Everyone Is Microdosing Fame

Internet Nostalgia is a monthly column that explores eras of the world wide web and the way they impacted our day-to-day lives, psychology, and overall perceptions of the world around us.

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We watch Instagram stories every night like it’s a Broadway play with no intermissions. We throw roses onto the stage with a simple heart emoji. Are we all celebrities in our own right? And if all of us are, are any of us?

Where did all this talk of fame start? To answer that, we shockingly have to go back to Alexander the Great (born 356 BCE), who was able to garner worldwide fame in the days when sending a message required a 12-year-old kid on a horse with a dream. Now, sending a message is as easy as clicking a button, so easy that a 9-year-old kid with a dream can do it while riding a horse.

Fame used to be reserved for warriors, royalty, and criminals. People who made such a fundamental change in the world they surrounded others had to know their names. Then came television and film, and fame begot whoever the hottest person on the screen was, which was a much-needed turn. Imagine only following Vlad Zelinsky and the King of England on Instagram. So boring.

With the advent of media, fame was still scarce and reserved for a select few. If you had dreams of acting, you had to be in Hollywood and go through the vicious, tumultuous process of studying, preparing, and auditioning. Or have Hitchcock as your father. You had to prove yourself to be in one of the handful of movies filmed that year. You couldn’t just… film yourself and show a bunch of people. That would be expensive, ridiculous, and frankly impossible!

The Internet changed that. It became the great equalizer, allowing us to showcase everyone around the world and uplift voices we never would have heard before. People quickly created websites where we could write our opinions, like online forums. Certain users who posted enough clever thoughts would garner a quasi-micro fame inside the forums.

A real, visible source of online fame came from Youtube, the seemingly meritocratic platform where anyone could upload a video. If it was funny, smart, or educational enough, it could get views. Anyone could upload, but it wasn’t that simple. You had to own a camera. You had to have editing software. You had to have free time.

Yet dedicated and eager people learned the ropes and uploaded their videos. Creators made comedy sketches, vacation vlogs, silly characters, prank videos. ANYTHING.

Once a creator had a viral video, fame wasn’t as accessible as now. They couldn’t contact their audience in seconds or capitalize on the money immediately. They had to keep working, posting videos, gain a cult following, and a year later, create a merch store of t-shirts with a horribly designed logo. I’m looking at you, Fred. It’s all they could do! Money from YouTube ads was terrible, and advertisers weren’t taking online creators seriously, so most YouTube stars eventually fizzled out. Supermac18, a massively popular silly creator, now works as a tax associate, which is absolutely FINE (because I badly need someone to do my taxes). But I know if he found fame on TikTok instead of YouTube in 2009, he would still be a creator today. They were in the right place at the wrong time.

Now, TikTok, Instagram, and iPhones are democratizing fame right before our eyes. 90% of Americans own iPhones. iPhones allow us to have the highest quality cameras with a lightning upload speed. There is no longer a need for clunky DSLRs and Adobe Premiere to upload a video. And the overconsumption of social media has given people a reason to post, a plethora of ideas, and sponsorship opportunities at the ready.

When the pandemic hit, we saw a tsunami-sized wave of people with loads of free time, an iPhone, and no job. What can you do with that? Become a creator. People you would have never guessed started documenting their lives. That girl who bullied you in middle school? She’s now a fitness influencer who makes more money than you. That hot barista at your local coffee shop? He has 100K TikTok followers because, well, he’s hot and a barista.

Oh no, the hot barista quit his barista job because guess what? Creators can create and be self-sufficient. TikTok has a built-in sponsorship marketplace for creators to use. So, unlike the old days of YouTube, where money was scarce, companies are now chomping to get a famous TikToker to feature their brand. The more users saw the ability to make money from content creation; the more users tried to become a creator, thus the rise of the creator economy.

The standard of fame-generating content creation is much higher now than during the YouTube days. Since pretty much everyone, even us “normal” folk, posts about our lives with aesthetic photos/images, creators must go above and beyond to stand out. They have to find a niche and drive it home to get an audience. And to keep that audience engaged, they have to post unique content multiple times a day. Fame is as quick and easy to get as it is to lose.

In BCE times, there were clear divides between a celebrity and the lay people. Now, the definition of celebrity is blurred. To my friend Lexi, a celebrity is a guy who makes pottery on TikTok for his 1M followers. To me, a celebrity is any blonde woman with a small dog in her purse. Everyone is microdosing fame to try and feel any ounce of what it’s like. They are desperate for an audience, even if the audience is just an old friend responding to their Instagram story asking how they are.