Baby remember my name...

Fame is very fickle. You see people wanting it so much that they'll do anything for it, like take their clothes off, or betray friends, or embarass themselves and their families. Fame doesn't last long, it is notoriously ephemeral, 15 minutes, as Andy Warhol said. It is invasive, people change, they become protective, or voyeuristic, or downright criminal. Why are we so obsessed with it? Since when did celebrity culture take over our lives?

I don't want to be famous. I harbour no desire to see my picture in the papers or read about my latest exploits in magazines. But then conversely i do want to be remembered. I know you can be remembered by friends and family, but i want to leave a mark on this world. Not for being salacious, or scandalous, but for doing, well, something. I don't know exactly what, yet. Maybe writing. Who knows? 

And then this interest of mine with fashion prompts me to think that maybe i will get involved in that industry, writing for a magazine or something, and i will have to deal with fame. Lots of editors and writers manage to deal with it with the utmost class, like Emmanuelle Alt from Paris Vogue, for example, or even the dreaded Anna Wintour. 

It's always odd to contrast these feelings of mine to some of the people i admire in the celebrity world. Alexa Chung, who always comes across as witty and clever in television interviews notoriously seems arrogant and pretentious in written ones. She just gives off this vibe of loving being a celebrity and being known. Similarly with Agyness Deyn, who i think is a good model (if not great) and definitely loving being a celebrity. Or the geldof sisters, who i know take some delight in being photographed. As the saying goes, all of these girls would go to the opening of an envelope for the free booze and the chance to be photographed. 

What does that lead to? Well it leads me to wonder whether this whole obsession with celebrity culture has meant that our generation's celebrities, as it were, the geldof girls and the chungs of the world, are more into celebrity than those before. You always here our parent's generation of celebrities complaining about the papparazzi interest and input into their lives. Our generation doesn't complain, but accepts it as a fact of their famous life... but i think they secretly (or not so secretly) love it. The stupid poses they often do for the camera, the playing up for the papers, the 'rebellious' antics... I don't know anymore. 

And with the numbers of young stars in rehab on the rise, perhaps it would bode well to remember that fame is never all its cracked up to be. 

pixie geldof escaping the paparazzi with a smile at london fashion week. this photo pretty much sums it up, i reckon. 

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