The Perks of Being Moderately Famous
Or, why it’s better to be locally famous and globally anonymous
I’ve recently been thinking about fame. Especially how it affects an individual. I feel it’s far far better to be locally famous than be globally famous.
I’m a huge fan of writer creator John Green and his brother Hank Green. I for one believe the Greens enjoy much more freedom (and have much more fun) than someone like Shah Rukh Khan — even though SRK has much much more fame than the Greens.
Whereas SRK has mass appeal (literally everyone knows him) and is thus more horizontally famous, the Green brothers are very well known vertically. Whoever knows them knows them really well.
Being vertically or locally famous comes with a tonne of perks. Actually, no. A more appropriate way of saying this would be: Being globally famous takes away a lot of perks. For one, can SRK ever go on a solo trip? Not that he’ll ever need to. But… if he feels like experiencing a city from the eyes of a commoner, it’s not an option for him anymore. Like many other celebrities, he’ll have to live his life in a certain way. Forever.1
This is the direct result of success. What’s contradicting is that success should ideally increase optionality, not decrease it.2 One should be able to do more when they are successful, not less. So all this is a bit confusing to me.
Fame has its perks. Fame feels good. No doubt about that. Like everyone, I too want to become popular. But I don’t necessarily want to remain popular 24/7. There’s a difference. More than anything, I want my personal freedom. I want to be able to go out and buy groceries (at least on the rare occasions when I don’t order online). I want to be able to go to my gate and collect my daily newspaper.3 I want to go on solo trips, stay in budget Airbnbs, and try local food in streetside eateries. This freedom can come only from anonymity.4
I feel it’s better for a creator if they attract a particular community, a particular subgenre, or (more appropriately) people of certain intellect who not only learn from the creator but also help them become better at what they do. I think this is possible only if what you do has vertical appeal.
Creators (unlike celebrities) need compatriots, not fans. Writers (the genuinely good ones, not the pop sciencey gurus), thinkers, and even certain kind of actors enjoy this privilege.5
I watched the 2022 movie Babylon recently. There’s a scene where Margot Robbie tells why people go to the movies. “You don’t have to be in your own shitty fucking life. You can be in their life. Or wherever.“
As a creator (and as a person too), the last thing I would want is to be around folks who don’t want to be in their own reality. In fact, I would prefer the opposite — a genre (or subgenre) of people who engage with something only so they can get to know their “own shitty fucking life” more intimately. I think that’s the benefit of doing something slightly less popular and a bit more esoteric.6 Not everybody can appreciate what you do, but those who do, do it authentically.
Having said that, broader popularity often comes with the potential for broader impact. Fame can be a tool that can be harnessed for social good. Nobody can deny that. But then, nobody can also deny that the Greens have raised ~$20M in charity along with their fans.
I think this has more to do with intent than popularity. A small group where every member contributes to the community is much more powerful than the fandom of a celebrity. A hundred-people community has much much more strength than tens of thousands of fans.
The best part is that being vertically famous also keeps you authentic. Because fame can easily mess with your head. But since your target audience is already a niche, you rarely have to focus on cheap showmanship.
The videos the Greens put out on vlogbrothers are just them talking to the camera. Whereas the videos Jimmy puts out on MrBeast are all about how big, splashy, and crazy things can be.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But if grabbing eyeballs is your only concern, you can easily slip into providing cheap thrills without any concern for authenticity or genuineness. Think political news channels and reality TV shows.7 Entertainment is after all a means to an end. It isn’t and shouldn’t be the end in itself.
But if you cater to a niche, you don’t have to give your audience exactly what they want. And they’ll thank you for it. You are incentivised to push the boundaries. That’s exactly what they need from you. After all, what’s the point of creating if you don’t even try to be avant-garde.8
I believe everything popular is wrong. Anything that’s horizontally popular is even more wrong. Vertical creators are the only breed incentivised to be authentic.
Not only that, the guardrails are also very strong. Your target audience is so smart they’ll see right through if you try to fake it. So, it’s very hard to slip off to the wrong path for the sake of fame. Working hard and providing deep thrills (as opposed to cheap thrills) are the only ways to grow your popularity. Incentive structures don’t get better than this.
Instead of accepting the same old, tried, and tested gimmicks, people deserve to experience something novel every once in a while.9 Vertical creators are in the best position to do exactly that. They can change things they don’t like. They can update styles that have become stale. They can do all of that and more without anyone’s permission, not even their audience’s. This is real creative freedom.
Vertical creators are like the French New Wave.10 They challenge. They change. They make things better.
I think celebrities in India, especially movie stars, have the worst end of it. Thanks to the celebrity worshipping culture here, they literally have no privacy at all. Everywhere they go, hoards of fans flock around. I’m sure they enjoy it immensely, but I also believe every once in a while they get tired of all of it and just want to enjoy some quality time alone. On another note, Soha Ali Khan has a book titled The Perils Of Being Moderately Famous. The title of this essay isn’t inspired from that.
