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I Want to Be Famous: When Everybody and Nobody Is a Celebrity

by Bobby Finger

Fame in the age of everyone being visible

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AlbakiReads Editorial

Fame in the age of everyone being visible

Bobby Finger examines the pull of celebrity in a digital culture where visibility is widespread but recognition is uneven. The book organizes its subject around two labels—“Whos” and “Thems”—to consider how people sort the familiar from the unfamiliar, and how the desire for public attention can feel both appealing and awkward. Its subject is not only who becomes famous, but the categories and judgments people use to make sense of fame now.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • For readers interested in celebrity and popular culture.
  • For listeners or followers of the Who? Weekly podcast and its cultural subject matter.
  • For readers curious about how digital visibility shapes ideas of fame.

Themes

Celebrity and fameDigital culturePublic attentionCultural categorization

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

A sharp, funny examination of fame in the digital era and what makes our hunger for it equally alluring and embarrassing--from the podcasters behind Who? Weekly

"Nothing short of a modern soliloquy on what it means to seek the gaze of the masses. Come for the laughs and incredible cultural deep cuts, stay for the exegesis on how we wound up . . . here."--Lena Dunham, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Famesick

While being photographed in 1966, Warhol reportedly said, "Everyone wants to be famous." (To which his photographer Nat Finkelstein responded, "Yeah, for about fifteen minutes, Andy.") Warhol was right then, and he's right now. Fifteen minutes be damned, all you need is the drive--or desperation--and a singular spark. But if you're not careful, you'll end up a Who.

Who is a Who? In I Want to Be Famous, Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber, the journalists behind the pop culture podcast Who? Weekly, distill celebrity into two categories--Whos and Thems--transcending the snarky, antiquated judgment of the "A-listers" to "D-listers." If you come across an allegedly famous face you've never seen before and are compelled to utter "Who?", well, there's your answer. (Can you picture Rita Ora, Ava Max, or Hilaria Baldwin without googling them?) If the subject elicits something along the lines of, "Oh, Them," there you've found the opposite (Beyonc
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