Being almost famous apparently nothing like that movie, Almost Famous
Posted on 04. Aug, 2010 by Simon in Pop Culture
On top of starting social meme’s and, occasionally, being a musician, Kanye West has become Twitter’s newest most hilarious celebrity to follow. I mean, where else but @kanyewest can you view pictures of goblets, and crowns, and victorian dressers, and Persian rugs, and Chanel jackets, and read informative stream of consciousness including gem’s like: “Fur pillows are hard to actually sleep on”?
Amusingly, West has decided to follow one person: Steven Holmes, who according to the Atlantic is a 19 year old random internet stranger from Coventry, England, who has absolutely zero connection with Kanye West.
The reaction on Holmes’ twitter page quickly shoots down any cool factor you might thing this creates — he is clearly not amused by the attention being followed by Kanye West on twitter has foisted upon him.
Which, although superficially will be dismissed as just another funny, crazy thing insane Kanye West does amongst surely a hundred insane, crazy things he does every day, this one twitter friend is actually rather poignant.
I’m reminded of an interview Dave Chapelle did on Inside the Actors Studio where he rails on the Hollywood machine. He explains calmly that strong, independent, talented and perfectly intelligent individuals are chewed up and spit out by the cultural star makers every day and end up way worse for wear on the other side.
It’s easy for us to see TMZ or Gawker and conclude “what the hell is wrong with ” but Chappelle is as smart as dudes come in showbiz and Hollywood drove his ass to Africa for almost a year. We live in a culture where fame is the most valuable commodity — more than money or talent or brains. Whether fleeting or in the form of persistent notoriety, I’m pretty sure my generation and all below it are the first who prioritize being eventually famous for one reason or another (relatively speaking) as a life goal.
For some, this might even seem like a birth right.
But, as Steven Holmes shows us, even being followed by someone famous on twitter can be unbearably invasive and annoying. So I mean, yea, I still think Kanye West is batshit crazy. But you know — I’m not sure I didn’t make him that way.
shauna
Aug 5th, 2010
It’s funny that you wrote this post about kanye west and referenced dave chappelle because I was just saying to anupa that kanye’s twitter reminds me of that chappelle skit where he was a cribs baller and he kept ‘out-ballering’ himself with the most ridiculous things(cooking the dinosaur eggs lol) . Chappelle’s meditations on the perils of fame are always on point, like that one time he thanked Micheal Jackson for doing that to his face because he did it for us. His humor is so shakespearean in the way it’s so tragic and you’re not really sure who the joke is on. Genius. Anyway, great post.