Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

I have always wondered why a lot of people would like to be rich and famous. I can understand the rich part, but not the famous part. I would hate to have my privacy invaded, having people pester me for autographs everywhere I went, and the paranoia and obsession that probably comes from wanting to stay famous.

I guess I could sum up my attitude as I would rather get rich by winning the lottery than I would by being famous.

I would like to know why some of you want to be famous, or theories on why many people want this 'distinction'.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

I suspect people who truly want "fame" and not necessarily wealth or achievement are extremely narcissistic.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

Ha there are some very obvious answers to this question(especially if you're a guy).

I'm not sure what unique perspective you're looking for

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

Fame is power and a lot of people like power. It's like why would someone worth millions of dollars want to be Senator or President? For the power and ego boost.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

I wanted to be famous, I think that's part of why I went into television. After being an on-air reporter/anchor for a few years, I can only offer a very small slice of perspective.

Basically though, I did find it weird once I started to be recognized out in public. Having people stare at you, or ask weird questions, becomes sort of uncomfortable. And I only had a VERY small slice of what that's like. It certainly made me think about what someone like Matt Lauer goes through, where you can pretty much never go out in public without being bothered.

So while it's certainly an ego boost in the short term, yeah, I think in some ways it made me appreciate how difficult being "famous" would be and that the tradeoff probably isn't worth it for a lot of people.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

Never having to wait in line is a good enough reason for me.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

You feel you did something important.

You have a known legacy.

You get to have sex with a lot of beautiful women.

All sorts of fringe benefits (free tickets, best restaurants, etc).

Power and influence. You can get things for people, etc.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

You would have to be an idiot to desire fame. The evidence seems to back me up.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

Fame only sucks in those brief moments where you want privacy.

I'd take fame anyday as I love people and love to make people I'm around happy. That's what I think is the coolest thing about fame. You saying hello to someone can turn one of their worst days ever into one of their best.

One of my best nights ever was bar hopping with Mark Cuban. Now, Cuban was a cool dude, but I know a ton of cool people. His fame and fortune is what made the night unforgettable though.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

Interesting....

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

ego and the feeling of importance.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

GR,

I think the answer is probably very close to the answer to "Why would anyone want to hook up with famous people?"

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

I got a taste of what fame might be like when living as a white guy in Africa. When I walked down the street complete starngers wanted to talk to me as if I was their best friend. When I walked into a restaurant or bar people stopped and stared, (in a friendly way). Girls would constantly come up and try to hit on me.

After about two weeks it completely sucked.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

People think "X will never happen to me". Combine that with; Fame = Fortune.

Most people don't consider that the darker side of fame will effect them. Or, even if they realise that some of it will catch up with them, I'd guess many people secretly want it to. Celebs are treated differently in society. They get away with murder (literally true in some cases) and can abuse others almost with impunity. Certainly in the UK this seems to be universally true (it's nice to see some celebs being made to do community service over in the US lately, though I wonder if they would have received much harsher penalties had they not been celebs). Is Pete Docherty famous in the US? He's a two-bit pop star with almost no tallent (in my opinion), he's had very little chart success (I know that's not a good indicator of tallent) and is totally drug riddled, has been arrested (literally) dozens of times for drug offences, fails to appear in court, trashes hotel rooms, abuses people, squirted a syringe of his blood over a film crew that were supposed to interview him (nice! the bloody of an intravenous drug user...), yet he walks free every single time! The press love him, he's voted most cool celeb in many mags, people buy his records because of his status NOT his music ability (or at least I'm convinced they do, and yet he still doesn't get many hits) of course his relationship with Kate Moss bumps up his "cool" status. He is famous, and gets away with anything/everything, presumably has money, does what he likes. To a kid growing up in the UK, why would you not want to be like him?

These days, all you have to do is appear on a reality tv show to become famous, or at least that's what many people think. I doubt she's famous in the US, but a certain Jade Goody was on a series of Big Brother over here. She is talentless in almost every way (except perhaps that ability to self publicise). She is ignorant, and frequently goes out of her way to embaress herself. She became a millionaire overnight by appearing on that show. She has been voted at the top of a list of icons and role models for kids in this country. She does nothing, has achieved nothing, other than her "fame".

