When Is Somebody A Celebrity?

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This was a hot kitchen debate in Mentality Towers this evening. Exactly how famous do you have to be to be a celebrity? Where's the dividing line?

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 3 September 2002 20:57 (twenty-three years ago)

Answers can be in the form: "The line of celebrity is somewhere between [person marginally not a celebrity] and [person marginally a celebrity]" (either one of these people can be Momus!)

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 3 September 2002 21:00 (twenty-three years ago)

More test cases: are the contestants on this years Big Brother still celebrities? Even Lynne? What about last year's?

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 3 September 2002 21:01 (twenty-three years ago)

If you see them in a supermarket and smile and/or wave because you know them before you remember they are in the Jaffacakes ad and you don't know them at all, they = sleb. If you are introduced and immediately say the most stupid thing you ever said in yr life they are a superstar (my friend AB encountered Mick Jagger a few months ago: her opening line was so-so in its bizarro tack — "I found ten dollars in the street today" — since even though baffled, he replied, but she wd not in fact tell me what she said next, except that it was the stupidest thing she ever said in her life...)

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 3 September 2002 21:09 (twenty-three years ago)

The woman in the Jaffacakes list is top of my wife list!!

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 3 September 2002 21:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Jaffacakes ad rather. Anyway which supermarket??

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 3 September 2002 21:11 (twenty-three years ago)

If waitrose then they are a sleb anyway, whether or not you recognise them: if lidl or spar, then they look like someone famous but actually are not. all others, my theory applies...

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 3 September 2002 21:15 (twenty-three years ago)

its so easy to be a celebrity in new zealand. i mean, we have a woman here who is famous for shagging robbie williams.

― di smith (lucylurex), Tuesday, 3 September 2002 21:27 (twenty-three years ago)

dividing line?? come on! this is a classic "it's a continuum". what with A-list, B-list, ect. The real question is what divides A from B, B from C. And, er, Emma to thread

― Alan (Alan), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 07:10 (twenty-three years ago)

Are you saying I'm a celebrity?

― Emma, Wednesday, 4 September 2002 07:38 (twenty-three years ago)

yes. get yourself out of here. (DYS!?)

― Alan (Alan), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 07:51 (twenty-three years ago)

We have a woman here who is famous for shagging Robbie Williams, too. Her name is Geri Halliwell.

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 07:56 (twenty-three years ago)

I hadn't seen the opening credits for IACGMOOH before last night and loved the bit where they show each sleb doing what they're famous for, you get Nigel boxing, Uri smugly holding a bent spoon, Rhona on stage and then Christine and Tara just grinning inanely. Nell's is the best, she is apparently famous for wearing leopardskin swimming costumes.

― Emma, Wednesday, 4 September 2002 08:13 (twenty-three years ago)

i still don't know who two of IACGMOOH are btw: fartyboy and silentwoman

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 08:20 (twenty-three years ago)

Nell = page 3 gurl apparently.

― Sarah (starry), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 08:23 (twenty-three years ago)

Darren Day and Nell McAndrew? Come on! They're huge stars! Darren was in Joseph and goes out with soap starlets (Anna Friel, Tracy Shaw, Isla Fisher) and Nell was the Original body of Lara Croft and co-presented C5's revival of It's a Knockout.

― Emma, Wednesday, 4 September 2002 08:23 (twenty-three years ago)

Haha well the line is drawn between C.Hamilton and fartyboy in that case. (It is incidentally quite appropriate and even witty given the title that some of those participating are NOT slebs...)

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 08:44 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes but they are celebrities NOW.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 08:48 (twenty-three years ago)

Only when they return to the world: in their heads they are still who they were when they left mediated civilisation. Becuz you are not allowed TV or newspapaz in the jungle.

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 08:53 (twenty-three years ago)

I had to have Nell McAndrew explained to me too Mark. I got:

"She does FHM shoots. Um, she was the body model for Lara Croft."
"In the film?"
"No, the game."
"So a computer game character's body was based on her. That makes her famous?"
"Um, well sort of."

― Anna, Wednesday, 4 September 2002 08:56 (twenty-three years ago)

I think the body of Lara was originally based on the wank fantasies of some computer games geek. But then they needed someone to prance around at promotional events and Nell seemed well qualified (i.e. big tits).

Anyway surely the It's a Knockout thing counts for something?

