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PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT:
HOW TO BECOME FAMOUS. |
D.R.
Jeffries St. Louis,
MO |
Obviously if you become the first person to do something cool, you get to be famous for it. The Guiness Book of Records is the gold standard for getting famous for doing something better, longer, faster, or earlier than anybody else on the planet. But doing stuff that is already in the Giness Book is all hard and stuff, because you have to take the time to aquire a skill.
So the next best thing is to pick something that is NOT in the Guiness Book and try to get it in there. That's where reall imagination and creativity come in.
The main thing to consider in taking that route is how news worthy the World Record Is that you intend to set.
For example, there is a Guiness Record for most number of hot dogs consumed during a given time frame. You can imagine how fall down funny that contest would be to watch. Naturally it takes place every year at Coney Island. So the location of you World Record attempt will play an important part in their consideration to include your event in their book.
The great thing about getting in the Guiness Book is that every year you get to defend your title, so you get to crank up your fame machine all over again, year, after year, after year. |
FEEDBACK:
Being the first to do something. Trying something new in a conservative setting counts and has become popular lately. In other words, it only needs to be perceived as first. Roger Bannister was the first person to break the 4 minute mile in 1954 and many people still recognize his name.VJ, Denver, CO
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A.J.
Jonas
Long Beach,
CA
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I'm not one of your experts, but I do know what makes people in Hollywood famous because i work in Hollywood. I work for a guy who caters parties for Vogue Magazine Editor
Anna Wintour. This lady is like the Queen Bee Diva of the hi-glam A Group that dominates the various celebrity networks that travel between LA, NY, London and Aspen.
The key is to get hooked into one of those C-Nets in any way possible. But first you have to decide what you want to be famous for. Designer, artist, fitness trainer, bodyguard, you decide.
The celebrity network reinforces itself and its exclusivity. Everyone stays friends with the same people and the gang of beautiful people moves from event to event together--no outsiders allowed.
To get into these networks it is important to know who the players are. Five of the most important people in the Vogue social network are my boss's main man Andre Leon Talley, Fashion Week organizer Fern Mallis, top-ranked fashion stylist Phillip Bloch, InStyle's editor-in-chief Hal Rubenstein, and socialite Tinsley Mortimer.
These people have the most connections with the most connected people, which means they attend all the right events and get photographed with the most social of social butterflies.
If you want to break into the rag trade you need to look up these people on Google and start building a file on each and every one of them. Stalk them if you have to. Track them like the rare birds they are. Just being photographed talking to Mr. Talley can make a designer over-night. Being famous is all about being at the right place at the right time with the right stuff.
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FEEDBACK: I read that between March 2006-2007, Ms. Wintour attended 57 events around the world at which she was photographed. This is not a large number, considering Paris Hilton was photographed at approximately 2000 events and Penelope Cruz at more than 1700. And an "event" can be the Costume Institute Benefit and it can also be a boutique opening. Either way, Hilton and Cruz are far more social and out and about than Wintour. J.U. Hollywood, CA
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A.P.
Zeban
NYC,
NY |
The nature of fame has obviously changed quite a bit since Andy Warhol promised that in the future everybody would be famous for 15 minutes. Now, given the nature of the Internet, our fame, once achieved can stay around for decades.
Nobody ever seems to throw anything away on the Internet. So videos on YouTube just keep playing and playing until they reach millions and millions of viewers. Blog postings get picked up by search engines, RSS reader/feeds and web bots and blasted to hundreds and even thousands of other media outlets.
And as more and more data becomes searchable we will be able to see ourselves progress from our High School days on MySpace to our undergrad life on FaceBook to our freshman career days on YouTube and communicate more about ourselves than anyone should safely know.
And that 15 minutes will drop to 15 seconds and then begin to rise to 15 years and ulitmately 15 centuries.
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| FEEDBACK: Realize that this type of fame will last more than 15 minutes. It will last longer than even you last. Your name will forever be on the Internet. UJ, NYC,NY |
K.S.
