Have you had your 15 minutes of fame?

[BlissfullyCurSed]

I haven't had mine yet. I'm still waiting for it.😔😔

Yeah... I have.🤩🤩🤩

I am a five-star celebrity, hun. I had more than 15 minutes.😎😎😎

No. Not yet!😔😔😔

[abc3643]

Sort of.

I was associated with the top story of a local news broadcast in June 2009.

At the time, President Biden was President Obama's Vice-President and he was going around the country promoting the recovery plan to the Great Recession.

However, I had just lost my job so I had time on my hands and got in line early to see him speak at a local high school. The TV crews were there and one guy from the local ABC station saw me as a ripe target for the demographic they wanted. (I was a 45-year-old white male who just lost his job.)

So, they interviewed me before Biden's talk. During the talk, they filmed Biden but also, I did not know this at the time, they filmed me in the audience listening intently to Biden. Once the talk was over (and after I shaked Biden's hand telling him to run for Prez in 2016), I came outside and was again interviewed on my thoughts about Biden's speech.

Lo and behold, I turn on that TV station at the 5PM and 6 PM newscast and the lead story is Biden (that was obvious it would be) but also me. Had I known I was going to be on TV seen by about 250,000 of my neighbors, I would have dressed better... Maybe because I looked like a regular somewhat down-and-out guy, they saw me as ripe for their story.

[abc3643]

* I was 46, not 45.

[BlissfullyCurSed]

Celebrity of the neighbourhood.. huh?🤣🤣

[abc3643]

Not really. I only talked to my wife about it and maybe shared it on Facebook.
Nobody I knew called me up and said "Hey, I just saw you on Channel 10!"

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Something to the effect although I hated it. I much prefer keeping a low profile.

I found in my 20s when I had whatever slight semblance of being a celebrity and doing interviews about my work, I didn't have the strength of character to ignore the most negative and counter-productive of criticisms.

I'd work on a product that'd get a 9/10 rating and still obsessively get hung up and depressed by the reviews with the lowest scores, taking it personally whenever my name was involved in the negative reviews.

It suits me much better these days to stay out of the limelight and keep my personal life very separate from my work.

[BlissfullyCurSed]

Woahh... were you an Idol in 20s? 😆😆 That was the first thing that came to my mind.

[BlissfullyCurSed]

*your 20s

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Also negatively impacted my work trying to please everybody. I think for people in the limelight, you have to really know your target demographic to know who to listen to and who is outside that target.

If I use a blatant example, if you open up a burger joint and you have customers who hate burgers and fries and want salads (say vegan customers), and you're at least a borderline people-pleaser like me, you try to make even those customers happy at the cost of making your target demographic less happy because now you're diverging resources away from what makes your target demographic happier to please people outside that target.

I've found I have that kind of character weakness when I'm in the limelight. I try to please everybody and trying to please everybody is generally a path towards pleasing nobody.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

* diverting

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Not an idol by any stretch and only known in name in my little nerdy industry. I was a software developer who gained some popularity in the film industry.

It was a weird case but I published some work in uni that ended up becoming extremely popular. Then my first company that hired me actually started broadcasting my name with the product, using my name as a form of marketing in itself.

It really didn't suit my character as a type who just enjoys sitting in a corner and focusing on my work to receive all this attention.

[BlissfullyCurSed]

I think it is more impressive than being an idol lolol. It means you are smart enough to develop a software🤣🤣

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Cheers! If I did my life all over again, I would have gone by a business name even with the work I published in uni. I think that would have helped me develop a personal detachment if I went by another name in my personal life from a business name in my business life. I never anticipated that it would blow up that way. The company even made a huge deal when they hired me, making a press release including my name.

It's all very isolated to a very nerdy and technical section of the film industry. I published freeware software and associated source code for an algorithm which started to become widely used by visual effects artists in films like Pirates of the Caribbean and The Lord of the Rings.

[BlissfullyCurSed]

🙄🙄🙄

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Relatively quite absent in scandal and dull in my case. 😅 Yet that's how I ended up receiving way more attention for my work than I ever anticipated or truly wanted.

Also my work took me to Hollywood where I got to work with some real celebrities (actors and directors). I no longer envy them at all. It's actually a nightmare in my opinion since any little thing we do wrong can become quite damning.

