15 Minutes of Fame 7/30

1.

Some years ago some sociopath named Andy Warhol

said that in the future everyone will have 15 minutes of fame

and people saw that and said

‘Well, this asshole that paints soup cans is super famous

so he should know’

And people started repeating it as fact

as if there were some irreproachable quality to the

soup can man

but really, everybody wanted to believe it so hard

they tried to make it true.

There are are 7 billion people in the world

If everybody got 15 minute of fame

just with the people who are alive today

it would take

199,771.7 years

2.

So maybe ’15 minutes of fame’

is a metaphor

So how does that metaphor function?

It says that you will eventually

reap some reward

for your aspirational toils

at some point

over the course of 200,000 years

It’s a mollifying metaphor

meant to pacify discontent

at the fuckery in the world

3.

How to comport oneself in a celebrity fashion:

buy the right things

look the right way

don’t say anything controversial unless it serves a particular PR aim

don’t indulge a radical politic

maintain an aura of perfection, regardless of what a vile beast you are.

4.

the promise of fame

self regulates the public

and we all want it so bad

and we’re almost there

we’re so close to our fates

so close

So long as all our content

strives for a banality

which challenges nothing

and says even less

we may just get there one day