To be a celeb means you are rich. You are treated as special, will get into any restaurant/event you want to. Can treat others as dirt and be rewarded. If you screw up you can make more money by selling your story to a tabloid, or a glossy mage like Hello. You can sell your wedding photos for a million or two to the same magazine.

Anyone here ever worked in a factory? Having zero education, and zero prospects, a job that means nothing. Why would you not want to be famous? The clamour for reality tv fame seems pretty obvious for many people. Sit in a house for a few months, do something sexual on camera and sell your story to the papers when you come out. If it works you're a famous millionaire, if it doesn't you're still a minor celeb to your friends and family. Down the pub you'll get a string of people want to know you, and girls that want to sleep with you (if you're a guy, or a girl that bats for the same team). Of course, that's one of the other reasons people want fame, as has been mentioned already. You get to sleep with people [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]. I remember a documentary about football players (soccer), a certain player, Ian Walker, was describing how he'd go out clubing in London (he was playing for Spurs at the time I think). As a top sports star he obviosuly got to sit in a VIP area with his friends and his wife. They went to the same clubs in the area where he lived and was well known to the regulars. He constantly had young girls come up to him and basically offer him sex, while his wife was sitting next him. These girls where regulars, by all acounts they went to the club because they knew the players would be there. They knew who his wife was and that she was sitting next him, yet it didn't stop them. So, again, why would you NOT want to be famous?

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

I would think getting chicks would outweigh any downside of being famous.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Fame is power and a lot of people like power. It's like why would someone worth millions of dollars want to be Senator or President? For the power and ego boost.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd imagine somebody like Warren Buffet, who is famous and powerful but not visibly recognizable to a large portion of the populice, has the best of both worlds.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

Even the most self assured person wants to feel important, and being recognized in public makes one feel important. Granted, the person donating their time at an Aids clinic is more important than the weekend weather girl, but I'd imagine that the attention is addicting.

Remember the t.v. show "The Bachelor", a fews ago, when the bachelor was Andrew Firestone? (My wife made me watch it so don't start). His family owns a huge winery, he is an heir to the Firestone tire fortune, etc. Now a guy like that, (without fame), would have NO trouble getting chicks right and left, so his appearance on the tv show must be due to some attention-seeking desire.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

Fame is also the easiest way to obtain power, to obtain power you need to work hard, or have a great idea here and there, or be born into it. anyone can become famous nowadays.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Fame is power and a lot of people like power. It's like why would someone worth millions of dollars want to be Senator or President? For the power and ego boost.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd imagine somebody like Warren Buffet, who is famous and powerful but not visibly recognizable to a large portion of the populice, has the best of both worlds.

[/ QUOTE ]
I was thinking the same thing about someone like Francis Ford Coppola. He's famous, well respected, and has made famous movies but I doubt he gets recognized or approached half as much as a D-list celebrity.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I wanted to be famous, I think that's part of why I went into television. After being an on-air reporter/anchor for a few years, I can only offer a very small slice of perspective.

Basically though, I did find it weird once I started to be recognized out in public. Having people stare at you, or ask weird questions, becomes sort of uncomfortable. And I only had a VERY small slice of what that's like. It certainly made me think about what someone like Matt Lauer goes through, where you can pretty much never go out in public without being bothered.

So while it's certainly an ego boost in the short term, yeah, I think in some ways it made me appreciate how difficult being "famous" would be and that the tradeoff probably isn't worth it for a lot of people.

[/ QUOTE ]


kind of ego-boost/attention-whore type of thing.

Didn't get enough attention as a child? Desire to be popular?
I don't know. Something related to that for some people I assume.


My run with 'fame' is similar to nolanfan's except on an even smaller scale.
I did have quite a few people approach me for autographs, etc when I worked in radio doing play-by-play sports-broadcasting so I did get the very smallest of tastes.

Didn't get quite as many weird questions as a news-reporter would I think.
Mostly it was people seeking me out to say how much they enjoyed a specific night's broadcast or funny comment I made or to talk about the team as well as random strangers who knew my name and would wave 'hi' to me.

Would also get occasional baked-goods and one couple had a good time sending in funny poems about some of my inside-broadcast jokes.

