Ethan Zuckerman proposes measuring attention with a unit of measure called a Kardashian. One Kardashian is equal to the amount of worldwide media attention that Kim Kardashian gets in a day.
I choose the Kardashian as a unit both because I like the mitteleuropean feel of the term — like the Ohm or the Roentgen — and because Kardashian is an exemplar of attention disconnected from merit, talent or reason. The Kardashian mentions how much attention is paid, not how much attention is deserved, so naming the unit after someone who is famous for being famous seems appropriate. Should the unit be adopted, I would hope that future scholars will calculate Kardashians using whatever public figure is appropriate at the time for being inappropriately famous.
Example usage: The crisis in Greece received 12 microKardashians of attention today.
In 2006, Garth Sundem and John Tierney published an equation in the NY Times that attempted to predict celebrity marriage crackups using a few metrics: age, fame, sexiness, etc. The pair recently modified the equation based on the evidence of the last five years and surprisingly, the equation is simpler.
What went right with them — and wrong with our equation? Garth, a self-professed “uber-geek,” has crunched the numbers and discovered a better way to gauge the toxic effects of celebrity. Whereas the old equation measured fame by counting the millions of Google hits, the new equation uses a ratio of two other measures: the number of mentions in The Times divided by mentions in The National Enquirer.
“This is a major improvement in the equation,” Garth says. “It turns out that overall fame doesn’t matter as much as the flavor of the fame. It’s tabloid fame that dooms you. Sure, Katie Holmes had about 160 Enquirer hits, but she had more than twice as many NYT hits. A high NYT/ENQ ratio also explains why Chelsea Clinton and Kate Middleton have better chances than the Kardashian sisters.”
Garth’s new analysis shows that it’s the wife’s fame that really matters. While the husband’s NYT/ENQ ratio is mildly predictive, the effect is so much weaker than the wife’s that it’s not included in the new equation. Nor are some variables from the old equation, like the number of previous marriages and the age gap between husband and wife.
Barrymore, 14, and Feldman, 17, were dating at the time. At this point, Barrymore had been in rehab twice for drugs/alcohol and is two months away from a failed suicide attempt. Light also got photos of Lucille Ball a month before she died, Tom Cruise and Mimi Rogers, Mayim Bialik, Jodie Foster (who won the Best Actress Oscar that year for The Accused) and, my favorite for some reason, River Phoenix.
Since we’re both single and roughly the same age, it was hard for me not to treat our interview as a sort of date. Surprisingly, Chris did the same, asking all about me, my family, my job, my most recent relationship. And from ten minutes into that first interview, when he reached across the table to punctuate a joke by putting his hand on top of mine, Chris kept up frequent hand holding and lower-back touching, palm kissing and knee squeezing. He’s an attractive movie star, no complaints. I also didn’t know how much I was supposed to respond; when I did, it sometimes felt a little like hitting on the bartender or misconstruing the bartender’s professional fliirting for something more. I wanted to think it was genuine, or that part of it was, because I liked him right away.
Is this the part of a celebrity profile where I go into how blue the star’s eyes are? Because they are very blue.
I found this photo of Alfred Hitchcock with three children here labeled “Alfred Hitchcock and his kids” but since he only had one child and looks older in the photo, I assume those are actually his three granddaughters, Mary, Tere, and Katie.
During the recent and overly publicized breakdown of Charlie Sheen, I was repeatedly contacted by the media and asked to comment, as it was assumed that I know a thing or two about starring on a sitcom, fighting with producers, nasty divorces, public meltdowns, and bombing through a live comedytour. I have, however, never smoked crack or taken too many drugs, unless you count alcohol as a drug (I don’t). But I do know what it’s like to be seized by bipolar thoughts that make one spout wise about Tiger Blood and brag about winning when one is actually losing.
It’s hard to tell whether one is winning or, in fact, losing once one starts to think of oneself as a commodity, or a product, or a character, or a voice for the downtrodden. It’s called losing perspective. Fame’s a bitch. It’s hard to handle and drives you nuts. Yes, it’s true that your sense of entitlement grows exponentially with every perk until it becomes too stupendous a weight to walk around under, but it’s a cutthroat business, show, and without the perks, plain ol’ fame and fortune just ain’t worth the trouble.