Felton
Austin,
TX
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There are many ways to become famous in the entertainment world. But that fame can be short-lived. There are bigger stakes to be had in the professional worlds. Consider architecture or industrial design, for instance. Or the world of academia. Here are the five easy steps:
* Have rich grandparents. First-generation wealth won't work. The vulgarity of cash must transcend into class. A transformation that takes at least two generations. You must first have class, then your parents will happily indulge you so that you can...
* Study at the right school, such as the Harvard, Princeton or Yale, where you will...
* Refine the exquisite tastes and habits that will mark you forever as one of the culturati, so that your parent's connections will enable you to...
* Get into the most-talked about practices, studios, firms, so that your boss can then use his connections so that you can...
* Meet the right critics, authorities, patrons who will talk about you, entertain you and publish your drawings, commentary, opinions that no one dares to dispute, so that you can...
* Return to teach at the Ivy League school that taught you. There you can earn a living with minimal effort, since your own half-baked works will be the ready-made basis of all your courses. So that the school can...
Publish this drivel and send your speaking career skyward to the point of speaking on Oprah and the Today show and being quoted in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, so that...
Rich parents and friends will help you tide over the lean years (which can stretch into decades) while you wait for your first political appointment or cabinate post..
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FEEDBACK: This is hilarious, but so, so true. Especially in the Arts. Fame has a direct effect on the selling price of a particular artists work and so many times that fame is totally manufactured or fabicated based upon pedigree.
RP, Scottsdale, AZ
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EXPERT OPINIONS |
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In these days of flat world thinking you can use the web |
| to make yourself famous on the other side of the world. All it takes is a YouTube.com ( Or Tudou, the Chinese equivelent) account, a fairly good video camera and wicked sense of humor
Oh yes. And the ability to lip sinc in Mandarin Chinese, Farsi, or Hindi.
That's right. Lipsinc a music video in a major foreign language while looking like you came streight out of Compton or Westchester and you are headed for instant fame in the so-called Third World.
Chinese-speaking American rock singers like
Backdorm Boys
and
Monkey Majik
and soloists like Dashan are making bank in the Middle Kingdom with their Chinese Pop Songs that are being downloaded by the millions at a dollar a pop. In India
Salsa Mumbai has a hot song in the India Top 20. Cross cultural video music is the fastest way to get a huge audience in a place you may never visit. If you can turn your fame into game by building an eCommrce web site you may be able to turn it into a world tour.
Jan Wilson-Chang
Music Programmer
San Francisco, CA |
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True fame is the by product of word-of-mouth. This is a simple |
fact of life. If just one person tells two other people, and those two people tell two more, and this replication occurs successfully, it would only take 32 repetitions to cover the population of the world.
Which means that the key to making something famous, like this web site for instance, would be to incentivise sets of friends to pass on the url to sets of their friends along with what ever the incentive to keep it going might be.
Usually the best incentives are entertainment. "You just gotta see this man. You won't believe your eyes," is probably the most powerful 11 words on the Internet.
Especially if whatever is being touted lives up to it's expectations, like the Diet Coke/ Mentos video or the Say What treadmill video. The trick is to be totally connected with whatever the "unbelieveable" event might be. Or else the entire exercise is in vain.
Nobody remembers who did Diet Coke and Mentos but everybody remembers what two elements were cobined to make it worth watching.
Fame is a fickle master to serve. You have to get it right the first time for the fame to last.
Dan Spivak
Advertising Executive
Pittsburgh, PA
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There are other ways to become famous rather than being very |
| good at something. You can be very BAD at something.
Take William Hung for example. Or the book, "The Satanic Verses" about got author Salman Rushdie killed; he had several death threats for his book. His book was so controversial that it became a best seller and made millions.
"Body Worlds" created by Dr. Gunther von Hagens, a science display of real human bodies for public view using method he invented called "Plastination". His displays travel the world, many people want them banded because he is using real bodies for this exhibit.
