What makes a celebrity?

[junipersky]

@hellfrog and @Gashlycrumb posed an interesting question in the Celebrities we lost thread. I didn’t want to hijack it, so new thread time!

What makes someone a celebrity?

For me, finding out someone like Robert Marzano would be like finding out a hero died. But I would be surprised if many people knew him.

[Pavel]

@junipersky said in What makes a celebrity?:

What makes someone a celebrity?

For a serious answer, I would say someone who:

• Has a level of public recognition, even in a niche segment of the public.
• Has influence over or within their segment of the public.
• Has a level of achievement within their field.
• Is related to someone with the above.

At least in general, mix and match to suit your needs.

Robert Marzano would be a celebrity in his particular niche, like a Donald Knuth or Penzias and Wilson.

ETA: I’d even argue that some of our community’s more well-known figures have some celebrity status among our niche population.

[Gashlycrumb]

I think it’s pretty contextual.

I did (maybe mistakenly) figure that a significant portion of readers here would know about the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, because exerpts of it have been floating around the internet a long time, and it’s hilarious, and there are lots of amusing Youtube videos of people verifying it. (For all the creatures on the index I’ve been stung by, Justin’s descriptions of the quality and intensity of the pain are spot on.)

Eric Eaton is just now claiming he’s been crushed under Stephen A. Marshall’s new book, and both of these guys are pretty big if you’re into wasps, but I don’t think the’ve got Justin Schmidt’s not-much-celebrity, because I’ve never run across somebody knows who they are unless they also deliberately do entomology.

[GF]

If Google’s home page tells me you died, then you were probably a celebrity. If I have to use the search bar to find out you’re dead, then you probably weren’t.

[Gashlycrumb]

@GF I’m pretty sure Google tells you things like that based on where it thinks you are, though. So Bollywood stars aren’t celebrities to me right now and probably never will be, in spite of over a billion people disagreeing about that, and George Stroumboulopoulos will magically become a celebrity when I visit my dad.

[Faraday]

It’s super arbitrary, but for me ‘celebrity’ is just when people who don’t know you personally know of you and care about what you do.

There are levels of this, of course. A bronze-plaque YouTuber doesn’t have the same renown as Taylor Swift, but they’re still known within their respective communities.

It can be problematic to draw an arbitrary line. Wikipedia’s notability rules for who warrants a page has been criticized for contributing to a lack of recognition of the achievements of underrepresented groups.

In terms of the thread here, I don’t think it matters. There are plenty of folks in there - even “famous” Hollywood actors - I’ve never heard of. If someone cares enough to post, that’s enough for me.

[Pavel]

@Faraday said in What makes a celebrity?:

In terms of the thread here, I don’t think it matters.

If I die while this forum exists, I want a post in that thread mentioning it.

[mietze]

i mean people are celebrities in their respective realms regardless of what any particular individual recognizes. i don’t watch tv or go to the movies anymore (just like youtube clips of trashy stuff and like movie synopsis stuff). Chances are you can name some pretty famous people and either i won’t know who they are or maybe i’ve heard their name but if you made me pick them out by picture i’d struggle. that doesn’t mean because mietze doesn’t know who x person is that they’re not like a world famous celebrity.

but let’s get into a fight about it like the endless +fame fights on TR and other WoD places lol

[somasatori]

@mietze said in What makes a celebrity?:

but let’s get into a fight about it like the endless +fame fights on TR and other WoD places lol

Not my Fame 5 movie star/swimsuit model/recording artist vampire!

[mietze]

@somasatori i disbelieve. my pc might be an 18 year old doctor/cheerleader/socialite who owns a dojo and a nightclub but i took the face blindness derangement and secretly i’m also illiterate with only selective eidetic memory so i refuse to acknowledge you.

[somasatori]

@mietze I’ll have you know that by age 20 I already was in the special forces and earned my third PhD, so I can prove (by way of dice pool) that your face blindness is false! Acknowledge my fame!!

[Pavel]

I hate both of you.

[GF]

@Gashlycrumb Yeah, celebrity is relative. I’m fine with that.