What Is Celebrity?

Catching up on my reading... John Leland wrote a wonderful analysis in the New York Times on the changing nature of celebrity -- what he calls a "flattening" of celebrity.

"...celebrity is a narrative form, not a status," Neal Gabler, senior fellow at USC told Leland. "[Internet celebrities like Lonelygirl] understand that if you create narrative, you create a celebrity. You don't need movie studios or television."

"But as a narrative, celebrity doesn't demand that its stories be well-crafted or complex -- just that they grab someone's attention for a minute," according to podcaster Ken Goffman. "It's a double-edged sword, not just in the cheapening of celebrity, but the cheapening of the quality of the work people seek out, liking stuff that's just quirky but not necessarily brilliant." (It's hard to see how this is different that the tabloids' obsession with no-talent celebrities such as Paris Hilton.)

According to Northwester University professor David Marshall, "We're moving from a representation culture, where celebrities or stars represented us, to a presentation culture where we can present ourselves. It's quite unsettling for the way we organize influence and power... the churn is astounding."

  

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