Saturday 2 February 2013

Fame-us, People

Recently, a colleague sent me a link to this article, partly because I'm his semi-boss-lady and have to keep tabs on his every working moment (or, like, three of his working moments per fortnight), and partly because he knew I'd be interested anyway. And who wouldn't? The internet is mind-blowing. Twenty years ago (yes, I'm old enough to remember back that far) we had four TV channels which didn't even broadcast on 24 hours a day, and if you were a lucky little sod like me your dad had a computer and might let you play Space Invaders or Commander Keen or something on it when he wasn't 'busy' (playing Space Invaders or Commander Keen or, in the case of my dad, flight simulation bomb-a-thon Retaliator).

Nowadays... well you know. It's a big mess of Twitter feeds and abandoned Myspaces and cyberbullying and pirated music downloads and free amateur porn videos streaming live to your phone. And EVERYBODY has it. It's awesome and terrifying and excellent and wrong, all at the same time.

And while I can find many many worthy rant-targets online, I will save them for later because the one I want to talk about is fame, and our access to those we deem 'famous'.

I have four main heroes/role models in my life. One is Batman, who isn't real and so doesn't count for the purposes of this discussion. Out of the remaining three, I have been lucky enough to be 'connected' to two of them via the wonder of the internet. One was the (unsolicited!) retweet of an article I wrote by a man whose work I so admire that it is truly an honour to have been noticed by him in any capacity. The other instance was when I sent a Facebook private message to a person I respect with such fervour that I refer to him mainly in passing conversations as 'The Nearest Thing I Have To A God'.

I didn't want to message him - not at all. A friend and I were embarking on a half-assed mission to internettishly bother a bunch of people about the UK release date of this thing we like, and since he was a primary producer of this thing, the friend suggested I message him. I was all abashed and unsure and I can't remember what eventually made me do it, but I did - and as I fully expected and accepted, he gave no response.

For about ten days, that is. Then I logged into Facebook and there it was - a message from the number one living human-Earthperson I admire.

I won't go into masses of details, but I replied in a jokey 'Well thanks!' kind of way and made a flip comment in my sign-off. To which he replied. And I wrote back again. And so did he. Eventually, not wanting to endure the indignity of him getting bored of and no longer replying to an admiring stranger who was desperately trying not to say anything too fawning, I wrote him a little 'Anyway, thanks for this and I'll let you get back to your work' type thing and he took the out. No resentment here - the man has better things to do than converse with random strangers, and he had been very generous in his time and answers.

Overall, really, the experience was a weird one. A part of me feels really grateful to have been allowed a little time with him (and grateful to the friend who suggested it). A part of me feels weird about it in a near-but-far kind of way that has trouble reconciling the artist and the guy I chatted to. And a part of me feels dissatisfied - not because we aren't still corresponding like the bestest of buddies, but because I'm frustrated with myself for contacting him as A Fan Of His Work. I have this ego, you see - when I admire a person, I feel like I want to meet them on equal ground, or at least something halfway approaching it in the far far distance (like that out-of-the-blue, amazing unsolicited retweet by Other Hero). Not to be A Famous Person As Well, exactly... but to have done something that means I can hold my head up knowing they know I am not just some person there to tell them how great they are.

Because really, what does one say to a 'famous' person?

There are different levels of fame, of course - one person's David Beckham is another person's local weatherman. I have met well-known people about whom I couldn't care less and struggled to say anything at all - not star struck, just struggling to find the balance between beaming 'I loved you in _____!' and standard civility. I have stood drunk in a club and either bored or terrified (maybe both - it was hard to accurately tell from his expression) a well-respected rock musician in my earnest attempt to have a meaningful, pleasant conversation with him. I once served Nick Cave (whose music I really admire) in a shop and accidentally mortified him by good-naturedly mocking something he did in the friendly way I would have treated any other customer. In contrast, I once found myself standing next to a (then) well-known British sitcom actor at a party, brightly told him who he was and then grasped in aching silence for something I could truthfully say I'd liked him in, eventually naming perhaps the tiniest guest-role he had ever played. The way he fake-smiled in acknowledgement and immediately turned away told me he was equally underwhelmed by me.

I embarrassed Nick Cave unintentionally, because I like him and wanted to treat him like anyone else. I underwhelmed the sitcom actor by trying to be pleasant without lying. Someone's fame, or perceived fame, changes their relationship with everyone they meet. It makes it difficult to be friendly and nice and normal. It makes it impossible to accurately, politely and non-scarily express admiration, or lack thereof.

This weirdness is distorted still further by the internet. Instead of meeting someone once, at a signing, and saying standard platitudes or maybe something kooky you worked on for a while to be remembered, you now have a chance to insinuate yourself over time. Private messages - hell, even public messages. Links and things. This thing you wrote. This picture you drew. Some of it will get through, might get a response. Some of it won't. Some of it will be dignified. Some of it will come across as maybe worth calling the police about. It's hard - or at least I find it hard - to equate this array of pally singsonging with any attempt to meaningfully connect with your chosen godlike genius. And still, after all of this, they are not your Friend. They are not your colleague. They do not know you. They probably do not want to know you, no matter how sure you are that the two of you would go together like a horse and cabbage.

I remember that, during the period of time I spent being both a young child and a fan of Inspector Clouseau, my father mentioned he had once seen Peter Sellers in the street. Please understand I grew up in Northern Ireland and we don't really have famous people there (not ones who stick around anyway), so this achievement was even more impressive to me.

"Wow!" I marvelled breathlessly. "What did you say to him?"
"Nothing," shrugged my dad, nonplussed.
I was astonished. "WHAT?! Why?!"
"Because he was just walking down the street being normal, and I didn't want to bother him."

At the time I had no conception of how a person could feel this way on seeing a great, funny, interesting famous person - a person who had been on TV! And in films! And stuff! These days I understand it very well, and on the very rare occasions I find myself able to interact with people whose work I am keen on, now I tend to just slink off without bothering. It's too weird.

Should you never meet your heroes? I dunno - I have no real experience to suggest an answer. I do know that I wouldn't want to meet mine without having something to show for myself above and beyond telling them they're great or trying to prove I'm their biggest fan. I do know that while I enjoyed our messages and I follow his posts, I did not add The Nearest Thing I Have To A God as my Facebook friend, because he isn't my friend and he does not know me. I do know that when I see some of the things other people post on his page, I feel both a little smug-superior and quite frustrated on his behalf, even though I have neither the right nor the status to feel either.

Maybe in a world which contains such wonderments as reality TV 'stars', 'cool' politicans and Jedward, admiring from afar is best.

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