The Culture of Narcissism

Almost 40 years ago the avant garde artist Andy Warhol stated that, “In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.” Dude was seriously spot on wasn’t he? Between Youtube and reality t.v. shows an obnoxious personality is a ticket to fame and a b-list career for just about anyone. Now with blogging, Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter virtually anyone has a potential worldwide audience for their every fleeting thought. As a blogger I certainly have no problem with this as I’ve certainly expressed my share of pointless thoughts here. I admit I love the feedback, the comments. With a worldwide audience we can all find someone who agrees with us regardless of how baseless our opinions may be. We are but a herd of sycophants in a big ego orgy. That’s all fine. We are all willing particpants and recipients and it makes us all feel good. With a few creative ideas and a little regular blogging we all feel like a celebrity with our fans and followers. What I don’t get is when the real celebrities try to horn in on our two-bit ego trip. On both a Facebook page and on Twitter I have two different somewhat b-list type celebs among my friend lists. These two people must update their status every two hours! As if they would die of suffocation if I didn’t know their every stray thought or dental appointment! What is wrong with these people that they need this constant validation? They already have some semblance of fame. Isn’t that enough? The internet theoretically is a finite space and they think their every thought is important enough to waste electricity, megabytes and whatever other units of measure apply. I propose a new Phil law. When I am elected President, or Sexiest Man Alive, whichever comes first, there will be a separate internet so the famous people can tell each other how great they are without wasting the bandwidth of the real internet that the rest of us are using.