Yesterday I was
awakened by the sound of screaming coming from outside my building. It sounded
like either a rock concert or a mass shooting, so I looked out my window, but I
couldn’t see anything. When I left my building to buy a newspaper, my path was
blocked by a line of people, mostly teenagers and children, some with their
parents. I asked them what was going on and some teenage girl helpfully told
me, “Logan Paul.” “I have no idea who
that is,” I said, rolling my eyes, even though it sounded like the name of a
gay porn star. When I got back to my apartment, I Googled him and found out
that he was some kind of “Internet celebrity” who was opening up a “pop-up
shop” and on his Twitter feed was given to making such pronouncements as “New
York is going to be next level!”
“Next level what?” I
thought. “Absurd?”
Apparently,
opening up a pop-up shop is now on the same level as curing cancer.
All of this says
some very disturbing things about our society.
One is the whole
notion of “Internet celebrity.” Andy Warhol’s famous dictum, “in the future,
everyone will be famous for 15 minutes,” has long since lost its power to
shock. Now it’s more like, “everyone will be famous for one nanosecond” because
that’s the length of the average attention span these days. Internet has killed
not only the radio star, but also the TV star, the movie star and, as I once
sang, the gay cruising bar1.
All of this may
seem like a tempest in a teapot. I mean, after all, what harm has this guy
done? How is this any different from, say, teenage girls from another era
screaming about The Beatles? Well, let’s see… The Beatles recorded the greatest
body of work in pop music history and this guy did what exactly?
But it doesn’t
even make a difference because fame is its own raison d’etre and, once you’re famous, it doesn’t even matter why. How many people remember (or care) that Kim
Kardashian was initially famous for appearing in a sex tape? (Kim has her own retail store in my neighborhood, by the way, one
that’s been open for several years
now. Take that, Logan Paul!)
And a reality TV
star is now our president!
Nowadays, anyone
who makes a funny video or has their picture randomly wind up on the Internet
is offered movie deals and commercial endorsements and is then forgotten about
15 minutes later. (I’m looking at you, Chewbacca Mom.)
The other
disturbing thing is what this says about retail, the economy and New York City
in general.
The whole notion
of a “pop-up shop” is disturbing to me because it indicates that retailers
can’t even commit to a long-term lease anymore, just the way that employers
(including my former employer) can’t commit to hiring someone long-term.
Then there’s what
it says about New York City itself. New York has become one big
three-dimensional advertisement where it’s no longer even about selling
merchandise but establishing a presence for your “brand.” This has led to the
phenomenon of “high-rent blight,” where storefronts in some of New York’s most
expensive neighborhoods have remained empty while landlords wait for a chain
store to sign the lease.
The third thing
that’s disturbing is the mere fact of people waiting on line for something as
silly as an Internet celebrity. But on any given day, you can see several of these lines in my neighborhood: people waiting to
buy cronuts, people waiting to buy sneakers, people waiting to buy poké bowls.
Is this really how you want to be spending your time?
I guess people
are desperate for something, anything, to fill their spiritual emptiness and
the easiest way to do that seems to be by buying something. (I keep thinking of the Clash song, “I’m All Lost in Your
Supermarket.”)
One of my
Facebook friends commented about the people on this line, “Hey, at least they
didn’t vote for Trump” and he was right.
They were too young to vote for
Trump.
But Trump has
lowered the bar for the presidency so much that the fact that The Rock is now
rumored to be running for president seems like an improvement. (Kid Rock’s run for the Senate, on the other hand, not so
much.)
But, hey, what do
I know? I’m just an old man.
Now where can I
get one of those Logan Paul T-shirts?
