Caveat Scriptor: Twitter is Destroying Fame

One of Kanye's better tweets, mashed with a New Yorker cartoon

My first brush with fame was shaking an astronaut’s hand when I was fourteen (Robert Crippen).  Since then, I’ve spotted movie stars in Park City, seen musicians drinking in bars, and actually discussed golf swings with the Prime Minister of Japan.  I mention these not to brag, but to say that my exposure to fame has probably been average.

Online, however, I’ve gotten much closer.  Ten years ago I became ICQ friends with Will Wheaton (Ensign Crusher), who had some linux support questions that I answered.  We traded geek creds, and that was that.  On facebook, I’ve got some famous friends; on Twitter, me and @MCHammer are tight (at least I think so, he never answers my pleading to not hurt ‘em).

The Internet and social media have made flash stars of some people, usually not of their own volition– from the numa numa boy to that idiot crying over a rainbow.  The instant connectivity to flash something all over the globe and the proletarian accessability to publishing can make anyone a star for about 15 seconds.  No duh.

Social media may be destroying the machine that builds fame, however.  If “fame” is the marketable asset that comes from being famous, then twitter is destroying value every day.  Here’s my thesis:

• Actors used to be poor.  They could only impress and perform in front of a few hundred people in a given city, and even then, the theatre was long and drawn out.  High quality stuff, no doubt (for acting chops), but weak on the easily-remembered guitar licks.  Charlie Chaplin was the first major star, and it was a direct result of the medium of film, which could be recorded and distributed to thousands and millions of people.  Actors (successful ones) are rich because of the medium and distribution model which allows for small dollars from many many customers.
• As actors and musicians became famous via a remote medium (film is one-way interaction, as is radio, records, tapes, etc.), an entire ‘fame’ industry sprang up to provide that proxy access that fans wanted to make the connection back to their idols.  Variety Magazine, Papparazzi, TMZ, et al, are all part of this machine.  Performers have a weird relationship with it– they say they despise the machinery of fame, yet they depend on it.  The successful navigators seem to balance what information and access they dole out sparingly.  Marlon Brando never attended the Academy Awards, there’s no way he’d have a twitter account.
• Twitter now gives these performers a direct line to their fans.  Wait– no.  It’s the other way around: fans now have a direct line to the performers.  This circumvents the machine, and some performers are seeing their fame getting eaten away.

While Twitter is still technically a one-way medium (I can follow @JeremyPiven, he doesn’t have to  follow me back), the format is stripped down to a degree that allows very little of the fame machine to work its magic: no photoshopping of the photos, no glitzy typeface, no room for a publisher or PR handler in-between the performer and the fan.

Some performers have been able to do this well, mostly comics who are used to the short text of a joke.  Some are burning their capital, reduced to endlessly pimping their own book store appearances.  Still some others have suffered poorly for it– mostly the good looking ones we suspected were vapid shells all along.

There was a Vanity Fair article I read last week about Richard Burton and Liz Taylor, who seemed to be at the apex of the fame machine in it’s best golden era of the 60s, and when Pacino, Hoffman, and other “ordinary” guys started to fill the roles, ol’ Dick Jenkins (Burton) knew the game was changing, and that fame was past him now.

Known for his poetry, drinking binges, and temper tantrums, @RichardBurton would have been one helluva feed.