Some Say the Creative Life is Often Lonely One..

Got Fame? The scene: A starlet, recently freed from a grueling 72-hour ordeal, careens out of a correctional facility parking lot and dials the first coke dealer she can find in her iPhone. 

Nothing can slow her down now. She is pissed but giddy over the press she has received. Stupid paparazzi. And the studio keeps calling leaving threatening messages with her manager. Can’ they see she’s having a crisis? No one understands how hard it is to be in the spotlight constantly, she thinks.

 Of course she parties a little, everyone does. She chuck s a fast food shake out the window, hitting an oncoming car. Fucking idiots. No one understands what she is going through.The unmistakable stench of rot and decay lingers over popular culture right now. Celebrity, once the domain of an elite (and elitist) class of hand-picked talent and well crafted studio production, is now mass-produced. How did we get here?

 When did fame become an end unto itself? 

The promise of unlimited access to the means of media distribution was supposed to even the playing field, allowing the cream to rise to the top. Everyone can play; everyone can hit the jackpot; everyone can be famous. Yet the very nature of fame is corrupted by its ubiquity. It is meaningless unless there are those less famous looking up to you. You can have 6,234 friends on Facebook and never meet more than ten of them. Fame is now the crack cocaine of success cheaper, readily available, self-destructive, and quicker to fade.

Text By Michael Taylor, Composed and Photographer D