The header for this post is a quote from Napoleon Bonaparte, and indeed who could be more fitting to choose as my source of inspiration for a post dealing in fame and the pursuit of it, than this diminutive man, whose ego pushed him to conquer the world he knew, only to lose it. My experiences in the past 24 hours led me to think more closely about the current culture of celebrity worship. This blog post is an attempt to structure these thoughts in an ordered fashion, however I’m not really sure I’ve been too successful. Anyway, here goes…

We are all familiar with the Andy Warhol quotation from 1968:

“In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes“.

It is my opinion that we are currently living in that future. On the one hand the reality genre is intimating us daily with new paragons of the celebrity cult, while on the other hand ever growing numbers of us are using social networking websites to embark on personal journeys of self aggrandizement, touting our minutest accomplishments for all the denizens of the web to acknowledge.

It seems to me quite obvious that both our ever growing need to identify with the extraneous, and our pursuit for recognition, vary to reflect our personalities, intelligence, cultural background, social status, education, etc:

While the exhibitionist impulse drives some to suffer any form of degradation in the hope of gaining even momentary notoriety, others choose far more subtle and discreet methods to build up their following, but regardless of the means it appears to me that we are all aiming for the same end: FAME. Tragically, in our squabble for 15 minutes of fame, it appears that we have forgotten that there was once a time when fame was the prize given to the worthy for the substance of their deeds and accomplishments.

As we gradually all converge on the stage claiming our right to our part in the action, who remains in the audience to award us with recognition and cheers? Furthermore, as was suggested to me by one of my twitter friends: “If all the world is a stage, then where is the audience sitting?”.

Who knows? Maybe there is no audience anymore?

Maybe we’re all just wannabe-actors parading our talent (or lack of) before an ever growing circle of our peers, all compelled by fear of vengeance, to support our performance, no matter how absurd or banal. But woe be it to any that break the circle and dare to cry “The Emperor is naked!”. The herd’s retribution is swift and excommunication and ostracizing it’s ultimate form of punishment. Indeed in a world were popularity is the ultimate prize what penalty could be more terrible than a forced anonymity?

Interestingly Andy himself predicted for us the next evolution as well. In 1979 he is quoted as referring to his former quip by saying:

“I’m bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is, In fifteen minutes everybody will be famous“.

A simple analysis of our current situation proves that this is indeed fast becoming the case, and for good reason to.

It’s basic supply and demand.

We’re all currently displaying a very obvious demand for fame, and our demand is constantly being supplied by those savvy enough to capitalize on it.

The problem is that the laws of supply and demand also come into play as a check for saturated markets.
As our culture becomes saturated with celebrities their value must drop.
Even now we are witnessing this effect. Yesterday’s reality heroes quickly become the laughing stock of today, or even worse, simply sink back into obscurity, their fame, for which they sacrificed dignity and effort, becomes no more than a fleeting episode that only serves to highlight the drudgery of their commonplace lives.

I offer that we are fast approaching “The Post Celebrity Age“.

Fame, as defined by mass peer recognition, will lose much of it’s value, and will come to be viewed as something distasteful, worthy only of contempt. We will return to a culture where one’s substance, deeds, and accomplishments are the measure of one’s success. This current phase that celebrates hedonistic boorishness, so blatantly championed by the Paris Hiltons of the world, will be discarded in favor of a Neo-Renaissance whose heroes are already gaining recognition through the good efforts of ventures like TED.com and others.

Frankly - I can hardly wait…