Apparently even Andy Warhol eventually got tired of his breathtakingly prescient statement, “In the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes.” In 1979, in Andy Warhol’s Exposures, he said, “I’m bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is, ‘In 15 minutes everybody will be famous.’”
The twenty-first is shaping up to be Warhol’s century, just as the twentieth century was Freud’s. And sometimes it seems like every publishing house and TV production company is hell-bent on making Warhol’s wildest dreams come true, just for the sake of it.
Now Showcase TV, available on channel 181 from 12 March 2007, is offering members of the public – that’s you, me, your grandma and your neighbour’s cousin’s dog – the chance to appear on TV for 15 seconds, for the very reasonable sum of 25 pounds plus VAT. Here’s the pitch: “Aspiring actors, up-and-coming comedians, wannabe models and unsigned bands/singers with original material or in fact anyone will be able to showcase their talents or message and launch their careers on national TV. You never know this could be the start of a new career, or just a bit of fun, your five minutes of fame!” You can certainly dispute how much “fame” a person can get from a few seconds of exposure on an obscure satellite channel, but user-generated content is a success story that looks set to run and run.
Showcase TV’s concept isn’t especially revolutionary. It’s no different from the army of low-rent web celebrities (let’s call them cewebs) who have found fame and sometimes fortune by uploading videos on YouTube and MySpace. The difference is that Showcase TV will offer higher production values, enabling users to visit a real studio and watch themselves on real TV.
It’s a fascinating idea, and many media moguls will be eagerly tracing the station’s development. If it works, this could signal the beginning of a new, even cheaper era for reality TV, outstripping even those bargain basement Top 100 lists. But until Showcase takes off, YouTube will remain the original and best means of becoming a citizen celebrity. You don’t even need to be particularly good at anything: the unlikely list of ordinary folk who have found cewebrity on YouTube includes Peter the pensioner, who broadcasts rambling tales under the pseudonym Geriatric1927. His video blogs are gentle, conversational reflections on his past and his interest in motorcycles and blues music. Like much of YouTube’s content, their appeal seems to rest in their utter ordinariness. In a recent blog, Geriatric1927 reflects, “I think maybe you want to know what my life is like now I’ve received all this… fame, notoriety, attention or whatever it is… I think everybody knows I got all this attention not because anything I’ve done but because of my age, because I invaded this YouTube place and somebody in the media thought this was unusual in some way.” So, while YouTube blazes a trail into a brave new world of instant fame, it’s still up to the conventional media to decide who becomes a ‘real’ celebrity and who doesn’t. Proving the point YouTube is still a springboard, not an end in itself, several online stars have gone on to find success in traditional media outlets.
Last July, Brooke Brodack signed a contract with US TV svengali Carson Daly, and Andy Milonakis has already transferred his online sketches and comedy songs to a successful MTV show. Milonakis is a genuine talent in the Saturday Night Live mould, but Brooke’s future seems more uncertain – her kooky, amateurish style may not come across as well in the slicker atmosphere of TV. Overall, it remains to be seen if cult cewebrity can translate to mainstream celebrity. Arguably, MySpace-launched musicians like Lily Allen and Kate Nash would have found success even without using the web. They’re simply good artists who happen to have used MySpace as a starting point, and what really counts is the quality of their music.
Still, mainstream TV and film has something to learn from citizen celebrities. In the world of user-generated content, perfect beauties take second place to charming geeks; action heroes are less interesting than lonely old men, and ramshackle parodies are more touching than a thousand glossy Hollywood remakes of remakes. The celebrities created by YouTube and Showcase TV could bring a freshness and immediacy to mainstream media. They could inject some honesty into the dodgy dealings of the media circus, giving us idols we can actually identify with. Or, as we’ve found with Big Brother, ‘real people’ could simply become the same old kind of celebrities. Anyone can become famous for a few months or even a couple of years, but lasting fame still belongs to people who are especially talented, or funny, or beautiful, or downright weird. Where’s Maureen from Driving School now? What will become of poor old Jade Goody, when we get bored of repeatedly building her up and knocking her down?
If you were being kind, you could argue that the concept behind Showcase TV is that everyone is talented, everyone is beautiful, everyone is funny, everyone deserves their moment of glory. It displays either a refreshing anti-elitism or a depressing homogenization – take your pick. But if a mere 25 quid can buy a fragment of the glitz, a portion of the glamour of real celebrity, who’s to argue? The fact is that people have always wanted to be seen, to be noticed, to be admired; the only difference is that technology is finally keeping pace with our very human aspirations. There really is nothing new under the sun.
Katers17 has achieved a cult following through her somewhat ecclectic videos on YouTube – including this spoof of the Lara Croft Tombraider game.