Blog 8: 15 Minutes of Fame

For this blog I decided to hit on the idea of “15 minutes of Fame”. Andy Warhol came up with this idea. Its hard to believe that even back in 1966, Warhol knew that fame was something important to people. Something that made them feel special. The 15 minutes of fame is short-lived and often in the media publicity of an individual or phenomenon. The expression was coined by Andy Warhol, who said that, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." The phenomenon is often used in reference to figures in the entertainment industry or other areas of pop culture, such as reality tv and youtube. Pretty much anyone can become famous today. You don’t have to be an amazing singer or football player anymore to be seen in the news, magazines, or internet. Usually, people are the exact opposite of amazing. They go on American Idol, for example, and sing like idiots. All of America laughs at them and the next morning they are on Good Morning American and plastered all over websites home pages. Other times, people become famous for horrible things. For instance, their young child goes missing or someone kills someone else. This is related to violence. Its hard for me to believe that someone has the mind set to harm someone just to become famous and I hope this isnt whats going on. I feel like everyone will become known for something sometime in their life. Maybe you live in a small town and your name is posted on a board for your birthday. Or you go hunting and get the biggest deer in the town and your name is in the paper. It may not be world wide but it still would make that person feel good and maybe like a “star”.

Someone that is really memorable for this is William Hung. He went on American Idol and totally sucked at singing. Because of this, he became so famous! He was everywhere in the media. He couldnt have possibily thought he was a good singer. There is no way! Blows my mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqmy5qrvaVQ&feature=related