Had more than 1 blind or wheel-chair bound person call me or get word to me how much my broadcasts each night meant to them and that they listened to pretty much every minute of every broadcast I did.
That's about 140 broadcasts at 3+ hours each through the baseball season.

Only the regulars at the minor-league baseball stadium would recognize me in person.
But there were several other times I would get recognized just by my voice like if I swung by a 7-11 right after signing-off from a broadcast or something and the guy behind the counter had been listening.
Next thing I knew I would be asked to sign their cap or something.

That's where my experience might differ a tad from Nolan's I suspect.
Much smaller audience for me so I wasn't always noticed and pointed at beyond just friendly waves from a bunch of people when I was at the stadium.

But those who you do run across who listen to you for 3+ hours on end game after game probably feel they already know you on a more personal level.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

For my own mentality I guess it's just a weird ego-thing at enjoyment of being heard.

My radio broadcast career doesn't feel much different ego-wise than being a semi-recognizeable guy in the 2+2 universe.

But all my radio or weird 2+2 semi-fame doesn't really hold a candle to being REALLY famous.
It's not the same as being recognized EVERYWHERE you go or even having an increased chance of scoring hot girls.
The REALLY famous stuff has to be a big PITA pretty quickly (while also having it's own monster perks).

My very limited experience with small-time fame is more like being a really recognizeable figure in a small-town (some of whom tell you how awesome you are and won't you 'please please please' sign this or have your pic taken with them)

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

I have to say I am always awed when running into a Jeter or a Schilling or a Carmen Electra randomly that they were all 10x nicer than anyone has a right to expect. Jeter posed for photos, twice, while he was eating dinner with Mannillo [right next to us.]

I sure as hell wouldn't put up with that.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

I'd love to have a famous name, but an anonymous face. Best of both worlds.

A race car driver would be perfect.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

[ QUOTE ]
For my own mentality I guess it's just a weird ego-thing at enjoyment of being heard.

My radio broadcast career doesn't feel much different ego-wise than being a semi-recognizeable guy in the 2+2 universe.

But all my radio or weird 2+2 semi-fame doesn't really hold a candle to being REALLY famous.
It's not the same as being recognized EVERYWHERE you go or even having an increased chance of scoring hot girls.
The REALLY famous stuff has to be a big PITA pretty quickly (while also having it's own monster perks).

My very limited experience with small-time fame is more like being a really recognizeable figure in a small-town (some of whom tell you how awesome you are and won't you 'please please please' sign this or have your pic taken with them)

[/ QUOTE ]

is this like being a "pretty big deal around here"?

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

I always figured it might have been fun to be part of a flavour of the month type band. You get to enjoy the chicks and cars for a while, but eventually you can be a regular guy again (and be rich on top of it). I'd rather be one of the guys from New Kids on the Block than Mick Jagger.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

I don't think it qualifies as a big deal and I thought I made it pretty clear that my radio experience was so small-time as to be pretty inconsequential.

But I do have some limited experience of having people come up to me and ask for my autograph or photo.
So even though I wouldn't consider myself famous in the least I still thought my observations were relevant.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

Since they've shown the USPC about a thousand times, I've kind of turned into a local celebrity in Norman. About 75% of the time I go out to a restaurant, the hostess/host or my server will know me. I get recognized when I go to Wal-Mart to buy a video game. People ask me all the dumb questions you expect, and I've signed a few autographs. The weirdest was the valet at Caesar's Palace wanted his picture with me.

Basically, I've started to hate it. Before people knew me, I thought it would be kinda cool to be on TV and have people know me, but now that they actually do and approach me/say weird things, it's kinda awkward and gets old very fast. I think every kid dreams of being famous though, right?

The only autograph I've enjoyed signing was the first.

I can't imagine if I was a pro sports player or actor. There is no way I'd put up with it.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

Some of the athletes who deal with this stuff just blow me away.

I really don't harbor much of a grudge against those who aren't 100% classy to the fans all the time because I've seen some of the crap they have to put up with.


I saw a spring-training game in Vero Beach where the Orioles came to town. Cal Ripken made the 2 hour drive seperately, had breakfast at a local restaurant, played about 5 innings, and then came out to the front of the stands and signed autographs for fans for the next 2 or 3 hours.

