"In The Future Everyone Will Be Famous For 15 Minutes"

March 31, 2008

There was once a time when the world of actors and actresses was mysteriously complex. Though not their personal lives - privacy has long been deprived of those in the public eye. The more hidden aspects of actors' and actresses' lives are the roads which they have traveled to success. How they got to be so accomplished in their art, the hard work they must have endured in order to be where they're at. However, it seems like these days, hard work is not required to be famous, as many are inadvertently proving.

A "celebutante" is defined as "a female socialite, especially one of limited accomplishment." In recent years, we have been seeing these girls more and more. These young women, are gaining their celebrity by doing virtually nothing out of the ordinary, and many people are looking up to them, admiring them, mimicking their styles. The most popular celebutante by far is Paris Hilton. The 27-year-old heiress burst into the public eye on the 2003 premiere of reality show The Simple Life. Beside her was best friend and fellow celebutante, Nicole Richie. Both were relatively unknown until then, but after the show really took off, they reined the headlines, for everything from their "unique" fashion senses to drug and alcohol scandals. The world was craving more and more of them already and all they'd done was star in a reality show with a monotonous plot and annoying circumstances that the girls put themselves in.

Kim Kardashian proved, however, that you do not need to own a chain of Five star hotels or have a famous musician as a father to be a celebutante in your own right. She is the daughter of the late Robert Kardashian, who was most famous as O.J. Simpson's former attorney, and is now the stepdaughter of Olympic gold-medalist Bruce Jenner. She too was not in the public eye until she became the personal stylist of none other than Paris Hilton, and as their friendship bloomed so did Kim's attraction to the limelight. Then her almost inevitable sex tape was released and this exotic beauty was suddenly more in demand than ever. Naturally, she should get her own reality show, right? The second season of Keeping up with the Kardashians recently premiered, focusing on Kim and her equally beautiful and non-talented sisters. But why, is the question here. There are millions of beautiful girls in this world, many whom are also talented and genuine, so should they get their own shows as well?

Speaking of reality TV shows, which there seems to be a growing market for, there are also numerous dating reality shows which tend to produce memorable people who gain instant fame - sometime overnight, it seems. Public Enemy rapper "Flavor Flav" searched for love on his appropriately titled show, Flavor of Love, and continues to do so in its third installment. From past seasons of the program, contestant Tiffany Pollard, better known as "New York," stood out as loud, dramatic, and ridiculously catty. All of the ingredients to get her her own reality show, respectively entitled, I love New York.

MTV is more known these days for reality shows than music, primarily the ever popular The Hills. It is a spin off of Laguna Beach, a repetitive reality show about the lives of several wealthy teens in California. The Hills focuses on former Laguna stars and is currently in its third season. Since the debut of these shows, these supposed "real" people have been becoming increasingly famous. However, their celebrity status seems to be derived mainly from their tendency to have dramatic lives - which we all do - and personal issues - which we all do. How did a group of seemingly normal teens become so famous; simply for allowing cameras to follow them around? And more importantly, why do people care so much about them?

The Internet is possibly the guiltiest of providing quick celebrities. Videos are constantly showing up on YouTube, displaying crazy eccentric people doing pretty much anything to gain attention. In 2006, Chris Crocker became an instant celeb with his ever-popular YouTube video, "Leave Britney Alone," during which he cries and screams about how everyone should leave Britney Spears alone. Since then, the sometimes creepy attention whore has received over 43 million combined hits on his vlog channel on YouTube. And in 2007, Variety magazine revealed that Chris Crocker has signed on to star in his own reality-type show. Surprising, isn't it?

Andy Warhol first coined the term "15 minutes of fame" in 1968 when he said that, "in the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes." And how right he was. Every time a particularly sexy, strange, or outlandish figure is noticed, it seems, they are given the requisite reality TV show. Anyone can be famous these days - perhaps it take a little of nothing to go a long way.