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Reasons not to become famous

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Re: Reasons not to become famous

#151

Post by lacker »

ikeboy wrote: post #102
woofie11 wrote: post #36

Law suits. The big one missing is law suits. That's a higher level of fame than this blogger has hit. That includes: 1) Nuts and idiots. For example, people who genuinely believe what you're doing is out to get them. 2) Jackals and vultures. People want what you've built, and see the legal system as a good way of extorting you to get it. I hit this level of fame, and quickly backed down from anything which might give…

My understanding is even without fame, if you get anywhere interesting in the business world you'll need to get comfortable with litigation. Every wealthy person is entangled in it, even people you've never heard of that "only" have 50 million.

It is certainly not true that every wealthy person is entangled in litigation. Your typical not-famous, post-exit startup founder just doesn’t have any reason to get sued by anybody.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#152

Post by juped »

sneak wrote: post #128
woofie11 wrote: post #36

Law suits. The big one missing is law suits. That's a higher level of fame than this blogger has hit. That includes: 1) Nuts and idiots. For example, people who genuinely believe what you're doing is out to get them. 2) Jackals and vultures. People want what you've built, and see the legal system as a good way of extorting you to get it. I hit this level of fame, and quickly backed down from anything which might give…

One of the mitigating strategies here is to have a liability waiver that people sign to enter your office or home. Mine also has an NDA with a nondisparagement provision. It has been useful for dating, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVa8NaYTMIQ

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#153

Post by gist »

throw18374 wrote: post #138

This is tangential to the article, but James being “a frequent commenter on his blog and a huge help to other readers” was my first sign that he was not mentally well. Immediately knew things would not go well for him in this story. People often say this as a joke, but I think it’s 100% accurate: Internet comment sections have a strong self-selection bias for the mentally unwell. I’ll include Twitter, Facebook, Reddi…

> Healthy happy people simply do not spend much of their time that way.

But what if making comments makes you happy?

While I don't disagree with the premises of what you are saying I think you are not considering that for some people saying something makes them feel good and they are perfectly mentally sane.

I could also say that 'healthy happy people do not spend their time socializing with others at parties' but we know people do that because 'it makes them happy'.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#154

Post by lacker »

fock wrote: post #91
mattmanser wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because stock market crashes never happen?

I don't think the people who are non-obvious rich put their money solely in an index fund. They'll generally have about 50-500 apartment units in some big city, which (if properly insured) guarantees you can weather anything except for wars and asteroids. Maybe they put their earnings into an index fund though ...

Not solely, but index funds are probably the most common investment. Just look at the total money Vanguard has under management.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#155

Post by burntoutfire »

j7ake wrote: post #121
speedgoose wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The spouse can work, we are not in the 1960s anymore. But even if she does not work, you can have a happy life in many Europeans countries.

This suggests that the cost of living adjusted salaries of today is half of what they were in 1960s if two people need to work now versus when only one needed to. Also immigrating to a country with good social benefits does not solve the need to take care of elders and relatives , which would not benefit from the social system of the country to which you would immigrate

> This suggests that the cost of living adjusted salaries of today is half of what they were in 1960s if two people need to work now versus when only one needed to.

It's that, or people's "needs" (wants really) just got inflated over time.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#156

Post by ikeboy »

lacker wrote: post #151
ikeboy wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is even without fame, if you get anywhere interesting in the business world you'll need to get comfortable with litigation. Every wealthy person is entangled in it, even people you've never heard of that "only" have 50 million.

It is certainly not true that every wealthy person is entangled in litigation. Your typical not-famous, post-exit startup founder just doesn’t have any reason to get sued by anybody.

If they completely retire and just live off interest, sure.

If they invest in real estate, other businesses, etc? They're going to be involved. I'm sure there's some exceptions.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#157

Post by ruminasean »

I am publicly in close proximity to someone famous for my job and with a modest (~15k) Instagram following because of that, I've experienced most of this behavior to one degree or another. I was completely unprepared for it and it really freaked me out.

I love the Bill Murray quote, and I've been living by this, also from the article: "You want everyone to know your name and no one to know your face.” It really seems to affect people that I don't post selfies and pics of myself anywhere....second to requests to be put in contact with the famous person to whom I'm obviously connected, people really want to know what I look like. As someone who is fairly private as well as nothing special in the looks dept, I'm in no rush. I'm googleable because of the absurd name under which I started, but most people can't or won't put in the effort.

I've definitely concluded that in my particular case, some respectable form of following on IG is necessary (I'm a photographer) and I certainly won't get rich, but damn I was utterly not ready for nor was I expecting 5-screen-long tales of woe and death and disease and pleas for help and mercy along with the same kind of "I know what you did and I'll expose you" shit several times a week.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#158

Post by mrkstu »

christiansakai wrote: post #118
econcon wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I started doing Karate and my weight went down quick and I notice my face gets leaner and now I have a defined jaw line. I’m not sure maybe just my genetics but maybe you got your jawline from losing weight. I was skinny and atheletic type with super low body fat then I didn't have visible square jaw. After that I started eating lot more and training hard, so I did gain some muscle (early newbie gains) but gained fa…

I see. So do you think steroids contribute to it? It is amazing how hormones can actually change your physical appearance drastically even after someone is past beyond their growth phase. You mentioned chewing gum. I saw these videos about mewing but don’t actually believe that would work.

Look at Barry Bonds before and after- definite jaw/skull effects from the steroids and HGH.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#159

Post by gist »

This was a surprisingly good article and I had not even really (odd actually) heard of Tim until literally the other day. Maybe I came across his name somewhere in the past but thought "he's a self help type author no interest". That said the thing that surprised me is the fact that he is doing the least likely things to make himself less of a target. You go to the blog there's a big picture of him on display and not exactly understated. So sure he could write his books and provide information and make it less likely that people would get mental over what he has and his success (because they would be less likely to focus on him and be jealous). After all something sparks the person who stalks him and I don't think a large part of that is words. Yes writers and others (w/o pictures) get stalked but for whatever reason my guess is it's much less.

Let's look at it this way. Not saying it would be possible to be famous w/o displaying yourself personally in a prominent way but what if he provided his helpful info and never had a picture of himself and/or used a pseudonym for his name?

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#160

Post by asveikau »

christiansakai wrote: post #146
ip26 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of those seem like pen names covering for ethnicity rather than preserving anonymity. I see Hungarian, Jewish, German, Polish...

Oh wow, that seems true. What is the reason for this?

It used to be much less accepted to have a "foreign sounding" (non-anglo-saxon) name.
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