He was always polite and nice. But some of the fans were just plain embarassing and obnoxious. "Cal! Cal! Cal! Sign this Cal! I'm next Cal! You suck Cal!" etc etc etc.
Just really awful behavior.
And he kept smiling and signing autographs. Tried to turn away those who he thought he recognized as coming back for seconds (likely were just trying to sell stuff on e-bay).

Of course, most of the fans are nice enough and well behaved (although still too enthusiastic sometimes) but those in the worst 10% behave really badly and it's just disgusting.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

Because everyone has a camera phone or digital camera if you're famous you can't do blow in front of strangers. 'Nuff said.

re
 

Because life = high school.

I learned from hanging out with a ton of Real Worlders etc that being famous even on that bottom rung...is far far far different than being loaded.

Re: re
 

I work with celebs daily. The leveling, and paramount, factor is that like anyone else, some celebs are cool, intelligent, humble people who've managed to attain status without losing their previous identities. Others clearly let the attention go to their heads, thus clouding, even replacing, what was previously a lackluckster personality.

short version, as I'm too tired to think: some celebs were cool people prior, and remain so. In the end, given the rarity of these people, you end up rooting for their continued success.

Re: re
 

Are you Snipers desciple? Please learn how to use commars correctly.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

I want to be famous for being awesome. I want everyone thinking I'm awesome.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I want to be famous for being awesome. I want everyone thinking I'm awesome.

[/ QUOTE ]

heh, this POST is awesome, good start!

I work in the film and video industry and have had a chance to meet quite a few celebs. Far and away the coolest and most down to earth was George Clooney. Granted this was quite a few years ago on the movie Out Of Sight, but he was always wanting to play basketball with the crew and hang out and what not. The b-ball thing was funny because toward the end, we would be like "jeez, Clooney want to play basketball again? Damn, let's just go have some beers" But you know, what Clooney wants, Clooney gets, lol

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Since they've shown the USPC about a thousand times, I've kind of turned into a local celebrity in Norman. About 75% of the time I go out to a restaurant, the hostess/host or my server will know me. I get recognized when I go to Wal-Mart to buy a video game. People ask me all the dumb questions you expect, and I've signed a few autographs. The weirdest was the valet at Caesar's Palace wanted his picture with me.

Basically, I've started to hate it. Before people knew me, I thought it would be kinda cool to be on TV and have people know me, but now that they actually do and approach me/say weird things, it's kinda awkward and gets old very fast. I think every kid dreams of being famous though, right?

The only autograph I've enjoyed signing was the first.

I can't imagine if I was a pro sports player or actor. There is no way I'd put up with it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Gobbo is catching some of this with the Aussie Millions situation. It's funny how being "famous" never quite matches the ideal you have in your mind.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

I think rock stars have the best fame there is.

For instance let's look at the members of Godsmack (except the singer Sully) -

http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/3941/godsmackll0.jpg

While on tour I'm sure they get tons and tons of poon. Yet if you put any single one of them in some random supermarket in Iowa I doubt they'd even be known by anyone.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

I live in Ireland and it seems that we treat celebrities in a much different way to people living in the states (as far as I can tell). Cuz Ireland is quite small it always seems that you know someone who knows someone. Fairly big celebs could easily walk down the street (and be noticed by pretty much everyone), but not ran up to and hassled.

I dont think we have the same celebrity-worship outlook as others.

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I think rock stars have the best fame there is.

For instance let's look at the members of Godsmack (except the singer Sully) -

http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/3941/godsmackll0.jpg

While on tour I'm sure they get tons and tons of poon. Yet if you put any single one of them in some random supermarket in Iowa I doubt they'd even be known by anyone.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe they wouldn't get recongised because they aren't famous? And since when does girls wanting to have sex with you equate to mainstream fame?

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think rock stars have the best fame there is.

For instance let's look at the members of Godsmack (except the singer Sully) -

http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/3941/godsmackll0.jpg

While on tour I'm sure they get tons and tons of poon. Yet if you put any single one of them in some random supermarket in Iowa I doubt they'd even be known by anyone.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe they wouldn't get recongised because they aren't famous? And since when does girls wanting to have sex with you equate to mainstream fame?

[/ QUOTE ]

since like the begining of time

Re: Why would anyone want to be famous?
 

Out of Sight was a really terrific movie.