I wonder what it's like to have fans

Woo hoo, I'm in a cheery mood today...

Seeking the approval of strangers is odd behaviour. Especially for an introvert. It must involve over-compensation for feelings of inadequacy, a mixture of a sense of inferiority and superiority. The would-be celebrity is both short and... Napoleon.

Morrissey once said something rather insightful: being famous is the only way to be treated with the dignity that any individual should be entitled to, in this rotten old world. At the same time, getting famous in order to get what one considers a 'reasonable' amount of attention or affection seems rather extreme: it seems to be putting a lot of hard work into something that should come for free, or that one should resign oneself to not coming at all.

What's more, for other, less self-conscious people, this sort of consideration does come for free. 'Some people I know to lead fantastic lives' -- without being artists. They're simply cute, or loveable, or naturally charismatic, or just... fit with the way the world is, without having to work at being clever or amusing or charming or talented or inspiring or anything. These are life's celebrities, as effortlessly impressive as Fingal's Cave must be to an architect. In fact, unfamous people are the ones who impress me most, and who strike me as the most fabulously arrogant. 'Love me just for being me,' they seem to say, 'I offer no special entertainments or insights.' Their cheek is stunning, and catches you off guard. You're tempted to go along with it, and read something into them, even if there's nothing there. They put up no barrage of creativity themselves, and so invoke your own, which in itself is no small service.

A few random observations. Having increased opportunities for getting laid is a big plus. Having a host of guardian angels to help out when you're in trouble is another. You're never alone with fans! Plus, it's a bit like having loving parents, or believing in God: even if they're not present and visible, fans give you a sense of distant, diffused approval which makes you feel strong and confident. You have an idea, and already find yourself thinking 'They will like this. Just wait till they hear it!'

I'd add: if you make intelligent work, you will attract intelligent fans, and other artists whose opinions you respect. Your audience will be small, but worth keeping close to and interacting with. But if you make stupid work and 'talk down', you will get fans (a lot, no doubt) you will probably want to shun. Hire security and put a big fence around your house!

Final thought: It is fantastic to be loved. But it's also quite important to be questioned and hated, and being loved should not be the be-all and end-all of a career in the arts. If it is, there's something wrong, and you're probably a rubbish artist.

The closest to celebrity I ever experienced was during a year or so as a weekly pundit on a local-market political talk show (it was on the ABC affiliate, so we came on right after Cokie and Sam). I was sure nobody ever watched the thing -- guys in ties talking about local politics, *YAWN* -- but once or twice people actually stopped me on the street to say they liked watching me. That was weird. Flattering, but it also made me appreciate the relative anonymity and privacy of print.

PS: I don't need to tell you that I am the most minor of minor celebrities. Robbie Williams to thread.

The "increased opportunities to get laid" Momus mentions were very strange -- offputtingly strange, somehow -- when I was single and writing smut on a regular basis and still checked the email for that pen name. It's completely divorced from anything anyone could know about you -- especially since I'm talking about writing; at least Momus's fans know what he looks and sounds like.

(I guess that's a more general point, too, the feeling readers have that they somehow know you.)

Momus, has this affected the way you work to any great extent? One of the paradoxes of fandom is the wish to preserve what you love i.e stasis vs the wish for your idol to develop, surprise and keep thrilling you. I wonder what those fans who help finance new recordings e.g Marillion, want and how they feel if it isn't as they expect.

I guess you're in a fortunate position in that a Momus fan would be quite happy if you went off and released a gaelic ska album for example. Would others be so generous in the same situation.

WAKE UP

there were no increased opportunities to get laid.

x-post: momus, you need to tour greece

He was a regular reader of my blog who I didn't know from Adam and the experience was quite bizarre. I mean my blog's just a personal journal with lots of bitching about the education system, wtf?

Anyway like Momus said I felt "vaguely pleased embarrassment". (and then fear. . .)

(what the fuck is "greece"?)

I think it's fascinating that people now can become famous through diaries they publish themselves. I used to think that this meant that fame is now distributed in an egalitarian way, but reading Clay Shirky's Power Laws, Weblogs and Inequality changed my mind. It proposes a kind of 'Law of Stars' which dictates that, no matter how level the playing field, a few stars will soon hog most of the attention.

(xpost responding to Momus)

"if you make intelligent work, you will attract intelligent fans, and other artists whose opinions you respect. Your audience will be small, but worth keeping close to and interacting with. But if you make stupid work and 'talk down', you will get fans (a lot, no doubt) you will probably want to shun. Hire security and put a big fence around your house!"

