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The realities of being a pop star

itscharlibb.substack.com

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Re: The realities of being a pop star

#71

Post by snowwrestler »

joshcsimmons wrote: post #60

It is correct to be skeptical of people who parlay their fame in one domain into another. The most powerful man in the US right now is just a reality TV star. At best, it allows "celebrities" to hop into any domain of their choosing without any real qualification or having earned their way in that particular field.

Not just fame and celebrity. Any major success occurs within a certain narrow context, and when people stray outside that context they are not necessarily going to be better than anyone else. There are plenty of examples of business leaders, scientists, etc who tried to hop domains and fell on their faces.

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#73

Post by bigiain »

SL61 wrote: post #36
jppope wrote: post #18

Courtney Love wrote a fabulous article explaining the realities of a million-dollar album (2000 - https://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/ ) and it explains so much of whats actually going on that the public doesn't fully comprehend. Its a great read if you've never read it. The realities are similar to what we are reading in this article. Most of what gets talked about is gross numbers not net. Most of the benefits…

It's interesting to observe that fame (and the money that usually comes with it) seems to follow something like a log scale. People usually don't become gradually more famous in a linear way. They're more likely to spend a few years with 50k listeners and then get a big hit and get 1 million listeners overnight, then the next big jump is 20 million, and so on. It's possible to be semi-famous and still able to go to t…

It's fascinating to me that her new album's name is "Wuthering Heights", the name of Kate Bush's debut and number 1 single from 1978. Kate Bush is well known (in the circles of people who know about this sort of thing) and as fiercely independent and self-controlled artist. I hope Charlii manages her career and fame as well as Kate has over the decades.

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#74

Post by bigiain »

bombcar wrote: post #56
windowshopping wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't know what bogan meant either so I looked it up and I have to infer we are speaking with an Australian or New Zealander, hence the small vocabulary differential in our English.

Aussies speak something that sounds vaguely like English but it ain’t.

You know how it's said that eskimos have 50 words for "snow"?

Aussies have 50 meanings for the word "cunt". It can simultaneously be both the worst and the best thing you can call someone. And aussies know exactly which meaning is intended from context.

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#75

Post by bigiain »

XorNot wrote: post #48
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a lot of places drug enforcement is being deprioritized, for good reason. Of course then you run into all the problems with only enforcing against people someone doesn't like.

One of my rules for travel is don't go to places where the laws are basically selectively not enforced for the convenience of tourists.

I have a very similar rule, which is why I can no longer visit my family and friends in the US...

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#76

Post by rootusrootus »

bigiain wrote: post #66
pinkmuffinere wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your average NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL athletes are broke 5 years after they are out of the league. Fame, is mostly a curse. I'm not familiar with the financials of music / media production (I didn't read the linked article yet, sorry). But I feel this over-pitying attitude towards professional sports players is misplaced. They do often go broke after their career. That is sad. It is also completely avoidable with _very_…

You're right, of course. But often there are obvious and "easy" answers that are anything but easy for the person who needs those answers. "Just cheer up, depressed person!" "Just eat less and exercise more, fat person!" "Just stop shooting up, heroin addict!" "Don't accept generic lifestyle creep, pro athlete who's teammates are all living it up like they live in a gangsta rap music video!" I'm sure there are lots o…

> Just

I often think this is the biggest word in the English language.

Similar to how I think "might as well" may be the most expensive phrase.

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#77

Post by bigiain »

gishh wrote: post #37

> I’ve always wondered why someone else’s success triggers such rage and anger in certain people and I think it probably all boils down to the fact that the patriarchal society we unfortunately live in has successfully brainwashed us all. We are still trained to hate women, to hate ourselves and to be angry at women if they step out of the neat little box that public perception has put them in. I assume roughly half…

> I assume roughly half of pop stars are male, give or take.

I'd question that assumption. My gut feel says there are way more women pop stars?

I did a very quick bit of research, and maybe we're both wrong.

https://wealthygorilla.com/richest-singers-world/

Splits up as 31 men to 19 women on their top 50 richest singers list. So closer to 2/3rds men that half.

I did realise while counting, that my gut feel wouldn't have included a lot of those men as "pop stars", in retrospect probably because my interpretation of "pop music" leans heavily towards women, and rightly or wrongly I'd label at least half the men on that list as "rock stars" instead (and very few of the women).

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#78

Post by rubenvanwyk »

gishh wrote: post #37

> I’ve always wondered why someone else’s success triggers such rage and anger in certain people and I think it probably all boils down to the fact that the patriarchal society we unfortunately live in has successfully brainwashed us all. We are still trained to hate women, to hate ourselves and to be angry at women if they step out of the neat little box that public perception has put them in. I assume roughly half…

I also don’t understand why people don’t ascribe some inherently bad behaviours to human nature. Everyone knows people aren’t perfect, but somehow we have to blame some institutions or perceived societal phenomena instead of just acknowledging that we are, in our very nature, flawed - but capable of great change, and should just all endeavour to “be better”.

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#79

Post by cindyllm »

rubenvanwyk wrote: post #78
gishh wrote: post #37

> I’ve always wondered why someone else’s success triggers such rage and anger in certain people and I think it probably all boils down to the fact that the patriarchal society we unfortunately live in has successfully brainwashed us all. We are still trained to hate women, to hate ourselves and to be angry at women if they step out of the neat little box that public perception has put them in. I assume roughly half…

I also don’t understand why people don’t ascribe some inherently bad behaviours to human nature. Everyone knows people aren’t perfect, but somehow we have to blame some institutions or perceived societal phenomena instead of just acknowledging that we are, in our very nature, flawed - but capable of great change, and should just all endeavour to “be better”.

[dead]

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#80

Post by WalterBright »

dsr_ wrote: post #63
WalterBright wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon promises 10 revolutionary things and only delivers 9. Sheesh, what a loser!

Delivering 9 of 10 revolutionary things would, I agree, be amazing. However... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono... making 31 public predictions about his self-driving cars over 20 years and only being right about one of them is not so clever.

He's still the most successful businessman in history, by far. Pretty good for a loser.
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