― Emma, Wednesday, 4 September 2002 08:58 (twenty-three years ago)

Mark "in their heads" is a very very poor basis for 'who is a celebrity?'

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 09:01 (twenty-three years ago)

my friend Bex claims to know the girl who did all the noises for Lara. all those grunts/moans etc. i don't think Lara can have been based on NM, she was just used later on for publicity purposes.

― Alan (Alan), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 09:02 (twenty-three years ago)

FWIW while I had no idea what Darren Day or Nell McAndrew had done I did know their names and so could take it on trust that they were slebs.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 09:03 (twenty-three years ago)

At the Tombraider film premiere, the tabloids got their knickers in a twist about Nell being invited along, she ended up going in some appallingly tarty (in a bad way) rubber thing and looking really awful and allegedly being snubbed by Angelina Jolie. Poor Nell.

― Emma, Wednesday, 4 September 2002 09:17 (twenty-three years ago)

Is Emma saying she's shagged Robbie Williams?

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 09:36 (twenty-three years ago)

If I had ever shagged anyone even remotely famous you would have read about it in the Sunday tabloids by now. I wonder how much a Robbie shag-and-tell story is worth these days?

― Emma, Wednesday, 4 September 2002 09:38 (twenty-three years ago)

You are a celeb when you get in Heat magazine.

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 09:42 (twenty-three years ago)

Depends what he's into I suppose. I mean a minor celebrity - let's say David Byrne, to pick a name at random - kiss-and-tell story wouldn't run unless they were into something really FILTHY. Not that Robbie's minor but it affects the value.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 09:43 (twenty-three years ago)

David Byrne was spotted in his birth town Glasgow a couple of weeks ago at some crappy gig. Ally C was too scared to give him a flyer, let alone shag him.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 09:45 (twenty-three years ago)

I seem to remember reading something about kiss & tells once. You can't just phone in and say 'ooh guess what I shagged him off the telly the other day', you have to have a bit of a story or added interest (unless it's a REALLY big sleb) e.g. he was unfaithful to his girlfriend with me / we did it in a funny place / he has a strange fetish (YES THIS MEANS YOU DAVID BYRNE)/ his team mates were watching etc.

― Emma, Wednesday, 4 September 2002 09:50 (twenty-three years ago)

tom you are wrong: slebhood is obv semi-determined by internal will/attitude, not just external response/demand => they are not slebs until they know it (fartyboy is borderline, nell has NOT accepted it yet, hence her ultra-recessive way of being)

i haf a non-famous friend who has the gift of carrying self like ubersleb, meaning she can charm her way past club security anyweher in the world by turning her "We both know that you know that you know who I am" face on. Should she ever so desire, she could turn this into actual slebhood w/o much less cost to self than not-yet slebs at issue...

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 09:51 (twenty-three years ago)

The kind of celebrity that interests me is embodied very well in Darren Day: i.e. I knew his name and that he went out with Anna Friel, but I didn't know anything else about him, for instance that he was a West End show singer. There are quite a lot like this, that I know are celebrities but I have no idea why. Tara Palmer-Tomkinson is another - I mean I sort of knew she was famous for being a socialite, but I didn't grasp why she was more famous than other socialites. Someone told me recently that she wrote about all those parties and stuff in a column in The Times, which explained that. Nell McAndrew is another level, in that I had never heard of her and even after reading this still feel slightly vague about how she qualifies.

This reasonless (if only to me) celebrity is a long-standing phenomenon. Anyone remember Ted Moult? He always mystified me.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 16:29 (twenty-three years ago)

The real celebrity test is off-screen, I reckon: if you see one in the street and can't stop looking, even when they look back, they're a star. If they catch your eye and you immediately feel violated when they look back with a cat-that-got-the-cream expression (having taken it as affirmation that you want to shag/be them because they've got a slot on Granada Men & Motors), they're nobody.

I had no idea who Nell thingy was before I read this thread and like Martin, I'm still not sure.

― Leo, Wednesday, 4 September 2002 19:04 (twenty-three years ago)

if(f(x)>f('Michael Ball'),'sleb','whoooo?')

― Graham (graham), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 19:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Zoe>Michael>Johnny>Bobby>Hugo

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 20:04 (twenty-three years ago)

And Alan (World Cup) > Alan (American Beauty).

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 20:20 (twenty-three years ago)

Johnny>Zoe>Michael post inscrutable Hollyoaks trial.

― Graham (graham), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 20:22 (twenty-three years ago)

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