Come on George, Loosen up. Swing, man. Dust off those gossamer wings and fly yourself to the moon of your choice and be grateful to carry the baggage we’ve all had to carry since those lean nights of sleeping on buses and helping the driver unload the instruments.
And no more of that talk about “the tragedy of fame.” The tragedy of fame is when no one shows up and you’re singing to the cleaning lady in some empty joint that hasn’t seen a paying customer since Saint Swithin’s day. And you’re nowhere near that; you’re top dog on the top rung of a tall ladder called Stardom, which in latin means thanks-to-the-fans who were there when it was lonely.
The letter is much better if read in the voice of Phil Hartman’s SNL impersonation of Sinatra. In fact, Hartman did a SNL skit as Sinatra with Dana Carvey as George Michael shortly after this letter was published. Can’t find that anywhere online, but I did find one of my all-time favorite SNL skits: the Sinatra Group.
You don’t scare me. I got chunks of guys like you in my stool.
Razzle Dazzle is a six-part video series on how fame is portrayed in Hollywood films.
Razzle Dazzle is a six-part video essay that looks at how movies have examined the many facets of fame (heroism, infamy, and everything in between) and how they have shaped the audience’s perception of what fame offers. Chapter 1, “The Pitch,” lays out how movies are just one component of an all-consuming media that is constantly shaping the modern image culture. Subsequent chapters look at certain archetypes — the Hero, the Fraud, the Parasite, the Maverick — that have become staples of the media cycle.
I started a bit of stupid fun on Twitter: #webappcelebs. Some of my favorites so far:
Pablo Picasa
Favrd Flav
Eddie Van Hahlo
Bit.ly Houston
daniel craigslist
Paul Reubens on Rails
Keira Writely
Google Lou Reader
Gwyneth Paypaltrow
Sid Del.ico.us (also: Benicio Del.ico.us)
Opera Winfrey
AIM Judy Dench
Wilford Brizzly
Eartha Typekitt
And I can’t find it, but I swear I saw someone do Lucy Hululiu, which seems so much funnier that just Lucy HuLiu for some reason.
In the future, a famous person will die every fifteen minutes. Already it’s happening. The ascent of the microcelebrities, the 24 hour news cycle, citizen journalism, and our darkest fantasies all collide on Twitter now. The website’s rhetorical question “What are you doing?” sometimes feels more like “Who died today?”
Chances are in 15-20 years, someone famous whose work you enjoyed or whom you admired or who had a huge influence on who you are as a person will die each day…and probably even more than one a day. And that’s just you…many other famous people will have died that day who mean something to other people. Will we all just be in a constant state of mourning? Will the NY Times national obituary section swell to 30 pages a day? As members of the human species, we’re used to dealing with the death of people we “know” in amounts in the low hundreds over the course of a lifetime. With higher life expectancies and the increased number of people known to each of us (particularly in the hypernetworked part of the world), how are we going to handle it when several thousand people we know die over the course of our lifetime?
The population pyramid for who the average American knows (or knows of enough to care) probably looks something like this:
That’s a lot of future death.
Update:On Twitter, Kurt Anderson quoted David Kipen:
Baby Boomers have created so many celebrities that, in the future, somebody famous will die every fifteen minutes.
This summer could come to be known as the summer when baby boomers began to turn to the obituary pages first, to face not merely their own mortality or ponder their legacies, but to witness the passing of legends who defined them as a tribe, bequeathing through music, culture, news and politics a kind of generational badge that has begun to fray.
Mary-Kate’s contribution to the enterprise is a collector’s knowledge. She has been buying vintage Lanvin and Givenchy, among other classic labels of the mid-20th century, for a number of years. (Unlike Ashley, Mary-Kate continues to act, having played, with a perfect semblance of haze and obfuscation, a born-again Christian drug dealer on the third season of “Weeds.” This year she appeared opposite Ben Kingsley in the film “The Wackness.”) Ashley is the more entrepreneurial, the one who will tell you how much she admires Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
A list of famous people who have been homeless, most of the “lived in their car” variety. The list includes Hilary Swank, Jim Carrey, Ella Fitzgerald, David Letterman, and William Shatner.
As a matter of fact, sometimes now, if I’m feeling tired or a little sad, I’ll go put on my UPS-man outfit and hit the subway. I’ll hope that maybe someone will recognize me. It’s very embarrassing, isn’t it? But most of the time, it doesn’t happen. No matter how crowded it is, no one says anything. They are reading, talking, thinking about where the train is taking them next. They don’t say anything to me at all. And that’s when I sit back, and look at them all, and think to myself: Don’t any of you have a television? What THE FUCK is wrong with you people? I’M SITTING RIGHT HERE!