Is it possible to manage an ideal level of fame - not too high, not too low? If so, how is it done?

xpost

I noticed at one point in the late 90s, when I was on BMG in the US and getting a fair amount of press, that people were saying 'Who is this Momus guy and why am I supposed to care about him?' There was (at least on certain campuses) beginning to be 'the need to have an opinion, one way or the other, on Momus'. And I noticed a certain amount of resentment and even hate building up. Now, to me that was a sign that I had crossed a line. I had become, thanks to hype and over-promotion, a push artist instead of a pull artist. I was in danger of being in people's faces, like a commercial. For me, the place to be is in between available and unavoidable. You don't want rarefication, but you also don't want saturation. You just need to be poised, ready to be pulled.

Thanks Momus, I am finding your comments quite illuminating.

The extent of any recognition I've had has been for my writing and is limited to a few emails of approval for various stuff. I dont know if I'd much care for fame or notoriety.

I was a bit surprised as this woman is a pretty well-versed music geek. She's super-indie and is taking Yo La Tengo out for Mexican food when they're in town here soon. (I think the last bit was supposed to impress me but being the indie hater that I am I couldn't muster up anything.)

Yeah, with all of the silliness upthread I forgot to mention how thoughtful I thought your response was.

Billy said: Momus, has this affected the way you work to any great extent?

I think there are some complex cross-identifications going on in fandom. Just as the person the fan idolises is really a projection of his own need and not who the artist really is (and they both sort of know this), so the audience the artist internalizes is the audience the artist needs to make the work he wants to make, and will make anyway, rather than the real audience. And again, they both know this, and don't expect real interaction. Fantasy interaction is so much better!

I don't recall that one Trayce. Anyway, it's a fair comment - anything a non-famous person says about fame is going to be rather speculative. The subject interests me though, from a spectator's point of view.

i just wanted to see that in italics without the hassle of attaching an amusing bukkake reference

I just wanted to see that in italics too, Mitch!

I guess it depends what you call famous.

If a troubadour falls in the forest, does anyone dpwnload his mp3s?

Not long ago someone (who I had never heard of) in Rhode Island (where we have never played) bought most of my band's albums. Then shortly after receiving them he bought the few scraggly EPs he missed the first time. I thought, "Uh oh, he's bought some pretty, uh, hard-to-listen-to music." Still, I'm happy to know that someone out there enjoyed the stuff enough himself a completist...

To turn the topic upside down, there are the Van Goghs of this world: unable, in spite of their immense ability, to get a single fan anywhere, as long as they remained alive. Perhaps they just weren't sufficiently diplomatic or even charismatic to forge a successful artistic career.

When he emailed me the picture, I was quite bewildered.

This is the first time in a long time that Momus has said something that actually made me want to cry. Except this time, it's cry in a way of agreement. There are people like this, and I envy them, because getting people to like me in any way shape or form has always seemed like such a struggle.

In fact, Momus has been OTM quite a bit on this thread. (The posters I disagree with most frequently are usually the ones who remind me horribly of my own worst failings, ha ha.)

I was infamous, before I ever conceived of the attraction of being famous. Within a small town, I was notorious for being "different". Negative attention was thrust upon me for being different, for looking "strange", for having an accent, for having different values i.e. being pretentious - I was never going to fit in, so I took the conscious decision to stick out. People were noticing me and hating me for what I perceived to be nothing, so I decided to make them notice me for SOMETHING that *I* had created, not the sick imaginings of their perverted insecurities.

I signed my first autograph when I was 16. I wrote a comic book lampooning rebellious teenagers, the local school system, liberals, Reaganism and terrorism - and distributed 500 copies through my school and through various music shops and comic shops. It got me suspended from school, but it got notices in the local papers, and students who had formerly either ignored me or shoved me in the lunch queue suddenly stopped me in the hall and asked me to sign copies. It felt like vindication.

This cycle has repeated itself so many times. I tried to take notoriety in small circles, and forge it into fame for something I've consciously *created* rather than infamy for just being what I *am* naturally.

It feels good. It's like the wonderful buzz of receiving a compliment, only a thousand times better. Suddenly you have boyfriends without having to be attractive! It's validation, it's vindication, it makes you glow for days. It's "OTM" to a thousand time. Travelling thousands of miles and still having complete strangers recognise you! Giving autographs, being told "oh my god, great show!", selling records, being interviewed, it's like a sweet-scented, comforting bubblebath of narcissism.

But it doesn't stop there.

