My Summer Lair Chapter #263: What Are You Willing To Do For Fame?
The keyword in the description of this provocative NFB doc is reckless: “A startling and timely study of contemporary celebrity, Anything for Fame ventures into the virtual Wild West to profile an ambitious-and reckless-new breed of content creator.”
What would you do for fame? In the doc you’ll meet Ava who went viral for licking an airplane bathroom toilet seat. She called it a Coronavirus Challenge.
What would you do for fame? In the doc you’ll meet Jake an Ontario-based skateboarder who performs Jackass type stunts with nail guns and getting shot at with sharp needle tipped darts. There will be blood.
What would you do for fame? In the doc you’ll meet Jumanne who went viral when he quit his Subway job by trashing the restaurant. He threw the food on the floor, stepped on all the food, crushed the bread and more.
So…what would you do for fame? Remember Hoop Dreams a popular basketball documentary from the mid-90s? It’s a doc that followed 2 inner-city boys and their struggle to become established basketball players. Maybe make it college, imagine that? But the NBA? C’mon.
Anything for Fame is Hoop Dreams for influencers. It’s a nuanced looked at going viral and the struggles of influencers to become wealthy and famous. Is YouTube a Golden Ticket?
My conversation with the director Tyler Funk starts with his personal experiences with Internet Fame (White Ninja!) to the many themes in Anything for Fame.
From the sweatshop quality of the internet to the get rich quick scheme of going viral to…hope. Is this the kind of internet you want? A machine that turns people into machines? Platforms where people will do anything even self-harm for fame?
Before we can talk about what kind of internet we want…let’s discuss the internet we currently have. One where content creators will do Anything For Fame.
Anything For Fame @ W • T • F
Host Sammy Younan
Recorded: Wednesday, November 1, 2023 at 2:30 pm (EST)
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