I know nothing of large scale fame, except that it appears to be not all it's cracked up to be. At least once a month, I find myself muttering, "Thank God I'm not filming a demonstration video," while attempting to cook. I'm content being an unknown introvert in a city where nobody knows me, unless I allow it. (You might be wondering, "How the hell can she be an introvert, when she never shuts up?" But here's the scoop: introverts can be mighty chatty when they feel comfortable enough in the situation, so if you're on the receiving end, lucky you & feel free to tune me out if you must.) When I moved permanently out of state in 2003, I'd never felt so free in my life & was happy to escape the feeling of living in a fishbowl.
For me, growing up in a small Kansas, one stop-light, one grocery store town where "everybody knew everybody," was not the idyllic comfort portrayed by Opie & Andy or Bruce Springsteen. It wasn't so much about fame, but rather the uncomfortable knowledge that everywhere I went, I would cross paths with those who assumed they knew something about me or my family when they absolutely did not know anything about us at all, because we were all living a lie. Wow, that makes it sound like we were spies in a dime store crime novel, "Watchers In The Wheatfield." No, not that, although crimes were certainly occurring behind closed doors. Every moment I lived was a performance of sorts, although I didn't realize it till much later.
And yet... there was a real phenomenon that happened & perhaps the kids were the only ones who noticed it. (Not "It," the sinister clown luring children into storm drains.) We moved back to Kansas the summer before 4th grade & I graduated from high school in 1987, but still you were considered an outsider compared to the kids who'd attended school together since kindergarten. So it was a strange dichotomy of both not fitting in & also everybody "knowing your business." For a shy kid, it was uncomfortable on both fronts.
My only short-lived, laughable moment of "fame" was almost thwarted by a bull, when my best friend & I got to sing a song we wrote, on a local AM radio station that most people didn't know existed & whose listeners were mostly little old ladies tuning in to hear the small town gossip & swap recipes.
The year we met in 5th grade, we were instant friends because I was the one who dared to befriend "the new girl," because I knew what it felt like to be "the new girl," & it turned out we both loved to sing. Together we had big childhood dreams of being the next famous dynamic duo of folk ballads, so we started writing songs together; compiled an index card box of the addresses of record companies that we meticulously copied off the backs of our album covers; & sang in the elementary school talent show in our matching dresses that our mothers sewed. We reached our peak of fame with the radio spot only mere moments after being spotted by an angry bull in the adjacent pasture, that we'd unknowingly agitated by our presence in the radio station parking lot. (Nothing says small town USA like AM radio & bull agitation.) Shout out to my best friend, Becky. Wanna write another song?
If online fame = small-town familiarity X massive social steroids, then online fame = swimming in an olympic-size swimming pool full of hippo diarrhea?
Absolutely. Don't forget your swimming goggles, like the first guy who dove in ungoggled & gasped his way to the surface, screaming, "I CAN'T SEE SHIT," thus coining the phrase & inadvertently achieving ironic viral posthumous notoriety, as soon it was posted by a not-so-innocent bystander. Poor dude didn't live to profit off his own success, because he died shortly after from an intake of too much shit which sparked the discovery of a previously unknown virus that thrives in the fecal matter of hippopotami.
Also, where were you when we were all attempting to decipher & solve excruciatingly lame story problems in math class? This was what we needed to clap back in the face of authority, proclaiming, "You Wanna Story Problem? I Gotta Story Problem For Ya!"
Fame fossilizes your worst moment. Anonymity lets you outgrow it.
uber-nice
I know nothing of large scale fame, except that it appears to be not all it's cracked up to be. At least once a month, I find myself muttering, "Thank God I'm not filming a demonstration video," while attempting to cook. I'm content being an unknown introvert in a city where nobody knows me, unless I allow it. (You might be wondering, "How the hell can she be an introvert, when she never shuts up?" But here's the scoop: introverts can be mighty chatty when they feel comfortable enough in the situation, so if you're on the receiving end, lucky you & feel free to tune me out if you must.) When I moved permanently out of state in 2003, I'd never felt so free in my life & was happy to escape the feeling of living in a fishbowl.
For me, growing up in a small Kansas, one stop-light, one grocery store town where "everybody knew everybody," was not the idyllic comfort portrayed by Opie & Andy or Bruce Springsteen. It wasn't so much about fame, but rather the uncomfortable knowledge that everywhere I went, I would cross paths with those who assumed they knew something about me or my family when they absolutely did not know anything about us at all, because we were all living a lie. Wow, that makes it sound like we were spies in a dime store crime novel, "Watchers In The Wheatfield." No, not that, although crimes were certainly occurring behind closed doors. Every moment I lived was a performance of sorts, although I didn't realize it till much later.
And yet... there was a real phenomenon that happened & perhaps the kids were the only ones who noticed it. (Not "It," the sinister clown luring children into storm drains.) We moved back to Kansas the summer before 4th grade & I graduated from high school in 1987, but still you were considered an outsider compared to the kids who'd attended school together since kindergarten. So it was a strange dichotomy of both not fitting in & also everybody "knowing your business." For a shy kid, it was uncomfortable on both fronts.
My only short-lived, laughable moment of "fame" was almost thwarted by a bull, when my best friend & I got to sing a song we wrote, on a local AM radio station that most people didn't know existed & whose listeners were mostly little old ladies tuning in to hear the small town gossip & swap recipes.
The year we met in 5th grade, we were instant friends because I was the one who dared to befriend "the new girl," because I knew what it felt like to be "the new girl," & it turned out we both loved to sing. Together we had big childhood dreams of being the next famous dynamic duo of folk ballads, so we started writing songs together; compiled an index card box of the addresses of record companies that we meticulously copied off the backs of our album covers; & sang in the elementary school talent show in our matching dresses that our mothers sewed. We reached our peak of fame with the radio spot only mere moments after being spotted by an angry bull in the adjacent pasture, that we'd unknowingly agitated by our presence in the radio station parking lot. (Nothing says small town USA like AM radio & bull agitation.) Shout out to my best friend, Becky. Wanna write another song?
If online fame = small-town familiarity X massive social steroids, then online fame = swimming in an olympic-size swimming pool full of hippo diarrhea?
😆
Absolutely. Don't forget your swimming goggles, like the first guy who dove in ungoggled & gasped his way to the surface, screaming, "I CAN'T SEE SHIT," thus coining the phrase & inadvertently achieving ironic viral posthumous notoriety, as soon it was posted by a not-so-innocent bystander. Poor dude didn't live to profit off his own success, because he died shortly after from an intake of too much shit which sparked the discovery of a previously unknown virus that thrives in the fecal matter of hippopotami.
Also, where were you when we were all attempting to decipher & solve excruciatingly lame story problems in math class? This was what we needed to clap back in the face of authority, proclaiming, "You Wanna Story Problem? I Gotta Story Problem For Ya!"
Goggle-guy needed the hear and reframe Zappa's sage advice, "Don'y you eat that yellow snow."
As for where I was...likely cuddling up with a portable pig snout.
Great. Now I’m gonna be ruminating on the scene in Hannibal, where Mason Verger gets attacked in the pig pen…
People who want fame and do whatever it takes to be famous deserve what they get.
The invisible can hide in plain sight.
Hey, have a kick-ass weekend, Daddio!
Unless their only fame comes from being the victim of a famous serial killer who was hiding in plain sight...