![]() Are we doomed to see entertainment news dominated by multiple duplicate articles on even the tiniest aspect of celebrity life? Maybe so, but our fleeting attention span will create a new batch of one-hit wonders to discover in a few years. Because of this, optimism is a hard goal. With so many news topics and outlets to choose from, boredom becomes impossible to quantify because being sick of one topic will drive you to another article on the same site. It’s only when the vast majority of the public becomes bored that the topic changes. Anger or annoyance at a celebrity’s constant appearances isn’t bad because of one simple fact: boredom is the opposite of publicity. There’s no moderating influence on celebrity journalism, so more is better to consumers. The media is partly to blame, but so are we. The sense of disbelief can’t quite occur when the star is too famous. A brilliant one, to be sure, but a performance. Everyone is so hyper-aware that he’s in the movie that it’s tough to watch the performance without seeing him as an actor putting on a performance. I think Daniel Day-Lewis suffers from this as well. He is bigger than the movie and the story he is telling to me. Personally, while I think Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is an amazing and kind human being, I can’t watch a movie and see anyone but The Rock. And, the line is in different places for everyone. The line between too little and too much fame is when fame makes the artist bigger than their art. Feel free to remedy that at your convenience, by the way. For example, all my articles are solid gold despite their lack of attention. Fame has a distortion effect that makes people think attention given to a work is equal to the work’s quality. Many fans admit that their favorite artist’s “one hit” is probably not their favorite work in their collection. Gotye has an eclectic set of songs that don’t resemble, “Somebody That I Used to Know”. Rick Astley’s career is far more than “Never Gonna Give You Up”. Surprisingly, they usually aren’t one-hit wonders at all. They accidentally ride that delicate balance between fame and obscurity. We know them enough to be in on the cultural joke, but we don’t feel tired of it. One hit wonders provide something familiar yet mysterious. If you keep telling me to click on something, it flips a switch in my brain that makes me want to resist clicking out of spite.Įnter the one-hit wonders. YouTube users can commiserate here with random videos popping up in their recommendations to the point that you watch them in a vain attempt to appease the algorithm deities. ![]() It’s not Davidson’s fault, of course, but I’m less likely to be interested in even seeing him or his work casually after being relentlessly hit over the head with it. ![]() ![]() (No, I haven’t forgiven Wal-Mart for inflicting Sugar Ray on me, thanks for asking.) ![]() And, if you don’t think repetition can make you hate someone you’ve never met, you haven’t worked in retail listening to the same seven songs from 15 years ago for three months straight. It makes me irrationally dislike Pete Davidson because I’ve never searched for him, but here he is with three dozen articles about a three minute sketch. And while a certain amount of duplication is unavoidable, it’s difficult to imagine why there are currently nearly 40 individual articles on Google News informing me that Pete Davidson did a parody of Eminem’s “Stan” yesterday. But, given that we are all flooded with constant notifications, updates, and information, it’s very possible to see multiple articles about the same artist every day. You might be fine reading a story or two about a celebrity in a week. Overexposure is like information binging. Where is the line between famous and overexposed? Some might argue it came very close to happening with Lin-Manuel Miranda. Suddenly, you’re everywhere and it’s not great. But, like all things, you can get too much fame and you can get it too quickly. Directors, producers, and publishing houses will be far more receptive to your work if an audience is guaranteed for whatever you’re selling. Get enough fame, and you become desirable to professionals in your field. Pete Davidson did an Eminem parody recently, or so Google keeps telling me.įame has a diminishing return. ![]()
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