The traditional notion of fame has been challenged and Internet is the culprit. A new kind of cyber world fame has surfaced that has enabled absolutely anyone that can get their hands on a computer to become public figures. I want to start out by giving the example of Julia Allison. Julia Allison is a life caster that uploads EVERYTHING about her life on her site. The New York Times and the The New York magazine have deemed Allison as “the most famous young journalist in the city.” She has self-promoted herself through new media and from that she has managed to gather a strong fan base that now blog about her ever move. She is not only talked about online anymore, but she is considered an “it girl” that is deemed important enough to be mentioned in places such as Page Six.
Hollywood celebrities tend to be careful in cultivating their public images and therefore they control the flow of information to the public through PR reps and publicists. Now, the Internet has enabled us to become our own publicists and shape our own image.
Julia Allison managed to become famous in an incredibly short amount of time. Her fame spread like fire and is now very well known throughout the country. However I ask myself, can her fame go as fast as it came? Does the Internet account for just a 15-minute kind of fame?
As I was “yahooing” her (for some reason that sounds wrong and wish I could have said “googling”) I found this article. Check it out:
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/magazine/16-08/howto_allison
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8 Comments
The concept of the internet celebrity was hilariously parodied in the south park episode, “Canada on Strike”
watch it here:
http://www.complex.com/blogs/2008/04/03/south-parks-youtube-celebrity-showdown/
The episode features old internet sensations such as Tay Zonday, Tron Guy, Numa Numa, and the Star Wars kid to name a few. For many of these people, life has probably already returned to normal.
I feel its because the people’s internet attention spans are much shorter, as you can only watch the same viral video so many times before you get sick of it.
For an alternative view on Allison’s PR schtick, you should search her on Gawker. They are severely anti-Julia. Might give you a differing side than the Wired article so you can form a more complete argument.
I just came across this blog hosted by a class at Parsons that is all about being internet famous. There’s an intro video. Check it out:
http://internetfamo.us/class/famo-class-on-current-tv
It’s weird because I’ve never heard of her in particular. I have to be honest that when I think about this topic my mind jumps to the whole Tila Tequila “fame” and how just because she had some-odd number of myspace friends she became famous and got her own tv show. I don’t know how relevant it is but I know that when it comes to myspace and other websites that can quantify popularity based on number of hits or friends that you can actually add programs that will improve these ratings yourself by fudging these numbers in your favor.
a friend of mine is teaching the Internet Famous class. If you need more info directly from him let me know.
I would be very interested in contacting the professor that is teaching the Internet Famous class. Is it the same professor from the class at Parsons? Thank you for offering!
I thought about a slightly different angle when I read your post, maybe it would help. I thought about how Shaq is on twitter now…
http://twitter.com/THE_REAL_SHAQ
…not a publicist acting like Shaq, but the real person sending messages, or twittering, or tweeting, or whatever you do there. It’s interesting to see people that are already famous using new media just because they want to, but it becoming something that makes them even more famous.
Maybe it would be funny to try and contact some of these internet celebrities with fan mail as if they were real celebrities and see if they answer you. Just via facebook or their youtube contact. We have one right here at NYU, Bo Burnham one of my all time favorite youtube sensations is a freshman here (of so i’ve read) he’s even going to have some sort of series on Comedy Central… all thanks to youtube. I would recommend typing it in… but you’ll have to wait until today after class.