T.S. Elliot said, “Good writers borrow, great writers steal.” I, on the other hand, am a shoplifter who immediately runs to the store’s security guard to confess. The writer I’m “lifting” from is Luke Burgis who writes a substack called Anti-Mimetic. You can find it at antimimetic.substack.com.
I enjoyed this post a lot. I had two (and a half) thoughts:
1) to the point of people copying the desires of those who are most self-assured or loudest, I wonder if the dunning-Kruger effect is at play. That those who are most (seemingly) confident in their desires are also the least qualified to be espousing them
2) I buy your point about choosing someone in your real life as a role model, but how do you respond to the trap of comparing yourself to your peers and even if it means you avoid comparing to those who are rich and famous? I find that it can be easy because of the parallels to compare oneself to a peer even if in reality your individual circumstances are different
Amazing. I grew up in a lower middle class/working class neighborhood. My sister always comments on how we never knew or felt poor. The reason why? We had no television until we were older. Our life was good. Full of fun and meaning. We knew there were people who had less but no sense of what we were missing from those who had more. We just were
1) i think it's more that the loudest are saying what they're saying, because they are appealing to an audience that brings them money, fame, or votes. That's fro famous people. Perhaps the most confident in regular life express themselves in absolutes, because of the DK effect and thus any lack of proportion or nuance.
2) I was thinking less of peers and more of people older than yourself who you might admire for certain traits they've developed, probably after a lot of pitfalls.
2.5) Thank you, but I'll take the "half" as meaning there's still a lot of room for improvement!
Well, David, I have should admit that, until your Wonder Years reference, I was going to write a one word response to the whole piece. Up to that point, the more I read the more I was convinced that my best reply was going to be, simply, "Nah." But, then you had to add that last bit.
So, here's why Nah would have been my response. Money drives so much in our world. Celebrity is a concept all about money. "Influencers," an astoundingly idiotic concept in my opinion, is an idea only about money. Celebrities are not part of our daily lives. Sure, some of us are heavily influenced by them, but I truly believe the great majority (the political silent majority, if you will) are not really so enamored of them that we try to emulate their lives in any significant way. I think the vast majority of us are concerned with family, careers, family, paying bills, family, affording retirement and family. Now, when I say family, I'm talking across generations. We may have parents, kids, grandchildren and they have lives over which we worry as well as laugh. Then, we have our communities and so much more that is actually part of our world. When Derek Jeter was doing commercials for Ford, did I want to buy a new Ford? Seriously? I bought the used Jeep I could afford. The Kardashians, giving me cause to ignore them, give me time to focus on people I know and love. Now, I get that lots of money is invested and made to promote them and that model works for many of those involved, but it works because of the size of the market, not the quality of the product. If ten percent of the population spends $10 on something Kardashian-related, that's $334,000,000 spent. That's going to be a good deal for someone, but it also supposes that 90% of us spent no money on any K-related stuff. Of course, I have no evidence that this is true, but how many folks do I know, do you know, who spend money on K stuff?
I'd argue that the celebrity stuff works because of the scale of the economy and size of the population but is not really all that powerful an influence, especially over time. I remember when my grandson wanted a particular basketball player's shirt and I bought it for him. How long did that phase last? Not long, and now that he is old enough to be spending his own money, I suspect he is much more concerned with what is reasonably affordable to him, celebrities be damned.
But, as part of the economics of celebrity, there are those who constantly seek out ways to put them in the news, to keep their faces prominently displayed, so there is a disproportionately high level of awareness of their existence. That does not mean, however, that more than a small percentage of us act on it.
Along the way, I think most of us find our heroes closer to home -- real people leading real lives that touch our own.
I enjoyed this post a lot. I had two (and a half) thoughts:
1) to the point of people copying the desires of those who are most self-assured or loudest, I wonder if the dunning-Kruger effect is at play. That those who are most (seemingly) confident in their desires are also the least qualified to be espousing them
2) I buy your point about choosing someone in your real life as a role model, but how do you respond to the trap of comparing yourself to your peers and even if it means you avoid comparing to those who are rich and famous? I find that it can be easy because of the parallels to compare oneself to a peer even if in reality your individual circumstances are different
Half) I’m sure your children view you as a hero
Amazing. I grew up in a lower middle class/working class neighborhood. My sister always comments on how we never knew or felt poor. The reason why? We had no television until we were older. Our life was good. Full of fun and meaning. We knew there were people who had less but no sense of what we were missing from those who had more. We just were
1) i think it's more that the loudest are saying what they're saying, because they are appealing to an audience that brings them money, fame, or votes. That's fro famous people. Perhaps the most confident in regular life express themselves in absolutes, because of the DK effect and thus any lack of proportion or nuance.
2) I was thinking less of peers and more of people older than yourself who you might admire for certain traits they've developed, probably after a lot of pitfalls.
2.5) Thank you, but I'll take the "half" as meaning there's still a lot of room for improvement!
Well, David, I have should admit that, until your Wonder Years reference, I was going to write a one word response to the whole piece. Up to that point, the more I read the more I was convinced that my best reply was going to be, simply, "Nah." But, then you had to add that last bit.
So, here's why Nah would have been my response. Money drives so much in our world. Celebrity is a concept all about money. "Influencers," an astoundingly idiotic concept in my opinion, is an idea only about money. Celebrities are not part of our daily lives. Sure, some of us are heavily influenced by them, but I truly believe the great majority (the political silent majority, if you will) are not really so enamored of them that we try to emulate their lives in any significant way. I think the vast majority of us are concerned with family, careers, family, paying bills, family, affording retirement and family. Now, when I say family, I'm talking across generations. We may have parents, kids, grandchildren and they have lives over which we worry as well as laugh. Then, we have our communities and so much more that is actually part of our world. When Derek Jeter was doing commercials for Ford, did I want to buy a new Ford? Seriously? I bought the used Jeep I could afford. The Kardashians, giving me cause to ignore them, give me time to focus on people I know and love. Now, I get that lots of money is invested and made to promote them and that model works for many of those involved, but it works because of the size of the market, not the quality of the product. If ten percent of the population spends $10 on something Kardashian-related, that's $334,000,000 spent. That's going to be a good deal for someone, but it also supposes that 90% of us spent no money on any K-related stuff. Of course, I have no evidence that this is true, but how many folks do I know, do you know, who spend money on K stuff?
I'd argue that the celebrity stuff works because of the scale of the economy and size of the population but is not really all that powerful an influence, especially over time. I remember when my grandson wanted a particular basketball player's shirt and I bought it for him. How long did that phase last? Not long, and now that he is old enough to be spending his own money, I suspect he is much more concerned with what is reasonably affordable to him, celebrities be damned.
But, as part of the economics of celebrity, there are those who constantly seek out ways to put them in the news, to keep their faces prominently displayed, so there is a disproportionately high level of awareness of their existence. That does not mean, however, that more than a small percentage of us act on it.
Along the way, I think most of us find our heroes closer to home -- real people leading real lives that touch our own.
Really interesting post David - completely agree with the risks of desiring the distant caricature of celebrity.