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“What is fame except amplification?! It amplifies who and what you stand for now…the good and the bad. All your shadow parts are out there in the world for all to see. We want to be famous to show what’s “good” about us…instead the “good” and the “bad” both are amplified. That’s fame.” -Mathew Gerson of Econscious Market fame
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This morning, reading the latest issue of Wired nearly put me into the fetal position. Julia Allison laced up in rhinestone-encrusted stilettos, legs crossed, hand on her face, voluptuous legs, breasts, the hair. The works. Looking, in a word, gorgeous. I raced to page 106 to read the story.
The story, “Almost Famous,” was, I discovered, as provocative as the cover itself. Who is this Julia person? And why is this story making my head pound, my heart race as I read it?
I call on Joel. He’s a programmer, a developer…level-headed, I think. He builds things. I promote them. I’m good at helping people promote themselves and their blogs, which is why I started doing brand consulting in the first place. Am I just a vapid social media whorelette, I ask?
He calmly, gently as ever, reminds me that I’m a teacher. That I love to help people. Yes, I agree. But doesn’t part of me just want to be famous? Doesn’t part of me want to fly around the country being wined and dined just based on how cool I am?
Don’t tell me the thought hasn’t crossed your mind. In the same way the author of the piece, Jason Tanz, levels his readers, saying, “It’s easy to dismiss Allison as little more than a rank narcissist — and many of her vocal online critics are happy do just that. But come on, admit it: You’ve spent a good half hour trying to pick out the most flattering photo to upload to your MySpace page. You struggle to come up with the mot juste to describe your Facebook status. You keep a bank of self-portraits on Flickr or an online scrapbook on Tumblr or a running log of your daily musings on Blogger. You strategically court the gatekeepers at StumbleUpon or Digg. You compare the size of your Twitter-subscriber rolls to those of your friends. You set up Google Alerts to tell you whenever a blogger mentions your name. See? Self-promotion is no longer solely the domain of egotists and professional aspirants. Anyone can be a personal branding machine.” [emphasis mine]
Guilty! Guilty, guilty, guilty. I’ve spent the half hour trying to pick out the photo. I’ve thought for a few moments before posting status updates. I’ve wondered if I’m giving too much, or not enough, of myself.
The strangest moment of BlogHer08 for me was when Heather Armstrong from Dooce sat up on stage and told us that one of her readers said they wanted to throw hydrochloric acid on her and expose her as what she truly was: a robot. I was like, are you serious? This is what fame looks like? A few minutes later she’s talking about getting 42,000 comments in two days for a contest she held on her blog. But, I thought, if that’s fame, I’ll take my cocoon of obscurity any day. Fame has its price. Obscurity isn’t sounding so bad anymore…
But then there’s that magazine cover. And the legs. And the puppy dog eyes.
The BlogHer conference gives all of us a taste of what it might be like to be Internet Famous. Whether we’re witnessing an exchange of, “OMG You’re SO AND SO!?!! From blah blah dot com!?” or participating in the exchange, we realize it.
There’s so and so.
And then there’s us.
I’ve read posts before BH and since that reflect this dichotomy. Those warming to the fact that they are now The Up + Coming Internet Famous…because other bloggers have deemed them that. Others that are like, “I was too scared to go up and talk to so and so from blah blah dot com because she’s like, so HUGE!” What’s happening here? I thought the interwebs was supposed to be the big level playing field? We’re clinging so tightly to our identities online, calling them our Personal Brands, that we’re missing the point of what it’s about: real life connection.
My favorite part of BlogHer wasn’t speaking, although that’s what I thought it would be. My favorite part was meeting the people that make BlogHer phenomenal (the list is too long to give you here, but it’s coming). Specifically, it was the questions I got to work with people on after my panel. Giving a Twitter 101 lesson on the fly. Explaining how Kirtsy works. Learning more about the ways word of mouth marketing is changing the online + real life social/marketing scene. Interviewing The Bloggess in the men’s room in front of a urinal.
I talked with two of my girlfriends this afternoon at lunch. Threw the copy of Wired on to the table and said, “this makes me want to drop out of this altogether!” They nodded in understanding, but not necessarily in agreement. They reminded me to come back to my purpose. Asked me what my goals are, what I’m trying to achieve. I don’t know, exactly. I know I love helping companies and individuals build their brands—I love seeing them skyrocket into the spotlight (as some of them are right now). I love teaching…the happiest days of my life were the ones in which I was teaching Japanese second graders how to pronounce the word “grape.” In an email exchange earlier today I told a friend, “What do I want my headstone to say in the cemetery? Not quite sure yet, but I do want the words “help” “grow” and “vision” in there.” Those are my guiding principles. Helping others grow their vision? Yes, definitely.
I spent time with Peace Corps volunteers during a summer and subsequent winter in Morocco while Patrick was a PCV. The motto? Create, support, but when you leave, the Moroccan people should say, “we built this ourselves.” Build, but without a thought of fame. Without a thought of being credited for that building. That’s selflessness-in-action. It’s much harder to do than blatant self-promotion.
The question is: Can I build without expectation of fame?
Can you?
