The Demands of Fame
My thanks to Nefret for showing me this piece in Liz Smith's Column today:
'DEMANDS OF fame cannot be met. What you evoke in a fan is by its nature unfulfillable. You tap into a certain hunger, a certain yearning. It is fierce and powerful, but it has almost nothing to do with you. The more you attempt to appease it, the more furious the fan becomes. It's the reason relations between fans and their obsessional objects can turn so dark and murderous."
So writes Erica Jong in her new memoir, "Seducing the Demon," where she describes what happened after she became an overnight sensation by writing "Fear of Flying."
There is a very good lesson in this for people who worship celebrities and famous people and have unrealistic expectations of them!
I'll probably pass on reading Erica's book but I'm loving the statement: "The more you attempt to appease it, the more furious the fan becomes." I think many of us have seen that first hand in our various and sundry fandoms. "It has almost nothing to do with you," how true is that? Truly facinating stuff.
Oh, if I'd known
Orlando_Watch was going to link to me yesterday I would have cleaned up the place a little. As it was that KOH screening post was like free-association verbal carnage. The dangers of too little sleep and typing.
'DEMANDS OF fame cannot be met. What you evoke in a fan is by its nature unfulfillable. You tap into a certain hunger, a certain yearning. It is fierce and powerful, but it has almost nothing to do with you. The more you attempt to appease it, the more furious the fan becomes. It's the reason relations between fans and their obsessional objects can turn so dark and murderous."
So writes Erica Jong in her new memoir, "Seducing the Demon," where she describes what happened after she became an overnight sensation by writing "Fear of Flying."
There is a very good lesson in this for people who worship celebrities and famous people and have unrealistic expectations of them!
I'll probably pass on reading Erica's book but I'm loving the statement: "The more you attempt to appease it, the more furious the fan becomes." I think many of us have seen that first hand in our various and sundry fandoms. "It has almost nothing to do with you," how true is that? Truly facinating stuff.
Oh, if I'd known
Orlando_Watch was going to link to me yesterday I would have cleaned up the place a little. As it was that KOH screening post was like free-association verbal carnage. The dangers of too little sleep and typing.