Comment by etblg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by etblg | Hacker News Reader

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I think it's only going to get weirder in the future too as more and more is pumped in to the celebrity machine.

I was in a bookstore the other day and saw Anna Kendrick's memoir. I don't have anything against her at all, but she's a 31 year old actress who hasn't had a big role that produces her legacy, maybe in another decade or two, but now?

Every person of at least minor celebrity status comes out with a biography these days, and then goes on a big publicity tour on all the talk shows, and now there's more and more talk shows on more and more network, cable, and internet networks. There seems to be a whole industry centered around people in media reinforcing themselves to an absurd degree now.

Then again maybe we just forgot if this happened in the 70s and before and this has always happened, who knows!

The difference is that, as media has fragmented and people find increasingly diverse sources of news and entertainment, there are more niche celebrities and fewer mega celebrities.

Manufacturing a mega celebrity takes a certain degree of monopolization of attention. But the days of three-network-television and two-station radio markets are gone. We don't, as a society, watch and listen to the same stuff anymore. It started with cable in the 90s, but it's accelerated with the internet.

I don't know who Anna Kendrick is, but if she's anything like the rest of the "celebrities" I'm supposed to know, she's a Q-list reality show extra with a hyperactive agent. The internet has globalized and democratized the market for attention, which means greater competition, more niches, shorter shelf lives, and fewer monopolies.

While I agree that Anna Kendrick might not need a biography at 31, she definitely isn't Q list. Probably A list, maybe B if we're being picky.

Actually, she's quite different from that. For one thing, she can actually sing, and a fair few of her roles involve it.

My 5yo regards her as the definitive Cinderella, for instance.

Edit: Oh yes, and was the star of a movie that took $290m worldwide, from a budget of $29m.

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