.

The Age of Australia

Charles Anthony · November 4, 2006

A 50-year old male prostitute with a boring name like "Mike Jones" does not seem like a candidate for anything more than 15 minutes worth of fame. Maybe he is just growing haggard of Haggard's hypocrisy.

I would give Jones the benefit of the doubt about wanting to make the world a better place.

August1991 · November 13, 2006

Despite the often incorrect spelling, Kazakhstan achieves name recognition among a target audience in the West:

Alarmed by the antics of a fictional TV reporter who portrays their country as a nation of horse urine-drinking misogynists, Kazakh authorities have invited the British comedian who plays the character to come and see the truth for himself.
Rakhat Aliyev, Kazakh first deputy foreign minister and a powerful son-in-law of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, asked British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen to visit the vast, oil-rich steppe nation and meet normal human beings rather than the larger-than-life lunatics shown by Cohen's TV reporter Borat.

"His trip could yield a lot of discoveries -- that women not only travel inside buses but also drive their own cars, that we make wine from grapes, that Jews can freely attend synagogues and so on," Aliyev told local news agency Kazakhstan Today late on Wednesday.

CNN - Reuters