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Reasons not to become famous

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Re: Reasons not to become famous

#211

Post by DenisM »

munificent wrote: post #199
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…

> wanting to speak to strangers, breaking silence in a lift - but these have never really sat comfortably with me afterwards. I'll be chewing and ruminating about the imagined mistimed comments or miscued lines for ages. This resonates very strongly with me. I will throw a party, have a great time, and then lay in bed replaying scenes and focusing on every slightly awkward thing I could have done differently. > I hav…

Consider that negative obsessions is a particular case of a more general problem - attention you don’t control.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#212

Post by lonelappde »

richthegeek wrote: post #18
speedgoose wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why trying to become rich? Once you have enough money to have a great quality of life without stress, having more money isn't improving much your happiness. Sometimes it makes it worse. However trying to become rich can be very difficult, tiresome, and disappointing.

"have enough money to have a great quality of life without stress" is how many people define "rich".

Then why do so many of the richest people have so much stress?

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#213

Post by ruminasean »

rootusrootus wrote: post #168
ruminasean wrote: post #157

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…

I'm surprised a photographer would be such a target, even if they identify themselves with a well-known (and somewhat controversial, I suppose) figure. TIL! Reading stories like this just makes me that more determined to never be well-known. Not that I'm in any particular danger of that, mind you, but still...

I was surprised too. It's a variety of "I need X to speak at my charity event," "hey can you give X my contact info," "here's my nude selfie and my number, please tell X," to "X is impersonating himself on social media and swindled me out of thousands of dollars, I'm going to report you and everyone else."

Ironically, being relatively faceless has burned me as well. I have a fairly common name, so when someone else with the same name made a shitty comment on some board on Facebook, I had days of being attacked, getting DMd to kill myself, brutal comments on all my posts...it was hours and days of cleanup and banning people.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#214

Post by munificent »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #14

Hypothesis: On twitter, when your follower count exceeds the number you're following, you become a little nutty. I've noticed this odd trend where if people gain a lot of twitter followers, then often their views become reinforced to the point that outsiders look at their tweets and wonder what happened to make them express such ideas. But there's bias here: for tweets like these to be noticed, they need to be seen.…

I am at 1,189 following and 12.6K followers.

I don't think I've gotten nuttier, but I have gotten more circumspect. I'm cognizant that my broader audience size means I can assume any person will have context for my tweets. It's really hard to make good jokes without a shared understanding so my humor tends to be more watered down.

I do miss the time when my twitter feed felt more like a hangout with a group of like-minded game dev and programming language nerd friends. It's still that, but it's sort of that + some nebulous cloud of strangers, which effects the feel.

At the same time, I am grateful that having a higher Twitter profile helps draw more attention to my writing. I've sold more books because of it and that materially helps me and my family, so I certainly can't complain.

It's not worse, just different. It feels very much like the difference in how you conduct yourself at a party with friends, versus on stage at a work conference. I'm still me and I still try to be interesting and funny. But I'm a more carefully cultivated, safe subset of me in the latter venue.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#215

Post by JKCalhoun »

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…

> What can you achieve with fame that you cannot achieve with money alone?

Reaching a larger audience.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#216

Post by bshoemaker »

sergioro wrote: post #208
cletus wrote: post #195

So I only see three reasons to be famous: 1. The attention and adulation is your drug. I think there's no shortage of people who fall into this category. 2. To convert that fame into opportunities you wouldn't otherwise have; and 3. To convert that fame into money. Obviously if you're just plain rich then (3) is moot. If you fall into (1) then money can buy you fame to a degree. So that leaves (2). Wealth will give y…

An extra reason for being famous (could be included in #2 of the above list) is to amplify your positive impact in the world. E.g. if Bezos wasn't famous i'd probably never learned about his business strategies (costumer first, risk taking & innovating, etc). IMO this is the best reason for being famous.

Yep. This seems like the obvious one to me.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#217

Post by lonelappde »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #161
richthegeek wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"have enough money to have a great quality of life without stress" is how many people define "rich".

>> "have enough money to have a great quality of life without stress" is how many people define "rich". sure, but "great" is not easily defined. A new car or a jet? A $500K home or a $15M one to host parties with rich and famous. But people usually like to show off, one way or another. If you hit it big with a company, and have, say, $10 Million you can live extremely stress free everywhere in the world. And very few…

It's very hard to find a life partner who is willing to live merely comfortably knowing they can draw more blood from you, and had to resign your children to mere comfort, knowing they'll have to compete for ever scarcer living-wage-paying jobs.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#218

Post by dragonwriter »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #215
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…

> What can you achieve with fame that you cannot achieve with money alone? Reaching a larger audience.

> > What can you achieve with fame that you cannot achieve with money alone?

> Reaching a larger audience.

Money alone can do that; all fame does is make it more likely than someone else (or multiple people) substitutes their money so you don't need your own.

But then, money can also buy fame pretty easily, so if fame did allow something directly that money did not directly, money would still be sufficient.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#219

Post by toast0 »

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.

Sure, but if you rent out anything, you're going to be in court sooner or later. There's usually some wealth component to having something to rent out, but you don't need Internet Millions to do it.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#220

Post by lonelappde »

marcinzm wrote: post #113
balfirevic wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once you have enough money to have a great quality of life without stress, having more money isn't improving much your happiness. If you mean without having to continue working, that is indeed what many would consider being rich.

That depends on your personality and the job. Although, as I've noticed, seeking money as the number one goal tends to lead to jobs which cause more stress and a lower quality of life. For example, I could make more money at top tech company but then I'd have bureaucracy and a vacation policy (I took 6 weeks last year) to deal with.

Top tech company offers 5 weeks vacation per year and offers unpaid leave too. The hard part is extricating yourself from (fake-) important projects long enough to enjoy a vacation.
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