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Reasons not to become famous

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Re: Reasons not to become famous

#221

Post by jborichevskiy »

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…

Good analysis, I think.

> And really what is the practical difference between having $20m and $2b? Sure you'll have nicer houses and more of them. You may well have a super-yacht at that point. But who cares? I know I don't.

I found this Reddit comment [1] insightful on that front. Don't know to its validity but have seen it linked to in a few different places.

> $1billion

> I am going to exclude the $10b+ crowd, because they live a head-of-state life. But at $1b, life changes. You can buy anything. ANYTHING. In broad terms, this is what you can buy:

> Access. You now can just ask your staff to contact anyone and you will get a call back. I have seen this first hand and it is mind-blowing the level of access and respect $1 billion+ gets you. In this case, I wanted to speak with a very well-known billionaire businessman (call him billionaire #1 for a project that interested billionaire #2. I mentioned that it would be good to talk to billionaire #1 and B2 told me that he didn't know him. But he called his assistant in. "Get me the xxxgolf club directory. Call B1 at home and tell him I want to talk to him." Within 60 minutes, we had a call back. I was in B1's home talking to him the next day. B2's opinion commanded that kind of respect from a peer. Mind blowing. The same is true with access to almost any Senator/Governor of a billionaires party (because in most cases, he is a significant donor). You meet on an occassional basis with heads-of-state and have real conversations with them. Which leads to ... influence ... (continued)

[1] - https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_i...

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#222

Post by delaaxe »

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...

The fact he’s a photographer doesn’t have anything to do with the downsides mentioned. Could just as well be any family member or a close friend of the famous person

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#223

Post by baby »

DenisM wrote: post #181

If the problem is so widespread I imagine that all the really rich and famous have A few people on staff to filter incoming correspondence, triage and follow up on credible threats, check with police as needed etc. What of the modestly famous and not that rich? There ought to be an agency where one could outsource this sort of work for a fraction of the in-house cost. The agency would accumulate experience and might…

here's a start up idea

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#225

Post by [deleted] »

delaaxe wrote: post #222
rootusrootus wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The fact he’s a photographer doesn’t have anything to do with the downsides mentioned. Could just as well be any family member or a close friend of the famous person

[deleted]

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#226

Post by ikeboy »

toast0 wrote: post #219
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.

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.

Agreed. Can stick with stocks and REITs to avoid that.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#227

Post by grawprog »

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…

>Hurt feelings when dating necessitates the non-disparagement clause. Several times I’ve had people I’ve politely rejected say all manner of false things about me, sometimes years after the fact.

Yeah it's true, you really can't control what people say about you other than through your own actions, even then people will say what they will, that's life.

>I make it clear to anyone who participates in my life in any meaningful social capacity that they do so only on the condition of privacy and discretion. Those are the terms made plain up front. No one is required to participate.

I can understand wanting privacy and discretion, but just the way you word this I find it...I'm not even sure, creepy as another commenter said, but more you've got this level of arrogance where you believe your life and the details around it are so important and special and every person that meets you and participates in 'your life' is a potential threat.

A friend or a social acquaintance isn't just someone that 'participates in your life', you are part of their life too.

I mean for me, if there's someone I know that just can't stop talking about everybody's personal stuff to everyone, I just don't share things with them I wouldn't want everyone knowing about.

>Really though it comes down to physical safety. If someone doxes me, I incur approximately $40k in instantaneous expenses because I suddenly have to move, injunctions on posting or no, thanks to the internet. Having a document in place to be able to (somewhat) protect against or recover from that is a little bit of peace of mind.

Really though, if someone's taking the time to stalk you and dox you, they're not going to give the slightest care about an NDA, will speak anyway and whatever litigation you try won't make much of a difference after the fact any way.

But in the end, the internet is fickle and ephemeral and has the memory of a goldfish and as soon as something more scandalous or interesting comes a long nobody will give a shit who you are again.

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#228

Post by [deleted] »

oarsinsync wrote: post #111
kd5bjo wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If memory serves, The largest single-day drop was around 25% and the biggest total was around 90%. That leaves 10% to live off of: if you have 10x what’s necessary for the rest of your life invested you can absorb those losses.

To have 10x what's necessary, you need to be able to survive on 1% returns (I'm trying to be generous there). So if you can live on $30,000, you need to have "only" $3MM invested. You should also not be investing more than 25% of your assets into a single asset class, so you need to have $6-12MM of assets (range depending on considerations) in the first place. I think having even $3MM is a reasonably called 'rich', b…

[deleted]

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#229

Post by crgt »

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…

- Mindy Kaling (Vera Chokalingham)

Re: Reasons not to become famous

#230

Post by scottlocklin »

Funny I'm just a sometime blogger and I used to get weirdos finding my house and sending me handwritten letters. At one point I was tied up with one of Steven Spielberg's schizophrenic stalkers because of some dipshit I argued with on Usenet to pass time in grad school. Now I got my face on a fairly well known startup, which means various 3rd world places I enjoy are non-starters without having actual security precautions in place (which defeats the purpose of going to such places in the first place: freedom).

Being even slightly famous is shit. I quite enjoy writing and would take it to the next level, but I'd rather not be any more famous. The culture of narcissism which encourages people to seek fame is ridiculous: it's all the downsides of being surveilled except its eyes the size of your audience instead of a couple of creepy (but probably mostly law abiding) policeman at a terminal.

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