I've always been insecure and lonely; I always try to make the mistake of making fans my friends. It's this sense of "At last! Someone appreciates me for the things I want to be appreciated for!" But the problem is, fans choose their idols, idols don't get to choose their fans. And fans choose their idols for qualities that reflect their own personalities and inner motivations, as Momus said: Just as the person the fan idolises is really a projection of his own need and not who the artist really is.

Fandom is a PROJECTION not a reflection. Looking to fans for validation is never going to provide you with an image that you like, let alone even recognise.

I know, I've never been famous to more than a hundred or so people at a time, but it's been more of a headfuck than a positive experience, to be perfectly honest. You think that having fans is going to fill some need or deep insecurity inside you. But really it's the other way around. I used to think that art was about communication - that I could somehow reach out and have some emotion in me touch some emotion in someone else, and help both them and me. But it doesn't seem to work that way, it's like your lips are moving, but someone else (the fan) is dictating the words that come out.

My motto used to be "Quite frankly I think I could do a better job of being famous" but now it's "I'd rather have one good friend than a thousand fans." That's not to disparage the people that have responded to my art or my writing or my music. I've just always had a problem being the person that other people expect me to be.

((Funny how I've never felt like I had to defend wanting to be famous. But I do feel like I have to defend why I don't want to be famous any more.)

The thing is, real celebs aren't as vicious as that. They're generally less hungry, less insecure, more co-operative, more aware that there's more to life than money and fame (to the extent that they make boring, whiny albums on the subject). So we have a nation of people who imagine they're celebrities, and who incarnate all the worst aspects of the celebrity (thinking of oneself as a commodity, marketing oneself at every opportunity, squelching the competition, looking out for number one) without actually being one.

I have no answers to this of course, it just came to mind.

It's such a fine line - I remember being impressed when I first saw ILM in 2000 or 2001 and thinking "Wow, Momus posts here", the first name I saw who wasn't simply a member of the Belle & Sebastian mailing list like me or a complete, un-famous stranger but an actual living breathing, famous recording artist. But, waitaminute, if I hadn't bought a copy of the NME in autumn 1989 and read something about him, seen a snippet of his video on the chart show around the same time and heard something on Radio 1 a few years later when he was talking about his version of Brel's Jackie redone as Nicky and mentioning that his cousin was that guy out of Del Amitri, "properly famous" at the time, in the mainstream charts and stuff then I would be going "who?" alongside CAss and the ten random strangers whom I asked "Who is Momus?" in the centre of Oxford in five minutes' time, should I choose to do that.

There's so much hassle having fans, having to run away to escape them, having to worry that some of them are unbalanced and so are going to start stalking you ect ect that I really wouldn't want it at all. But then again I have never had, nor ever expect to have the talent to warrant them so the question's pretty academic.

I am sometimes surprised at the amount of hostility that our "resident celebs" actually provoke. My reaction to people who pointedly snipe "You think you're famous? Humph! Well, I've never heard of you!" is generally "Well, I've never heard of you either."

This brings up a whole new realm of fame, which is not necessarily worldwide celebrity, but fame or notoriety within a particular group. Despite his effect or lack of effect on the charts or the airwaves where you live, I think Momus is certain notorious enough within ILX to warrant a different class of fame. The notoriety of which Trayce and I have talked. certainly.

Real celebs aren't vicious? Bollocks! Though I suppose it depends on how high up the "food chain" you go. The irony being, those closer to the top seem to be, in my limited experience, less vicious, perhaps because they have less to prove, but perhaps also because they are more insulated. Those on the lowest rungs are the ones who are the most vicious and nasty and trying to pull the ladders up after them.

Perhaps my experience with notoriety makes me resent or be suspicious of any kind of fame. Perhaps my own self hatred fuels my suspicion of anyone who responds to something I create enough to be a fan. ("What do they see in me? I'm icky! Therefore they must be icky to like it!")

I am well aware of my complex and curious reactions to the very concept of celebrity. It's taken the place of where my religious instinct used to be, so perhaps I approach it the same way I approach theology i.e. "Why do I believe this irrational thing?"

OK, this is becoming "Pick on Nick" again, so I'm going to go and muse elsewhere.

Ms. Pot, there's a call for you on line two. It's a Mr. Kettle...

It's come to the point where its not inconceivable that little insignificant me could walk into a bar in Glasgow or San Francisco or Melbourne or Bombay and have a person I've never met before come up to me and say "aren't you Matt DC? I've seen your picture on the internet before, I really like some of the stuff you've written recently" - its unlikely, but ten years ago it would've been unthinkable.

