WHY WE'RE NOT FAMOUS
"Let's face it. America gets the celebrities it deserves."
-KMFDM
Today I met a Famous Person.
It wasn't the first time either; I had even met two other Famous People the
day before at a local coffeehouse (read: yuppie trough). Each time, the only
thing that surprised and angered me more than their guarded, diffident stares
and obvious disregard of personhood was the fact that I didn't care, that I was
trying to think of something to say that could possibly interest them. It was
especially surprising because I don't even like any of the people I met. Amy
Grant, for example (sure, I'll rag on her; we at the Playground are no respectors
of persons, and what's she going to do to us anyway? sue? if she can't handle
criticism then she shouldn't show herself in public.): I can't stand her music.
I don't find her incredibly attractive (especially not in person). Her
videos are trite and not particularly creative or interesting. In short,
I have never spent any significant amount of time in my life thinking about
this person or her music or her career. And yet when I found myself taking her
order where I work, I mentally ran down a list of everything I knew about her
(which was precious little), trying to think of something to dribble out of my
sorry plebian lips that might have the slightest chance of engraving the
smallest thumbprint into her psyche, knowing full well that when she left, just like anyone
else who has stood in front of thousands of nameless faces who'd give them
their faceless souls, she'd forget my face before she started her overpriced
minivan.
I started wondering why this unsettled me so much. I've met
many people in my life who are worth getting to know, good honest folk who are just as worthy of
acquaintance as Amy Grant. It should be pretty obvious that these famous people
who carry such god-like status only have it because we janitors and waiters and
taxi-cab drivers and useless-web-page designers specifically
choose to give it to them. Of course they're not better people. I wish they were--hell,
if all I had to do to achieve Atman was convince enough slackjawed mall-walking
pop-culture whores to turn my album platinum, God knows I'd never have quit high-school
band class.
So what's everyone's problem? Why do most of us wet our pants
at the sight of someone simply because they've they've sat in front of a glass
lens or screamed something off-key into a porous piece of plastic? Mortality,
perhaps? Think about it. It bothers you that a famous person, so accepted and
universally recognized, will never remember or think about you because it reminds
you that everything you do or say will be forgotten as soon as the proverbial
Amy Grant gets into her proverbial Minivan with her screaming proverbial Kids.
What you said or did didn't matter--it didn't change one bloody whit the opinion or disposition
of this person who carries so many other people's opinions and dispositions. It's
as if you were shooting your whole wad of personality right into the face of thousands
of people manifested in this one person, and it just dripped off like Teflon onto
the floor of obscure mediocrity. Nothing left but the glaring knowledge that
everything you are is nothing to most people now, and will be even less
when you're dead.
Tomorrow I'm quitting my
job.
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