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Reasons not to become famous

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171–180 of 428 posts

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#171

Post by celticninja »

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…

I think the 80/20 rule is fairly well established, 20% of the users are responsible for 80% of the content.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#172

Post by vjeux »

ikeboy wrote: post #156
lacker wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fyi, lacker who commented is the co-founder of Parse which got sold to Facebook and likely is in touch with a lot of founders with similar experience.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#173

Post by Mountain_Skies »

austhrow743 wrote: post #51
ak39 wrote: post #11

What can you achieve with fame that you cannot achieve with money alone? What is this need for wanting others to know that you exist at all? Jobs that demand "fame" of some sorts will always take an emotional toll on personalities that are never comfortable with fame, limelight and podiums. I have been an introvert my whole life but only recently realised this about myself at the tender age of 40! It was a cold slap…

Groupies

One of the odder experiences in my life was when I started a social meetup and suddenly became many times more attractive. Up until that point I was just another nice guy in the crowd but once I was the leader of something, even something as inconsequential as an after work drinking club, women who in the past would always forget my name suddenly were coming on to me, sometimes in obnoxiously aggressive ways. It was a nice ego boost for a very very short period of time but quickly became annoying and got in the way of the purpose of the meetup, which was for a group of similar people to have a relaxing way to end their work day.

Experiencing the dynamics of social proof was quite the eye opener.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#174

Post by dharmon »

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.

For what it's worth, rich people do not do this. It sounds like one of those nonsense things a person would do if they want people to think they're rich when they're not.

They do, however, have a good umbrella insurance policy to cover extra liability. If you have even a modest net worth you should also do this.

And don't invite randos into your home/office.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#175

Post by [deleted] »

sneak wrote: post #137
grawprog wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, the only time i've had to sign a waiver is right before i've been doing something dangerous or life threatening. If a date made me sign a waiver before entering their home I'd be wondering what kind of fucked up things they've got planned and probably turn around and leave right there.

I have yet to encounter anyone who had any issue with it. Personally, I work at home and wouldn’t want anyone in the building who potentially had access to my office (it’s locked, but still) to not be under NDA at the very least. Opportunistic lawsuits make the liability waiver part important. Hurt feelings when dating necessitates the non-disparagement clause. Several times I’ve had people I’ve politely rejected say…

[deleted]

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#176

Post by mprev »

nlh wrote: post #131

The stalker thing is real - and I didn’t realize how real until a buddy who’s a moderately-successful YouTuber (750k subs) got his very own. Thankfully it’s a relatively benign case, but man, it’s real. There’s a kid who, for the past ~10 years, calls him Every. Single. Day. Without fail. For 10 years (that’s 3600+ phone calls). He leaves a voicemail and just talks about his day - what video games he’s playing, etc.…

Could he change his number?

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#177

Post by mandelbrotwurst »

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…

That's an interesting theory, would you mind explaining why you think that's the case?

I wouldn't be surprised if there is at least a correlation - e.g. maybe those who spend a lot of time commenting online do so because they are trying to compensate for a lack of meaningful offline interactions, relationships, etc.

That said, is it so hard to imagine that someone might have both? i.e. even if there's a correlation, it seems like a bit of a stretch to suggest that a prolific internet commenter is necessarily mentally unwell. It seems very plausible to me that someone might both have a robust real life social life while simultaneously engaging in online interactions as well, no?

I'd also posit that this might depend on the forum - e.g. someone actively engaging in learning or sharing their expertise on e.g. nutrition or car repair forum may be a bit different than the median commenter on news articles linked from The Drudge Report.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#178

Post by tempsy »

I think the only way to be rich and anonymous is wealth building through stocks, real estate, etc. No one outside of your broker, yourself, and the government knows about that in the case of stocks, and you can buy real estate through an LLC if you want to be extra anonymous.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#179

Post by ikeboy »

vjeux wrote: post #172
ikeboy wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fyi, lacker who commented is the co-founder of Parse which got sold to Facebook and likely is in touch with a lot of founders with similar experience.

I've been in touch with lots of business owners who have been involved in litigation, and I'm currently in one myself.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#180

Post by dvtrn »

keiferski wrote: post #83
christiansakai wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read Kevin Hart’s autobiography and one takeaway from the book was that famous comedians or famous people don’t use pseudo/nicknames but just use his/her own name. Kevin Hart was known as Lil’ Kev the Bastard until one of his early mentor told him to drop that nickname.

> Kevin Hart was known as Lil’ Kev the Bastard until one of his early mentor told him to drop that nickname. This is also just a monumentally bad name. In comedy alone, there are plenty of people with nicknames or not-their-actual name: - Louis C.K. (Louis Székely) - Jon Stewart (Jon Leibowitz) - Larry the Cable Guy (Daniel Lawrence Whitney) - Mel Brooks (Melvyn Kaminsky) - Gene Wilder (Jerome Silberman) - Tim Allen…

I never in my life expected to learn on a random groggy Sunday morning, on a message board for tech that Tim Allen was using a pseudonym.
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