Living in public view

It used to be that only movie stars and popular musicians had to deal with living in public view. You had to be famous enough to be followed by paparazzi. Now we live in an age where everyone has views and followers.

It’s one thing to be active on Facebook. It’s another thing when you start to derive a significant part or all of your income from your public presence. There are people making a living just by being pretty Instagram models. Youtube and Patreon have make it possible for just about anyone to be Internet famous -and to make a living doing it.

That sounds great. Instead of working a 9 to 5 job you could make a living filming yourself having a good time in fabulous places. That sounds great, but then your income depends on you always being that fantastic person having a great time. A lot of people don’t know how to deal with that. It’s also a huge stress on relationships.

Recently two Youtube sailing couples have split up due to the pressure of always being on. Like one of them said after the breakup: you don’t know what happens after the camera is turned off. There’s a pressing need for interesting video footage. Forgot about just lying around the beach, reading a good book, and goofing off. You have to sail to some interesting dive site, pet the pigs on an island, have a “meaningful” connection to the locals, create drama with other people -and so on and so on. You have to look good doing it too, even if it means putting makeup on at remote anchorages far from other people.

Then there’s the need to have constant pictures of the hot girlfriend or wife, the cute kid, and the amazing pets. Smile and show a little cleavage, the diesel tanks need to be refilled.

Some people are a lot more chill about the whole thing. They photograph and film to make a record for themselves or so the folks back home know what’s up. Sure, it’s for public view, but they don’t film with that in mind. Most importantly, they don’t rely on their Internet fame for their income. That gives them the freedom to film what they want -or to not even film at all.

Fortunately, my outlet is this blog. Good thing I don’t have to rely on it for income as I’d starve to death. Another good thing is that I don’t have to rely upon being pretty. Tough to do as a 61 year old fat man. Mostly I just post plain old fashioned text for a limited audience. That’s fine.

Andy Warhol's said "In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes" We are now living in that future. It’s a brave new world.

-Sixbears