The presence (or absence) of genius in a "famous" person is what is coming to mind as I read this.
I also had a thought, which is probably poorly formed - but it's something to do with causation. I hear what you say about social media stimulating a reduction of culture toward the quality of the dregs of a five day old ramen noodle soup. That said, I wonder if it's more symbiotic than that. For example, I know someone involved in the conceptualisation of the first BB and they believe ardently they were simply giving culture what they wanted. Likewise art - take Hirst for example - soulless, scratchy and mechanical - yet highly desired by our culture. We have all these interconnected systems - financial, technological, media, cultural, they've *simultaneously* fed off each other toward the dregs of the ramen noodle bowl. What's that all about?
I hadn't thought of it like that, but you're absolutely correct: it is - it must be - symbiotic. The problem is as much with what people want as it is with what we are getting. People desperately desired fame, so social media gave it to them. OK, I'll have to work this in somewhere, although it might have the consequence that there is no longer so much of an appetite for celebrity (as I have defined it), which is why it is dwindling in the shadow of mere fame.
Precisely yes. And I think maybe the way social media and other intergenerational changes which have amplified both the a) inner sensations of desire and b) the fallacy of instant gratification play very much into this symbiotic reductive revision.
The presence (or absence) of genius in a "famous" person is what is coming to mind as I read this.
I also had a thought, which is probably poorly formed - but it's something to do with causation. I hear what you say about social media stimulating a reduction of culture toward the quality of the dregs of a five day old ramen noodle soup. That said, I wonder if it's more symbiotic than that. For example, I know someone involved in the conceptualisation of the first BB and they believe ardently they were simply giving culture what they wanted. Likewise art - take Hirst for example - soulless, scratchy and mechanical - yet highly desired by our culture. We have all these interconnected systems - financial, technological, media, cultural, they've *simultaneously* fed off each other toward the dregs of the ramen noodle bowl. What's that all about?
I hadn't thought of it like that, but you're absolutely correct: it is - it must be - symbiotic. The problem is as much with what people want as it is with what we are getting. People desperately desired fame, so social media gave it to them. OK, I'll have to work this in somewhere, although it might have the consequence that there is no longer so much of an appetite for celebrity (as I have defined it), which is why it is dwindling in the shadow of mere fame.
Precisely yes. And I think maybe the way social media and other intergenerational changes which have amplified both the a) inner sensations of desire and b) the fallacy of instant gratification play very much into this symbiotic reductive revision.