Matt` wrote:

Just leaves me wondering who’ll be remembered from this era in 50 years… or a thousand for that matter. You have to do something pretty special to be remembered for that long, but it might be easier now that our memory can be augmented with all our fancy technology. Or it might be harder, because our fancy technology will be busy drowning the important people out with re-runs of reality TV.

Well, Steve Hawkings will likely be remembered for years to come. Not only is he one of the brightest people on the planet, but his Captain Pike type condition makes him a very memorable character.

From my field: Knuth and Dijkstra are fairly iconic. They’ll get remembered. Moving closer to our generation maybe Linus Torvalds. Oh, and Billy Gates for subjecting us all to the world of suck that is Windows. He won’t be remembered for his hacking skills – he will be always known as the guy who created a nearly complete monopoly in the OS market, and then told the DOJ to fuck off and got away with it. :)

Oh, and Larry Page and Sergey Brin for doing the same thing that Bill Gates did, but in style and without ever ceasing to be awesome.

Maybe Zuckerberg? That is if Facebook manages to survive the test of time.

Oh and moot, for destroying the internet. ;P

History’s a hell of a filter I guess. No-one bothers saying anything about the vacuous celebrities after their time, but the people who really did something will be remembered for it – even if they aren’t famous in their time, they’ll be a member of the much smaller club of “people who did something that mattered” which when we look back makes them stand out more than the people around them who were trivial but were talked about at the time.

As for the perception of a paradigm shift… probably has a lot to do with the fact that we can be aware of most of the “people who mattered” ™ of the past, and unless we pay close attention to when they were around we’ll tend to condense large groups of people to being all of the same period, creating the illusion that every era of history was filled with important names, where ours is relatively devoid.

Just leaves me wondering who’ll be remembered from this era in 50 years… or a thousand for that matter. You have to do something pretty special to be remembered for that long, but it might be easier now that our memory can be augmented with all our fancy technology. Or it might be harder, because our fancy technology will be busy drowning the important people out with re-runs of reality TV.

Zel wrote:

I think that we are first and foremost looking for new things to keep us entertained. We don’t care about the celebrities themselves as much as we care about what they do. The important information is in the action and not so much in the person who has done it. Just look at how fast a well-known person can get off the radar as long as they stay quiet. People stop gossiping about them, because there’s nothing new to tell, and forget them. Just like once the scandalous noble moved out or died, he was forgotten by the local population.

This is a very good observation. We only seem to care about these people because they keep doing stupid shit in public. If they stay out of the limelight for long enough, the public loses interest and so do the paparazzi.

50 years from now, no one will even remember Paris Hilton. People will remember our time for some great writers, poets and scientists that were doing awesome things that we completely ignored and will only discover 20 years from now. :P

I agree that what we consider celebrities of the past are people that left something valuable, be it written, architectural or artistic. But if you read a few biographies, you find out most of these people were never famous in their lifetimes. With a very serious lack of education among the majority of the population, very few could understand these works anyway, let alone read them. I think you nailed it : people were probably most interested in their local celebrity (the town idiot, the slutty girl, the handsome son of the local lord) that we would consider no less shallow than our current superstars.

The problem is, a pretty face is not enough to sell anymore. Just look at those same famous superstars filmographies, and you’ll probably see a lot more failures than you would have thought. Of course, having a pretty actor helps, but it doesn’t guarantee commercial success.

The decline of TV Reality Shows illustrates that what people were looking for was not just looking at young people do whatever. They want drama, they want originality, they want conflicts and tension. You can’t just let 10 people loose in a flat anymore, you need some twist, some catch, some seriously disturbed individuals or actual actors. They’re all decent looking because good looks help catch the eyes and make great covers for TV magazines, but it doesn’t maintain interest for very long.

I think that we are first and foremost looking for new things to keep us entertained. We don’t care about the celebrities themselves as much as we care about what they do. The important information is in the action and not so much in the person who has done it. Just look at how fast a well-known person can get off the radar as long as they stay quiet. People stop gossiping about them, because there’s nothing new to tell, and forget them. Just like once the scandalous noble moved out or died, he was forgotten by the local population.