Let’s try to distinguish between a) fame and b) celebrity. A has some heft, some durability. B is as substantial as fairy floss.
The genuine article is usually arduous won by somebody not actively seeking it, gradually increased through the approval of peers. Whereas the floss, the forgery, the fake, the fraudulent is heatedly, desperately pursued – and is the gift of mass media.
Einstein, if you like, versus Trump. Merit versus the meretricious. Consequently the deservedly famous will realize fame tedious and embarrassing whereas the celebrity ne'er has enough. Too much is simply too very little.
US culture (sic) produces celebrities as energetically as it produces serial killers – whom it makes into celebs. Manson, Dahmer, Bundy and their ilk accumulated immense fan clubs. (That’s why Manson doesn’t get paroled. He might run for the presidency. Though one might argue that a few serial killers have already been elective to the White House.)
In the OJ Simpson trial, celebrity secured the “not guilty” verdict. The Kardashian name first came into prominence in that humourous trial (Robert K was OJ’s best friend) and may his youngsters be found to own a dozen corpses in their fridge it’d solely boost their quality, to their status in mass and social media.
As Christopher Hitchens and I dared to counsel, the mass ululation over the death of Di had a lot of to do with hysteria than history. More Hollywood than Holyrood. It was the celeb death of the century – yet left therefore very little trace that Charles and Camilla can share the throne as they share a bed.
And the Queen? Still Queen. Where the commentariat foresaw the falling of the autarchy, Hitch and I predicted however a fleeting hiccup for metric linear unit. Di’s death was, forgive the pun, short-lived, recalling the orgasmic response to Valentino’s; huge crowds, celeb mourners, oceans of flowers, and the cavalcade enraptured on. Another tribute to our insatiable appetence for celebrity – and our ever-shorter attention spans.
Which is why Trump’s triumphant. Forget all the pompous analyses, the political reasons-why. He’s there because he’s a celeb, as flimsy and vulgar a construction as his tawdry towers. The buffoon doesn’t need AN ideology, policies or ideas. All he needs is to blow the Trump trumpet provided for him by the media. In his case, the MEdia. Trump, the “reality show” charlatan. Donald Trump, Donald Duck – both fashionable cartoon characters. Being a celeb means he’s fast to criticism – he thrives on it. You see the same phenomenon in Alan “Cash for Comment” Jones – neither scandal nor shocking vocalization will any lasting harm. The suckers drink the Kool-Aid.
There was one utterance of Maggie Thatcher’s that I wholeheartedly approved of. After the urban center bombing she aforementioned, “Let us deny terrorists the atomic number 8 of packaging.” Impossible, of course. Just as it’s each fascinating and not possible to deny that atomic number 8 to celebrities. Instead the media, old and new, serves as bellows to the blaze of BS, a blast furnace wildly exaggerating the pernicious non-importance of those creatures. In our world it is not the meek who inherit the world. It isn’t the cream that reaches the top.
All hail The Donald. Trump would be the perfect president for the u. s. of America. He is the apotheosis of greed and vacuity, into which the conned will pour their feeble fantasies, their commodified and monetised dreams. If a B-feature movie star like President will get there, why not The Donald? Trump’s no less stupid than George W. And once in a while he gets one thing right. Like his retrospective denunciation of patron saint W’s invasion of Iraq.
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