Like d’uh! He is a celebrity! You can be a celebrity too!
Definition of celebrity, from Wikipedia:
A celebrity is a widely-recognized or famous person who commands a high degree of public and media attention. The word stems from the Latin verb “celebrere” but they may not become a celebrity unless public and mass media interest is piqued. For example Virgin Director Richard Branson was famous as a CEO, but he did not become a global celebrity until he attempted to circumnavigate the globe in a hot air balloon.
The money words in that definition are:
…but they may not become a celebrity unless public and mass media interest is piqued.
So let’s look at two key things about Senator Barack Obama:
He is the first black person to win the nomination of a major political party and the first viable black candidate for the Office of the Presidency. Two gargantuan firsts. Because of that, public and mass media interest are piqued. Thus he is a celebrity. Now to be even more obvious, if Senator Obama would have been the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc legitimate black candidate for the Presidency, he would not be a celebrity. He would have just been well-known. Plain and simple.
So the McCain campaign is right. Senator Obama is a celebrity. Their problem is that they equated Obama with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Instead they should have equated him with someone like Virgin Director Richard Branson or even Tiger Woods. People with some intellect, skills, and are credible today in a positive manner. But as this is politics, you state the obvious while rolling the obvious in muck to make a point.
Look, McCain campaign! Your guy is a decorated pilot. Give him a snazzy private plane and let him fly to an airport in all 50 states. Give him the cool aviator look. This is America! Home of THE IMAGE. Look at Obama in the picture (above). Sporting the “Secret Service Guy on Vacation” look. Fight back Senator McCain! You would look damn cool with the “Aging Top-Gun Pilot Still Going Strong” look. You got to use what you got. Obama is the FIRST BLACK GUY. McCain can be the COOL PILOT GUY!
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19 Responses to “Like d’uh! He is a celebrity! You can be a celebrity too!”
Tyrone,
McCain's already been a celebrity. He's gone on SNL, the Daily Show, Leno, etc. and delivered jokes.
And he had a movie made about him.
Look for Obama to get even more famous once the Sinclair story accidentally gets “leaked” to BigMedia…
He'll be the talk of every little town all across America.
And the movie Chris is referring to is based McCain's own best-selling book about…himself!!
PS–T-Steel, I am loving the ability to go back and correct my own spelling errors. You are AWESOME!!!!1!!!
True that. McCain is a total media creation. He was a regular on all the Sunday talk shows and has been on SNL. Yet, he's got half the brain of Obama.
He looks like a jealous has-been 13-year old girl watching the newbie with the “developing body” get all the attention.
Tyrone, that is the best photo of Obama EVAH
T-Steel is the first blogger I have seen make the important distinction between celebrity and fame.
Being on a talk show . . .or even Hollywood's token GOP (because of his opposition to Bush, natch) . . . does not make one a celebrity. Famous, but not a celeb.
But the Wiki T-Steel links illustrates how the new revisions of “celebrity” support McCain's brilliant ad:
“The new stardom that doesn't require paying any dues. . . . for “most of man's history…people of talent would work to create something–something written, something painted, something sculpted, something acted out. . . the alleged stars of the reality shows “Survivor” and “Big Brother,”have become famous not for doing, but merely for being.”
McCain's ad does not link Obama to an A-list, recognized talented celebrity . . . but to two icons of the new definition of celebrity. Celebrity vacuity.
Obama is a light-weight, the ad suggests.
Do folks on the Left not recall how the Mondale used a similar lightweight strategy with great success against pretty boy Gary Hart in the 1984 primaries, with “Where's the Beef?” . . . taking off a hamburger ad.
McCain is cleverly echoing HRC's bitter criticism of Obama's resume . . . in a very stylish fashion.
Jazz,
This is the best Obama photo ever: http://www.groovitude.net/data/images/2008/05/o…
Yeah… that and the “whitey” video. Excuse me if I don't hold my breath while I wait, OK?
ChrisWWW, I know about McCain's movie. I'm just poking fun at the “new Obama celebrity” kerfluffle. Both McCain and Obama are celebs.
Marlowecan, you pick up on my point excellently (although I don't feel Obama is a lightweight but to each his own). You can become a celebrity immediately IF the media (and the adoring public) make you one. Obama's “first-i-tude” makes it very easy for the media (and the adoring public) to make him into a celebrity.
Personally, I like Obama and McCain from a “they seem like cool dudes” perspective. Obama reminds of the “high school teacher everyone likes” and McCain reminds of the “cool and folksy high school football coach”. And if anyone had both of those types in high school, you know they don't see eye-to-eye at all many times!
And George, I just kept beating up on Disqus to add the feature!
Thanks T-Steel. I must say I was pleased to see someone talk about what “celebrity” means…given how much the word has been tossed about.
T-Steel said: “…although I don't feel Obama is a lightweight but to each his own).”
