What does it mean to be “famous on the internet” or “an internet rockstar” or a “microcelebrity?”
Clive Thompson describes microcelebrity as
the phenomenon of being extremely well known not to millions but to a small group — a thousand people, or maybe only a few dozen… [It] simply makes the social engineering we’ve always done a little more overt — and maybe a little more honest.
On Tuesday, March 18, Spark will record a panel discussion on the topic of microcelebrity. Nora’s guests will be Merlin Mann of 43Folders, Sarah Meyers of Pop17, and Terri Senft, the media studies prof who coined the term microcelebrity.
If you have questions for any of the panelists, please leave them in the comments below, or add them to the wiki.
I have a reasonably popular Canadian blog, and recently wrote a book. At a conference last week, I had the weird experience of someone asking for my autograph ("for their friend").
Somebody else asked "are you famous?" I replied "I'm micro-famous".
Darren, when I first saw that you had commented on our blog, I thought ‘wow, it’s that blogger, commenting on our blog. I read his blog. Cool’
“Microcelebrity” status isn’t really something new. If one were to ask a group of 100 people who Brent Spiner was, 97 of them would have no clue and 3 of them would tell you how they worshipped at the feet of Lt. Commander Data of the Starship USS Enterprise (actually they would probably make some joke about positronic nets that would leave one feeling terribly embarrassed for them).
The difference between Brent Spiner and Merlin Mann is that Brent dedicated his life to a television show and Merlin has a buddy with a ridiculous popular podcast. So, yes, it is getting *easier* to be a microcelebrity, but there’s no reason to think this is something new.
See, Darren: you’re too modest. You’re totally internet-famous! I mean, *I* know who you are, and I’m, like, the Little Old Lady from Pasadena of the internets.
The ability to self-publish for free has made micro-celebrity possible. We are just beginning to see the ramifications of this power, as Clay Shirky, in “Here Comes Everybody” says, “When we change the way we communicate, we change society.”
@ Harold–
It makes me wonder what McLuhan would make of the self-publishing phenom, and whether in 50 years we’ll look back at blogging/podcasting/Web 2.0 as a communications change as far-reaching as, if not print, then at least television.
@ Nora, I think it’s a major shift. I look at my own business, which I only market via my blog, that could not have existed 10 years ago. Before the Web, I would have had to have lived in a major urban centre. It’s still not easy working out of small town Atlantic Canada but at least it’s possible.
However, the ability of networks to route around hierarchies (e.g. governments, bureaucracies, corporations) is threatening the status quo. One example of the tension is how Canadian telecommunications companies are throttling P2P systems, and thus stifling other forms of creativity, including the CBC. If the network remains open (not guaranteed), its impact will be far-reaching.
I expect changes in any business model that was premised on broadcasting. We’ve seen major disruptions in newspapers, radio, and TV in the past decade. I anticipate a radical change in broadcast education, which is ripe for disruption, with its bloated hierarchies, decaying infrastructure and escalating costs for tuition, resources and even transportation. When the public education model changes, you’ll know that the network revolution has really started.
Interesting stuff. This is a side point, but one of the noteworthy things that’s changing in journalism is that journalists are having to learn facility in across a range of media and styles. You can’t just be a print journalist, increasingly, you have to ‘perform’ in videos online (a la David Pogue), or perform in a podcast version of what you do. It’s not just that you put your work online, but that you have to change stylistically too, to match the more casual, open tone of online. I think the media outlets that do well at this (The Guardian strikes me as one example) are going to be in a much better position.
I think that we’re all going to have to become experts in video. No video presence, no Web presence?
I agree that in 50 years we’ll see how we look back at the personal publishing revolution–and my own view is that we will see it as a science-fiction-prediction-come-true sweeping change in how we all experience and share media.
The question in my mind is whether traditonal media will “niche” into a place, as radio did in the wake of the video star, or whether we’re going to see old dinosaurs fall and new dinosaurs arise. My initial prediction is that the traditional media and the sharing culture will exist side by side, to the benefit of both–but it is entirely possible that how we experience culture will change so much that traditional media no longer is recognizable.
I think that the analogy is to the widespread dissemination of sheet music. Suddenly, music was no longer divided into pieces only the elite could play and pieces that were folk tunes. Instead, every parlor became a place of music creation and the sharing of culture. When every creator is a media generator, then traditonal media’s importance inevitably is redefined.
Learn how to create an online site, learn everything about your computer ESPECIALLY HTML and copy and paste. Make positive you have a digital camera and camcorder.