[M.A.P.L.E. IV-12] Fame

I’ll start this post with an errata. Yep, I screwed up, because I had two “M.A.P.L.E. IV-10” posts! Clearly I forgot that yesterday was the 11th… so it goes with losing track of time! But, having those misnumberings shows that I am human, and I think it also makes a funny story.

Now to today’s post. The title makes me think of a song that I find quite funny, to follow (especially at the 2:36 part).

On Saturday night, when I was reading blogs, I caught a roundup post on A Cup of Tay. One of the blog posts that was featured was from another “Tay” site: The Daily Tay to be precise, and her 27 Things About A Small Town post.

Prepare for freemasons, confusion, return by sensation of concrete results! With two blogs involving the name Tay, I will have to resort to a lot of parentheses in the next paragraph or so: I will use Tay for the “A Cup of Tay” blogger and “Taylor” for the “The Daily Tay” blogger.  Confused yet?

OK, here we go.

On Tay’s roundup post, I wrote a comment saying how I had read Taylor’s post as well, and how I was not from THAT small of a town. I also mentioned that I have met Taylor in person at Husker tailgates.

Tay responded, “No way! That’s so funny that you know her! She’s a pretty famous blogger so now you can (kind of) say you know a celebrity ;)”

Although I have been in the blogosphere for almost four years, I don’t really follow the fame of bloggers–if they have topics that interest me, I will follow them, or if their writing style intrigues me, I will read. I am certainly a largely-unknown in the blogosphere, but my goal is not to be super-famous, since my career is not blogging. I’d love to keep it as a hobby that others enjoy reading.

The idea about knowing a celebrity, however, somewhat relates to me! Both at the University of Nebraska and Northwestern, I was/am a huge fan of their intercollegiate athletics. I have been particularly visible at the basketball games, as the dancing hard-hat wearer. Both in Lincoln and Evanston, I’ve been approached by people that I don’t particularly know well, who have complimented me on my dancing and school spirit.

I am not good with names and faces anyway, but particularly in this case, since I am the public figure, many others know me versus the people that I know.

I have been interviewed by several journalism students about my Asperger syndrome and/or my superfandom, and their B-rolls have often made me feel like celebrities might feel in having paparazzi all around. There’s no need for a bodyguard, though, since I am not filthy-rich, protecting any drug habits, or anything like that 🙂

Well, maybe I need body armour when I ride my bike on the trails :p

The idea of “celebrity” can be very localized or very globalized. And what is “celebrity” to one person may be “total unknown” to another person.  And although I enjoy being celebrated by others at sporting events, I do not go crazy for notoriety–I just act as myself!

What is your take on fame, celebrities, and this idea?

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Today is the twelfth (yes, I got it right :p) day of the fourth round of M.A.P.L.E. That makes one week and five days.

היום שמונה ושלושים יום–שהם חמישה שבועות ושלושה ימים לעומר

The countdown to “D-Day” is 20 days.