Success and wealth should help you afford the independence and ability to occupy your mind only with matters that interest you. If it’s giving you fewer options instead of more, most likely you’re doing it wrong.
Even though I don’t read the newspaper, on the off chance I start reading, I want to be able to go out and collect it on my own — kind of like what Tony Soprano did every morning. But then, I don’t own a house either. But again, on the off chance I do own a house, I want to be able to go out to my gate by myself instead of being sneaked out in a car.
Okay, perhaps comparing the Greens with SRK isn’t fair. They’re from very different industries and enjoy very very different levels of fame. Also, maybe SRK doesn’t really care much about solo trips, cheap Airbnb, and cheap food, like the rest of us, so it’s all good for him. Comparing the Greens (who are vertically popular) with perhaps someone like James Donaldson, the creator of MrBeast (who’s horizontally popular), would be more appropriate.
I think scientists have it the best. Even though Neil deGrasse Tyson is a celebrity, his fans are mostly science enthusiasts (which is a dying breed). So, even if a vertically famous creator is globally recognised, their primary audience would still be limited. Science after all doesn’t draw as many fans as action movies and self-help books. Interestingly, Newton’s magnum opus Principia has been called “one of the most inaccessible books ever written” because Newton deliberately made it difficult so that he wouldn’t be pestered by mathematical “smatterers,” as he called them. No creator wants to have to deal with random folks whose only input is adulation. Adulation without any intellectual contribution soon becomes suffocation.
Well, “esoteric” may not exactly be the right word. What I’m referring to is something that isn’t just mindless entertainment; something where you have to put some effort to get joy out of it.
Reality is interesting only sometimes. But have you noticed that reality shows are interesting all the time? What’s the reality TV producer’s best trick? Drama and negativity. Would anyone watch Big Boss if the characters got along most of the time? Of course not! That’s why every five minutes of the show includes a conflict of some kind.
In a military context, the avant-garde refers to the front line or advance troops that lead an army into battle. The use of the term in the cultural and artistic sense emerged in the 19th century to describe individuals or movements that were at the forefront of innovation and change, often breaking away from established conventions. The avant-garde has been a significant force in various art forms, including visual arts, literature, music, and performance.
Unlike the US, India doesn’t have a single movie industry. Movies in India are made in as many as 24 languages — with Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam being the most popular. And all of them have Hollywood-style industry names such as Bollywood, Tollywood, Kollywood, Sandalwood, Mollywood… the list goes on! But if you look beyond the surface, you’ll notice that most of the super-duper popular movies from all of these industries tend to be cut from the same cloth. It’s like the Indian film industry is serving us a buffet of only Hollywood-style commercial films — with maybe a sprinkle of masala on top. And I think that’s a big creative problem. Don’t get me wrong — I’m all for feel-good movies that serve pure entertainment. We need those in our lives. But when every major filmmaker is after a quick buck; when every major filmmaker starts playing it safe; when every major filmmaker starts following a tried and tested pattern of storytelling and direction; when every major filmmaker stops pushing boundaries, I think that is a blatant waste of opportunity. India is a land of incredible diversity. Each region has its own unique history, tradition, and story to tell. Our movies have the power to showcase this rich tapestry of cultures, to bridge gaps, to bring us all closer together. But instead, apart from a very very few, most the popular movies — no matter the language or the industry — look more or less the same. If you ask the creators, the answer is always some version of, “This is what the audience demands.” This a major cop-out. It’s not the job of the audience to know what they want. In fact, the audience doesn’t know what they want until you show it to them. Until very recently, all the Hindi films had song and dance. Why? Apparently that’s what the audience wanted. Starting from the 1950s to 2010s, that has been a consistent need of the audience. But when a few rebel filmmakers (with Anurag Kashyap leading the pack) started focussing more on story and character and less on song and dance, these movies were much appreciated. And suddenly, the need for a forced song and dance sequence wasn’t compulsory anymore. So instead of accusing the audience, I think it’s the job of the creator to give the audience a taste of different styles. Instead of serving the same old tasty biryani every Friday, creators need to give the audience a rich buffet of various styles and genres instead.
The French New Wave, or “La Nouvelle Vague” in French, refers to a film movement that emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s in France. It is characterised by its innovative and unconventional filmmaking techniques, narrative approaches, and a rejection of traditional Hollywood conventions. The movement was marked by a group of young filmmakers who were often critics turned directors and who sought to bring a fresh and personal perspective to cinema.
You raise good, relevant points.
I feel that celebrity worshipping culture speaks to an inherent characteristic in all of us, in that as humans, we want to be able to look up to and admire others as a source of inspiration.
Such people give us hope and make us feel good and uplifted.