[rachel776]

i'm famous in my world but no one would recognize me in public

[Somoneelse]

I'm not sure if I had mine. I've had some nice achievements in my life; being a product ambassador for a phone brand, cameraman+editor for a populair youtuber/tiktokker + having my own little fanbase within that fanbase and being friends with two big/succesfull influencers. But I also feel like I still haven't had my own "moment" yet. I'm am working to my goals and believe my time still has yet to come. maybe I will have my "15 minutes of fame" in my future. For now I'm developing myself, trying to achieve my best potentional and learning a lot.

But I also notice while being cameraman+editor for that youtuber/tiktokker how annoying being populair in your region can be. Sometimes I meet up with them to shoot, and underage fans kept following us till the point where we couldn't even do groceries without kids/fans following us and asking them for pictures. But maybe thats the issue when your tiktok/youtube fanbase is mostly underage kids from 10 till around 20 years old. They even sometimes have kids knocking at their door for pictures with them.

[Somoneelse]

Forgot to mention, in my country most youtubers/smaller business/freelancers are forced to sign up at the business-registration organisation from our government (kamer van koophandel) to recieve a official business-ID. But with that ID, people can also find your contactinfo like phonenumber, adres etc. Which is a big problem for freelancers and youtubers when their place of business is also their home-adress.

[BlissfullyCurSed]

We are planning to switch to that kind of system in Turkey as well. There are some youtubers who are accused of embezzlement, so our government needs to draw some boundaries.

[Lliam]

In high school I was really popular as lead guitarist and vocalist in (garage) rock bands. We played lots of parties and I was even known by kids from other schools.
I continued to play through my 20s and my popularity carried through.

I started up again in my earlyish 50s after my wife and I moved and played quite a few gigs in front of as many as a couple hundred people. At that point, I played various kinds of music and even did a set of pub songs every year at a large, annual Irish Ceilidh. But I also had my own rock band for about 10 or 12 years, and played a few local gigs until the covid mandates shut everything down.

So music gave me moments of minor fame. It was never on a grand scale, but it sure was fun.

[FunkyMonkee]

I guess so, I've done the first live internet broadcast with my band, we've done a few live radio broadcasts, my band has 2 albums out, I've got a comedy single, I've been interviewed twice in the local paper, I had my own article in the college newspaper, I've done a little stage work with a local magician, I helped him put his t. v. show together and helped edit another t. v. show for someone else, I've helped 5 people write books and I've done voice acting in two movies, hoping to do more, soon. There might be a few other things I just don't recall at the moment.

[IslaTheWitch]

I haven't, and I don't crave it...

But I feel like that every time any of my mentees secures a stable job after months of putting effort into learning... The best feeling ever, even if I don't stay in the spotlight.

It's enough to know, I helped and made some positive impact. It's my 5 minutes of fame :)

[ArrowheadSW]

LOL I grad school, I spontaneously cracked a joke at a question that the teacher had asked the class. It flew well with the class and it wasn't something that would insult the teacher at all. It "put me on the map" with the class. LOL

[Sonorous]

Yeah & I don't prefer it tbh. It did pay well though.

[BlissfullyCurSed]

you're already a celebrity on GAG. 😆😆

[Sonorous]

Not even close 🤣

[BlissfullyCurSed]

said, the I-N-F-L-U-E-N-C-E-R!

[Sonorous]

They probably regrettin that choice with some of the stuff I say in here 🤣

[BlissfullyCurSed]

Having taken the long list of cancelled influencers... no, dude, you just lived up to your status.👁👄👁

[BlissfullyCurSed]

*into consideration

[Sonorous]

🤣 okay true true

[Sour-rose]

O yeah, i mean... it was a hell of a time for me to be a hero to another. It was after eating a whole pizza and found that phone in the bathroom. For like maybe 15 minutes I was a hero to a lady to get her phone back. It was great. :D

[ChicoFromThe305]

I don't want fame, you lose a lot of privacy with fame, then there's no going back if you get tired of people being on your ass 24/7

[JacobJordan]

Have no interest in fame, celebrity status, or other popular public figure moniker.

[whereismyjohnny]

No, and I don't want it. 😆

[BlissfullyCurSed]

[CuriousMufuxka]

I have enjoyed decades of obscurity!

[BlissfullyCurSed]

You'll be an international meme as big as "it's corn" soon!

[CuriousMufuxka]

I'll never become the CorniousMufucka!

[rosemilk]

nah and i don't want it

[Paris13]

lol And Then Some... xxoo

[exitseven]

No, and not sure I want to

[NathanDavis]

no thanks

[Anonymous]

Not yet

[BlissfullyCurSed]

One day... you'll be a star anonymoussy. I believe in you, we all believe in you🙂🙂!