Be careful what you wish for.
Fame can be very intoxicating. When you make celebrity status you are the center of attention and that can be quite thrilling. People send a car for you and hold the door open. You are invited to the parties, you are showered with gifts and the phone doesn’t stop ringing. Everyone wants to be seen with you hoping that the spotlight that is on you will shine a bit on them. You make money just being you. You get paid to make an appearance, to give an interview, to let the photographers follow you. It doesn’t take long for you feel on top of the heap, king of the universe. Maybe you are king, but your reign is very short. The people who put you on the throne soon give you a push and you fall to village idiot.
There is a very human characteristic that makes fame dangerous. People like seeing the exalted fall. In fact sometimes it seems that the human thirst for the blood that is the fall from fame is what motivates the populace to bestow the fame in the first place. It makes us feel better about ourselves when we see another’s life became a train wreck. A crotch flash of a socialite makes our mundane life more bearable because for that moment it isn’t our crotch flash. To keep the pool of fools that we can ridicule and laugh at full we have to restock it.
Recently a new member joined the ranks of the famous. She gave birth to 8 children in one pregnancy. But instead of going home to take care of the kids she decided to except the Faustian offer of fame. This case though is remarkable in how fast the fall happened. When she should have been home with the kids she was out negotiating the rights to a photo of her pregnant belly with TMZ.com.
Thus it is that fame, in time, inevitably results in shame. One day you are King the next you are the village fool.
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