For the record T-Steel, I think Obama is heavier hitter than McCain.
Altho I am not an Obama supporter, I also share Elrod's view that Obama is far smarter than McCain (just my opinion).
I was referring to the perception the ad created…not the reality, which is something different.
I think most of us would really enjoy a conversation with Obama about issues…even those opposed to him.
Ok, Chris. That's a very good one too. You have my lib/feminist Democrat wife drooling again, damn you.
Sorry about that, Jazz. But don't worry, Obama appears to be happily married.
Nice analysis, T-steel and with humor to boot. (What a weird idiom “to boot” is.)
The whole issue about the ad was that Obama is a lightweight who offers nothing but superficial packaging that appeals to the emotions of the American Idol children among the electorate. Obama's fans, particularly white “progressives,” have ranged from those merely favoring superficiality to “rock star” groupies (the most extreme fans of Bill Clinton, and the level of adoration that is commonplace among Obama fans, whether people want to admit it or not), continuing all the way to the accurate and wholly appropriate “Messiah” or “saint” cult following.
It goes beyond the Tiger Woods analogy with many of his fans. And you will notice, there is no widespread fear or negative hype about Obama from non-liberal voters; only the paranoid fringe reach the levels of abnormality that you see with so many of Obama's _supporters_. This also illustrates something that may indicate that Obama's celebrity is also circumstantial and that he's not “to blame” for this. It's a phenomenon of the Left. We not only see the child-like adoration of Obama, but it's at a level similar to the pathological hatred we have seen (including on this site) for President Bush, as well as in the past for Ronald Reagan. It's a tendency toward extremism we see on the Left consistently here, or a lack of self-control or personal development. We see gushing over Obama but little strong opposition to him by the Right. We see normal to weak opposition by the Right to Obama (this has been the general rule; the Right is defensive about being negative because of media and other left-side overreaction to it) that is nothing like the Left's hatred for Bush (and Reagan).
Sorry, T-Steel, but it goes beyond the golf links and Obama's similar set of achievements and fast rise since Chicago*, but it is much more like American Idol, as a number of us have observed since before Super Tuesday (Obama's most fervent core of white “progressives” was campaigning for him from the very start, as I saw in the multi-person-staffed office in Iowa where I was at the time).
Like it or not, that is what Obama and Obama fans have to face. Time and Obama's own efforts dispel this (in my and some others' case, reading about Obama's past is instructive as well), but it will always be there.
* “fast rise”: As I've said, Obama's past should be made more widely known and Obama fans should exploit a slogan in Toronto as the campaign's own bandwagon appeal: “Ride the Rocket.”
That photo of him was taken during one of his visits to the CIA or the NSA, right?
Shaun, T-Steel has just given you some competition in the photo selection game.
“He looks like a jealous has-been 13-year old girl watching the newbie with the 'developing body' get all the attention.”
You're letting your imagination run away with you again, Elrod. Had you been discussing the resentment of Clinton fans during the Great Liberal Switch from Clinton to Obama, you would have been accurate. And Silhouette is still here.
DLS, there is all kinds of issues at play concerning Obama's celebrity status. I mentioned his “first-i-tude” but I also feel that some of Obama's support comes from the “let's just get a black man in the White House so they will shut up” Left (mostly white). And as for black folks, there vote is a matter of “it's finally happening” in many cases.
Here's the Onion already getting that “McCain is a cool guy” meme by the throat and strangling it: McCain Vows to Replace the Secret Service With His Own Fists
“DLS, there is all kinds of issues at play concerning Obama's celebrity status. I mentioned his 'first-i-tude' but I also feel that some of Obama's support comes from the 'let's just get a black man in the White House so they will shut up' Left (mostly white). And as for black folks, there vote is a matter of 'it's finally happening' in many cases.”
It strikes me as though the activist Left (particularly the progressives) are not so much negative at quenching racism (as with Hillary Clinton's supporters and sexism), something pretty much dead anyway (it's not just anti-PC; it's considered wrong by society, period). Instead, it's a positive view of Obama and adulation progressing to the extent I described it before. Obama's appearance and slick speeches only help him. (The #1 goal since the 1960s has been to be telegenic; this is more important than being a great orator was in the pre-television and pre-radio days.)
The hype will probably die down as this campaign continues. There will be an explosion again after Obama is (likely) elected and inaugurated, but this may not simply be more Obama hype per se but a combination of celebrating his success and celebrating an end to the Bush Nightmare [tm] and a takeover of Washington by the Democrats. I remember the Texans coming to DC in 2000 after the election and I believe Washington will actually be much more crowded with young people when Obama is inaugurated. (It's the young and the white progressives who are the most fervent supporters of Obama, not the black American community. I hope the latter don't feel displaced or upstaged now or in Washington next January.)