What about photographer Spencer Tunick who is famous for getting a crowd of hundreds of people to go nude in public in various locations around the world posing them in a photographic display of art?
Consider the path less taken. The path that cuts across the accepted boundries of taste and good manners. Fame is its own reward and how you get there may not be as important as having arrived. To wit, I offer the following advice:
1. Don't try to be popular - take a look at the most popular people in your industry, chances are they didn't try to become popular intentionally. The people who usually try too hard don't become popular.
2. Be yourself - the most important part about creating your personal brand is that it represents you. If people don't like who you are or if they have a problem with you, then that is their problem and not yours.
3. Speak your mind - whether you are known to say stupid remarks or the wisest ones, don't be shy. If you have something to say then open your mouth and talk instead of sitting in the sidelines while everyone else is passing you by.
4. Don't follow the norm - people who blend in are the ones who usually don't become well branded or famous. I know this may contradict with point number 2, but you have to differentiate yourself from the norm if you want to succeed.
Ruth Ann Rockwell
Publicist
Beverly Hills, CA
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The internet affords the most cost effective ways of creating |
| fame ever devised. Not just because there are millions upon millions of users ust looking for something new to discover and share with their friends, but because the technological advances of Web 2.0 offer a ready-made launching pad for anyone enterprising enough to avail themselves of the opportunity.
I Start with your own blog, so that you can post information about you, your talent, quality photos and video clips, build up a fan base via email lists, and maybe provide a way to sell promotional items with your name, image or logo.
2.
Next step is to get an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed associated with your blog, so you can promote your feed address to sites like FeedBurner and get Download RSS Submit - submit your RSS feeds to over 65 sites with one click!. Using a RSS Syndication tool such as Blogrush.com can also improve your readership and public awareness too.
Be creative and promote yourself like crazy. Doing one thing per day, will increase your name recognition and in no time, you will have the break you need to exponentially grow your name recognition.
3.
Even if you don't have a website, you will definitely want to create periodic press releases designed to promote your presence somewhere, or some achievement you have received. If you don't know where to start, you can get a custom press release for $97 from Custom Press Release.com. Custom Press Release also has several options for local and national distribution or sign up at PR.com for a quick and convenient Press Release mechanism.
4.
Likewise, you can write articles or other items of news about yourself, your company or your products and submit them to places like Ezine Articles, GoArticles, Yahoo's Article Announce, Article Central
OK, you have a lot of homework to do, but you will certainly be able to get it all done if you just set each task up as a step in your ladder to success.
Dexter Davison
Web Consultant
New Orleans, LA
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David Swann
Art Director
Fantazzzmia
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I came across this post on a the nyu journalism site from a student named Tracy Steele. It's pretty cool.
Just a few months ago, David Lehre, 21, was an aspiring filmmaker and completely unknown. Now, thanks to MySpace, the networking site that has exploded in popularity with people ages 15-29 since its debut just two years ago, Lehre's film career has gotten a surreal jumpstart.
He shot an 11-minute parody of the website "MySpace: The Movie" in his hometown in Washington, Mich., where he lives with his parents. MySpace has been the victim of many spoofs already, but Lehre's short caught on--it has already been viewed 6 million times on the internet. This resulted in a development deal offer from MTVU, contact from Hollywood managers and a complimentary e-mail from MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson.
Lehre's film portrays humor that only this generation could appreciate and understand. It covers all the MySpace clichés and inside jokes, from those chain letter bulletin posts, to unattractive girls with "the angles," or deceptively flattering photos that do not show their faces very clearly.
MySpace has done for Lehre what it has already done for numerous indie bands. It gives the artists of our generation a chance to express themselves and share their ideas with an infinite online community, and even get a little promotion in the process. Never before has any type of alternative media like this been able to get such exposure. It seems sites like MySpace have become a fast track to fame, cutting out production costs and marketing middlemen, while providing a worldwide audience. The talents and humor of our peers are now more accessible and have more possibility to receive recognition across the globe. And you thought MySpace was just a dating site. |
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