“In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”
When Andy Warhol said that – birthing the phrase “15 minutes of fame” – in the late 1960s, it seemed ridiculous: Hollywood was riding the American cultural crest with stars like Paul Newman, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, and Al Pacino. Jimi Hendrix, Freddie Mercury, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, and Stevie Wonder dominated the music scene. Athletes included Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Muhammad Ali, and Joe Frazier.
Even now, the above names evoke a feeling of untouchability. They seem just shy of the gods and much more than the ordinary man. But today’s celebrities? Not so.
It’s hard to imagine Pacino or Monroe singing out of key at the height of a pandemic from the safety of their multi-million-dollar mansions, for example. Harder still to imagine Muhammad Ali or Paul Newman’s baby blues front-and-center on a Kalshi ad or promoting a five-bet parlay.
The celebrity gods have, clearly, fallen from grace. But why?
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