I leave the coffee shop with Rony trailing unobtrusively. I’m beginning to understand why celebrities go nuts, shave their heads, and bounce in and out of rehab; I would, too, if I had relentless photographers on my tail 24/7. When I stop to peruse a pair of shoes at an outdoor stall, Rony snaps away at me through a rack of dresses, startling a fellow shopper. “Sorry,” I sheepishly explain. “That’s, uh … my photographer.”
I don’t feel like a celebutante hounded by the media anymore; I feel like the lamest lame-o in Phonytown. And I’ve had enough of it. I call off the shoot.
In the late ’90s, pop-culture historian Bill Geerhart had a little too much time on his hands and a surfeit of stamps. So, for his own entertainment, the then-unemployed thirtysomething launched a letter-writing campaign to some of the most powerful and infamous figures in the country, posing as a curious 10-year-old named Billy.
He wrote to Charles Manson, Ted Kacynzski, and Dick Cheney, among others…and they wrote back. Richard Ramirez, aka the Night Stalker, wrote back on his own personalized letterhead. (thx, andrew)
No matter how much fame you have, it’s not something that belongs to you. If I’m famous, that doesn’t belong to me — that belongs to you. If you can’t remember who I am, I’m no longer famous.
And a bunch of other stuff that’s surprisingly candid and good.
“The Victorian freak show never went away,” Millman rails in a soliloquy that serves as a climax of the “Extras” final episode and a moment of redemption for the character, whose life and friendships have been corrupted by fame. “Now it’s called ‘Big Brother’ or ‘American Idol,’ where in the preliminary rounds we wheel out the bewildered to be sniggered at by multimillionaires.”
To the networks, he says: “You can’t wash your hands of this. You can’t keep going, ‘Oh, it’s exploitation, but it’s what the public wants.’ No.”
To the audience watching at home, he says: “Shame on you. And shame on me. I’m the worst of all. Cause I’m one of these people that goes, ‘I’m an entertainer, it’s in my blood.’ Yeah, it’s in my blood because a real job’s too hard.”
Early this morning, Paris Hilton was released from jail after serving a 23-day sentence for violating her probation on a prior conviction for reckless driving. Here’s a photo taken soon after her release:
We see photos of celebrities smiling in public all the time, at movie openings, at awards shows, on stage, on TV, on red carpets…anywhere there’s a camera waiting to capture a public image. Hilton in particular is known for smiling in public, chin down and looking up to the right. But the above photo is the first time she’s ever looked genuinely happy, an authentic smile. Never have all those smiling celebrity photos — and the purposes behind them — looked so phony.
From over 220 entries in the Celebrity Mii Contest, the judges have selected their favorite celebrity avatar created with the Nintendo Wii. And the winner is Dave Curry with his Zach Braff Mii:
Judge Spencer Sloan of Goldenfiddle said of this entry: “What’s beautiful about this one is the truth in this piece. Yes, Braff, you’re a nose and some lip. Bravo to the artist for taking a risk.” Judge Jen Bekman of the Jen Bekman gallery said of the Braff: “There is this eerily human quality - I mean it really looks like him, as a person, in a weird way.” The Braff Mii was not the most faithfully rendered celebrity Mii but with a few broad strokes, Curry created something more than the sum of its parts and ventured close to art. Well done. As the winner, Dave will receive the Wii game of his choice and a 3-D statuette of the Zach Braff Mii provided by Fabjectory.
Here are some other entries the judges felt strongly about (i.e. the runners-up) with commentary:
Jack Black by both Brandon Erickson and Shane Walsh
Jen: “Faithfully rendered.”
Spencer: “The artist really captured Black’s unsettling feline qualities with confidence and skill, and for that he/she must be congratulated.”
Condoleezza Rice by Alex Chang
Jen: “The Condi one looks like her and also is a caricature at the same time, embodying the devil-essence that surely corrupts her soul.”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Stephanie Goins
Spencer: “This one is like the Mona Lisa. I cannot escape her glazy stare, try as I may. She’s perfect in every way.”
Woody Allen by Adam Preble
Jen: “Great, immediately recognizable, somewhat of an easy target though.”
