1st Degree Celebrity

As discussed in class, there are a number of different varieties and degrees of "celebrity". In today's society, the word "celebrity" covers a scale much larger than it did 20 years ago. In my opinion, we can thank the great and mighty Internet for that. With the enormous boom of popularity and prominence over the last few decades, the Internet has created new forms of stardom and celebrity-esque status. Viral videos allow people to put their "fame fate" in their own hands. "YouTube Sensation" has become a well-known term in our society. YouTube allows you to upload a video of yourself doing almost anything, and if America likes it, a few million hits later you're on the Ellen Show. We even have TV shows that are directly based on viral videos, like Ridiculousness and Tosh.0. It's clear that we as Americans surely enjoy our 15 minutes of fame. So without the Internet and all of its capabilities, I don't think there would be so many variations of "celebrity". I think it would take more effort to become noticed, and much harder work to achieve global "celebrity status". I think that over the years the general idea of being a celebrity has weakened, and that is why so many different categories exist today. If we put Denzel Washington, Paris Hilton and William Hung all in the general category of "celebrity", someone is bound to be insulted...