Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Head Shop >

Have we become vain/self absorbed?

19:20 / 09.11.08

this irks me a lot.

i understand that the internet has opened up doors for people to do things they wouldn't be able to achieve, but cut throat industry's like modeling are there for a reason.

now we can rate who is hot or not with the click of a button, and scorn those for even trying to model. everyone wants to be famous. that's the problem.

i was reading this article, and it really just irked me that people would fight for attention so hard. why does everyone want to be famous?

has the internet made us more vain than ever before??

01:54 / 10.11.08

Honest answer: No.

People have always been vain, fame has always had an attraction to loads of people, and getting famous has always been cut-throat and fleeting.

And the vanity that we are more, more intense, or have greater flaws or potency than peoples of past eras, is never a greater vanity than any previous era's.

13:37 / 10.11.08

agreed. but in some sense, we wonder how this no talent celebs would have managed to achieve the same level of notoriety without the internet?

tila tequila for example. let alone anyone with a a zillion friends from their myspace account.

14:18 / 10.11.08

There's always been "Flavour-of-the-month" no-talent celebs even before the Internet. Tila Tequila is an example of Post, Jo Guest is an example of Pre. They were famous for getting naked, not because of the medium which carried them (Internet and Print, respectively)

Some people get famous for being famous or for capturing the essence of a fleeting meme. Whether it's the internet(TT), "news"(Joe the Plumber), commercials(Where's the beef?), radio(Crazy Frog) print(Jo Guest) or some hybrid of the previous examples(Samantha Fox), the result's the same. The internet argueably makes it easier to become "famous" but look at the numbers: There are Millions of mySpace and Facebook posters, only a handful T. Tequila's. Millions of youtube posts, only a handful of "virals"...

The no-talent will rise sometimes regardless. Let's not forget: the definitions of "talented" or "famous" are subjective...

18:11 / 10.11.08

I use the internet all day and night and I've never heard of Tila Tequila. Maybe you are reading the wrong things. You are an adult. You can choose not to be too tortured by all the rubbish out there.

Unless you really love celeb gossip but just can't stand Tila Tequila. In which case I am stumped.

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:07 / 10.11.08

Come now, COG. We had some great work on unevidenced views from the porch going on there. We don't need you pouring cold water on it now.

07:26 / 11.11.08

I hate Tila Tequila, that no talent bastard. Only marginally less annoying than Jo Guest, he's a git too. Those vain fucks.

11:55 / 11.11.08

agreed. but in some sense, we wonder how this no talent celebs would have managed to achieve the same level of notoriety without the internet?

tila tequila for example. let alone anyone with a a zillion friends from their myspace account.

Ok: I responded to the above quote with random examples I pulled from my ass. I was trying to make a point that "no talent celebs" have always been able to achieve great levels of notoriety without the internet. Sorry about that; it's sloppy and a good example of responding to a post for the sake of responding.

It has nothing to do with vanity, really.

I have read some reports (OK - from sources like Wired online) that there are people who are confusing the number of myspace or facebook "friends" with popularity, and those without tonnes of "friends" are at risk of developing complexes...

I equate that mentality as being akin to collecting autographs in your highschool yearbook: (This may be a North American phenomenon...)

The people who had a handful of autographs were percieved to be "losers" while people whose books were filled were thought to be popular. In many cases, people signed books of people they didn't really know or care about, but reciprocal signing helped create the illusion of "popularity". It tended that the people who were generally the most shallow went further out of their way to collect the most signatures as a "proof" of their social status.

I apologise for relying on personally observed examples, but I have no idea if there exists actual studies of the psychology of myspace/facebook/highschool-yearbook "friends" as a percieved signifier of popularity and resulting vanity and self-importance. Surely the internet allows people access to a wider audience if they were vain in the first place, but I doubt that it has made us more vain.