In 1968, Andy Warhol wisecracked that in the future everyone would get their 15 minutes of fame. He did not say this would be a good thing. Nor did he say that everyone was entitled to, say, 16 minutes of fame. Fifteen minutes seemed like a nice round number -- but 15 was the absolute limit.You got onstage by doing something stupid or amusing or insolent that briefly tickled the public's fancy -- and then you got off stage. You were not Elvis Presley or Marilyn Monroe or Chairman Mao or anybody else that Andy Warhol silk-screened. And you knew it.
All in all, this was a very democratic arrangement that guaranteed everyone one, but only one, brief shining moment in the spotlight. If you blinked, you missed it.
Then things changed. Thanks to cable TV and the Internet, Warhol's formula went woefully awry. First came a wave of famous-for-nothing celebrities like LaToya Jackson, gold-diggers who lurked in the penumbra of fame, often accompanied by people named Tito. After that came bargain-basement reality TV "stars" like the cast of "Survivor" and "The Hills," whose principal claim to fame was that they consumed oxygen on a daily basis.
They were succeeded by Brand X plutocrats like Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, dysfunctional scionesses who didn't seem to understand that if you were already rich, being famous was not only redundant, but kind of tacky.
Most recently the floodgates have opened with a wave of high-octane riffraff, most of whom start out being loved and end up being hated, and never understand why. Octomom and her battalion of stunt tykes. Kate and Jon Gosselin and their luckless octet. The Heenes, proud parents of Balloon Boy. The White House gatecrashers.
In short, an army of scheming nonentities who would do anything to achieve fame, even if it scarred their children for life. But not for just a day, not for just a year, not for just 15 minutes, but for always.
Andy Warhol must be turning in his grave.
Before cable and the Net, ephemerally entertaining bozos like the Heenes and the White House gatecrashers quickly died a natural death. They strutted and fretted their quarter-of-an-hour upon the stage and then were heard no more.
For theirs was a tale told by an idiot, or, in the case of most celebrity journalists, numerous idiots. Their fame was built on sand. No one remembers the names of any of the "famous" streakers of the seventies. No one remembers the names of any "famous" pranksters. No one remembers Fab Morvan, even if he was one-half of Milli Vanilli. Quick, who was the other half?