Years ago, I had an idea for a tag line to be associated with a media series: "Will Blog For Food." Someoone suggested that it was over the top, and we dropped it from the discussion, I guess because it implicitly suggests that homelessness is a state to poke fun at.
But I still want the T shirt for the non-existent conference, with that tag line emblazoned on it. Maybe I will make up a spoof site for the conference:
Unmedia: Will Blog For Food
So many folks have been commenting recently about the pain and suffering of despondent wannabe-famous bloggers, embittered by electronically scribbling hundreds of posts and acquiring little recognition. Nick Carr's recent post that touches on this (The Great Unread), explicit mentioning Kent Newsome and Seth Finkelstein as two of the bloggerati in question.
I wrote a longish piece trying to balance the various threads (like Arrington's, that suggested Nick was an asshole, and Shel Israel's uncivil request that Nick quit blogging), but I didn't really dig into the motivations of these striving, but unloved, writers.
In today's New York Times, I stumbled onto what may turn out to be the wellspring of their discontent: the aspiration to fame.
[from The Fame Motive by Benedict Carey]For most of its existence, the field of psychology has ignored fame as a primary motivator of human behavior: it was considered too shallow, too culturally variable, too often mingled with other motives to be taken seriously. But in recent years, a small number of social scientists have begun to study and think about fame in a different way, ranking it with other goals, measuring its psychological effects, characterizing its devoted seekers.
People with an overriding desire to be widely known to strangers are different from those who primarily covet wealth and influence. Their fame-seeking behavior appears rooted in a desire for social acceptance, a longing for the existential reassurance promised by wide renown.
These yearnings can become more acute in life’s later years, as the opportunities for fame dwindle, “but the motive never dies, and when we realize we’re not going to make it in this lifetime, we find some other route: posthumous fame,” said Orville Gilbert Brim, a psychologist who is completing a book called “The Fame Motive.” The book is based on data he has gathered and analyzed, with the support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
“It’s like belief in the afterlife in medieval communities, where people couldn’t wait to die and go on to better life,” Dr. Brim said. “That’s how strong it is.”
[...]
Yet for all the dreamers, only one or two in 100 rate fame as their most coveted goal, trumping all others, the data collected by Dr. Brim and others show.
“It’s a distinct type, people who expect to get meaning out of fame, who believe the only way to have their lives make sense is to be famous,” said Tim Kasser, a psychologist at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. “We all need to make meaning out of our lives, and this is one way people attempt to do it.”
Therapists and researchers, including Dr. Brim, have traced longing for renown to lingering feelings of rejection or neglect. After all, celebrity is the ultimate high school in-group, writ large. It appears a perfect balm for the sting of social exclusion, or neglect by emotionally or physically absent parents.
So, at it's core, this desire to be appreciated for all the hours spent type, type, typing may be totally natural, but a primary driver for only a few percent of the population. Others may desire money, or power, but this small fraction -- perhaps amounting to 5 million Americans, more or less -- wants to be famous. Obviously, some of them are famous, but most are not.
I wonder what proportion of those 5 million are blogging? Toilng in obscurity, hoping that comments and links will start to appear? Dreaming the clear blue tech dream of TechCrunch-hood, the glorious take-off of Dooce, or the media acclaim of Wonkette?
And why not? We can dream, can't we?
But the inevitable bitterness of constantly being ignored takes it's toll, though, as weeks turn into months, months into years, and acclaim and widespread renown eludes most bloggers. If your goal is fame, the secondary benefits of self-awareness, online community (in the small), and even financial benefits from blogging are no substitute.
Those that seek fame and fail may feel disconnected and alienated, much like high school students that want to be in the in crowd and are not accepted. Don't get me wrong: I am not making light of either teenager angst or belittling the grown-up blogger's desire to achieve prominence. I am simply pointing out that their may be a great similarity involved.
And, of course, the A-listers may act (or appear to act) much like the in-crowd at high school. They may take little notice of the strivings of those who desperately want in, except to occasionally laugh at their fruitless efforts to be popular, or to deny that there is an "in crowd" at all.
These archetypes are perhaps wired into us. Perhaps we cannot escape the biological soup boiling within us. Blogging is just another element of social interaction, and the same stresses and desires motivate us in this tableau just like any other.
I hold out no simplifying insight, no zen illumination to make this all go away. The crowd -- occasionally wise, but always judging -- collectively decides who to look at, to listen to, to pay attention to. And some play to the crowd, trying to grab that attention, and hold onto it. Some succeed. There is a scissors-like inner logic to this, and the outcomes are decidely not equal to merit, effort, or wants. But a statement that sounds like a poet explaining choas theory is unlikely to comfort those that feel shorted by a capricious and uncaring law of the universe. And those that have achieved fame will always want to believe it is by their own merits, not because the whole lunchroom is rubbernecking at the guy with the loudest voice sitting with the cheerleaders.
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