Frida Kahlo by Adriana Tatum
Vito Corleone by Benjamin Lim
Jen: “Don Corleone came close to being my top pick before I decided that he too, was a bit too easy.”
Steve Zissou by Mark Husson
Spencer: “Nice work on the hat, I guess, but the moustache is weird. Plus, no pock marks. And Stevie definitely needs him a frown.”
Admiral Ackbar by Eric Eberhardt and Mike Boccieri
Spencer: “Admiral Ackbar is fantastic, obviously, because I immediately knew who he was, and maybe you didn’t. I’m interested to find out whether the artist went in with Ackbar in mind or saw him in some of the available features. Very well done, indeed.”
Klaus Nomi by D.J. Ross’ girlfriend
Spencer: “The Klaus Nomi is a strong work but possesses little confidence. This Klaus is all fear.
More timid mime than weirdo alien swagger.”
And here are the rest of the finalists that the judges had to choose from. You may notice a few excellent cartoon entries…the judges felt that while they were worthy finalists, they did not merit the top spots because of a lower degree of difficulty involved in their construction (i.e. making a cartoon character with what is essentially a cartoon editor).
From top to bottom, left to right: Velma from Scooby Doo, Hannibal Lecter, Jack Skellington from A Nightmare Before Christmas, Dick Cheney, Tom Cruise, Hulk Hogan, Jennifer Wilbanks (aka The Runaway Bride), George Costanza, Charlie Brown, and V from V for Vendetta.
Missing from the finalists are the multiple Michael Jacksons, Hitlers, Satans, Walter Sobchaks, Beatles, and Kim Jong Ils. So many Mii versions of all these people exist online that it didn’t feel right including them in the final round because they were both too easy and too easily copied from elsewhere.
Finally, a personal favorite that didn’t make it into the final round:
David Foster Wallace by Nick Maniatis
I get the feeling that in the Maniatis household, there are a lot of Wii Tennis matches pitting Wallace and Hal Incandenza against Tracy Austin and Michael Joyce. Awesome.
Thanks to everyone who entered and to the judges for deciding amongst such a strong field of entrants.
The Celebrity Mii Contest is going swimmingly, lots of good entries so far. Three announcements to make:
1. Mike Buckbee of Fabjectory has offered to make a physical statuette of the winner’s celebrity Mii. So cool! The company currently does characters from SecondLife and SketchUp models, but they’re branching out into making Miis and the winner’s Mii statuette will be among the first that they produce.
2. I have extended the contest deadline until the end of the day on Wednesday, Dec 13. Lots have entered, but there’s room for more.
3. Spencer Sloan of the excellent celebrity gossip site, Goldenfiddle, has agreed to lend his celebrity expertise to help judge the contest. I am working on getting another judge as well…stay tuned for further information.
Meg and I set out to do a John Lennon Mii last nght, but as soon as we saw these eyes, we switched to Paul McCartney:
Not too shabby for a few minutes work, but I know you can do better. So, I’m having a contest to see who can make the best celebrity Mii. The rules are as follows:
1. All Miis must be made with the Nintendo Wii editor, not this Flash editor (which is cool, but not the same).
2. No cheating! Make your own Mii, don’t just copy someone else’s.
3. I love your mom, but she’s not a celebrity. Frances Bean, you can ignore this rule.
4. You retain exclusive worldwide rights to your Mii and its image, save for giving me permission to post it on kottke.org as part of the contest.
5. Judging will be done by me and possibly a panel of “celebrity” judges if I can scrounge some up. The family and friends of the judges can enter, but will be held to much higher standards than everyone else, just as in real life.
6. Only two entries per person. (And don’t enter two in your own name and then have your friend email in two more. Pick your best two, send ‘em in, and take your chances.)
7. Entry deadline is Monday, December 11th at 11:59 pm ET. The entry deadline has been moved to Wednesday, December 13th at 11:59 pm ET. I will announce the winner at some time shortly after that.
To enter, make your Mii, take a photo of it on the screen (make sure the Mii is clearly visible in the photo), and send a link to the photo to [email protected] with a subject line of “Celebrity Mii Contest” (no quotes). You can also send attachments but because of my spam situation, I cannot guarantee that they will get through to me…send a link to your entry to make sure. There will be some still-as-yet-unspecified prize (I’m thinking a Wii game or something like that) awarded to the winner. Good luck!
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