Has the internet democratised fame to a tiny extent, where you can get an interview in the Guardian purely for writing your own pity rambling thoughts about the mad woman you saw in Tesco on your blog? Are there people posting on ILE and ILM who have fans, maybe people they've never heard of, who read their every post religiously and save all the photos they find of them onto their hard drive? The thought is worrying and flattering in equal measure.

A friend of mine played on this a few years ago in another internet community, where people were prone to huge fallings out and deep personal revelations online. Said friend set up his own spoof message board where lots of fake posters would comment on the days happenings, or who they loved and hated, who they thought secretly fancies who, and whether they thought they saw a particular poster in a pub in Soho and how starstruck they were. Like it was a soap opera. He then linked to it on the main board - before people realised it was a colossal windup there was much hysteria... although I think the post about how someone had been "followed" home from the pub might have been taking things too far.

that's fantastic.

Michael, what are you trying to say that Momus shouldn't share his experiences or that he should?

I have worked in the film business and it's rather scary the effect great fame has not only on the famous but on otherwise normal and unremarkable people who encounter celebrities or have to work with them.

BTW, some people love to be famous. They have a talent for it and they can even be fun to watch. Others think they want to be famous but resent the way it warps your life and all the work it takes. Most of these people are not fun to watch candidly.

Fame is the ability to walk in a room and chat to people you don't know without having to introduce yourself. (That's fame with a small f, but hey it's the first word in the sentence there).

Having fans I can imagine being a drag and a boost at the same time. But people with legit. fans have said all I would have pondered, so I end.

On the whole my experience of it was positive. I'm pretty introverted, and suddenly my social life became effortless - people would go out of their way to get you to come to their parties and everyone wanted to talk to you when you were there.

Sex became much more easily available. I'm not talking so much about groupies in the stereotypical sense. Women were more likely to notice you. If they'd been in the audience a few times they felt they knew you, and there was an obvious thing to start talking to you about (music/the band), often in social situations involving drink and drugs. I think most of them would have been appalled at the suggestion that they were more likely to sleep with you because you were in a band. All the same, a bunch of guys who had been no more than averagely attractive to women suddenly had lots of women around and available.

The main downside is adjusting to normality/reality when you start to accept that the really big breakthrough isn't going to come. That kind of attention is SO addictive. The amount of it I had was very, very minor but even that amount can fuck up the rest of your life. Most guys I know who've been in bands have had much less successful careers than they would have had if they hadn't been, because their priorities become skewed. They are still trying to be pop stars in their 30s when youthful glamour has gone, when they are increasingly out of touch with (or hostile to) new developments in music, and the objective evidence is that the amount of creative talent they have is pretty modest. Guys who would otherwise have had good professional careers end up in dead-end jobs and playing the covers pub circuit on weekends to help pay the mortgage. I've managed to avoid that fate but I'd still be a lot more successful in middle-class career terms if I hadn't spent most of my 20s trying to be a pop star. I sometimes feel guilty about the self-indulgence of that, the amount of my life I spent dedicated to a frivolous long-shot, but I still have the memories and on the whole I don't regret it.

I know plenty of folx well into their thirties still making music and keeping it the number one priority in their lives. Some of them even make a full-time living at it.

These people seem to be pleased at a level of "success" that includes releasing a record on the likes of In The Red and touring every now and then. They're mostly happy just b/c they're playing music.

I don't really think I am convinced.

(I think probably he just is sexually attractive.)

I never felt much "fame" as a band member, nor do I as a hermetic four-tracker. I did experience a tiny, minute bit of name recognition as a zine editor. I got free records and nice press as a result, but it's not as if people were stopping me in the street.

If I ever was to become "famous," I'd want it to be the fame of, say, a best-selling author. All the money and prestige, but very little of the pesky stalking.

Aw, you must. They're spiff. But I'll avoid making John self-flagellate more here.

(somebody get busy on the photoshop pls. in case I cannot actually bring this to pass)

About a month ago I got this Friendster message from some girl:

sorry for the random hello
but i happened upon your profile and saw that you
played in canasta
i've seen you folks a couple of times and have an
ep and some other sample disc as well which has
been listened to quite a few times....just wanted
to let you know that i think you guys rock it
pretty hard core style...in that non-hardcore kind
of way ;-)
but i'm sure you already knew that...

Canciones, pegadizas, short, gone off key, amused to the purest style of indiepop. These boys of Chicago have to disposition our their first demo in their page Web. Five estúpendos subjects that they do not have lose. Recommendable.

(Man, that dictionary.com translator really bites.)