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On Fame and Chappell Roan

2024-10-01 · letter vlog · John · 5:20 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Pop culture (also: Personal life) · mode: Personal essay · tags: timely hook, calendar ritual, self promotion, community lore

Prompted by Chappell Roan's public struggle with fame, John recalls having a panic attack at the Paper Towns film premiere while at the top of 'Fame Mountain', calls fame the worst purportedly good thing he has experienced (an intoxicant that brings outsized negative feedback and lost privacy), and concludes, with Mr. Rogers, that how he feels about fame depends on how he uses it.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Image of John's mustachioed face as Chappell Roan; his least favourite photo, from the Paper Towns premiere during a panic attack

  • ★ John opens with an image of his mustachioed face as Chappell Roan, who he says has been publicly struggling with fame lately. (playful) — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ John's least favourite photo of himself is from the Paper Towns film premiere: on top of the world, rich and very famous, he was in the middle of a panic attack. — 00:00:12 · Paper Towns (film), Paper Towns

00:00:29 — Fame Mountain: climbing, the top, fame as an intoxicant, negative feedback, loss of privacy, a 'zeroth world problem'

  • ★★ In the photo John is drenched in sweat, terrified of the cameras, and feels wildly overexposed and extremely scared. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ On 'Fame Mountain', John hiked up hungry while writing his first novel in 2002; with some success he came to want the top more than happiness or fulfilment. — 00:00:43
  • ★★ John improbably reached the top: Saturday Night Live mocked his book in a sketch, Time named him one of the world's most influential people, and a studio executive said he was blowing up. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ John says the top of a mountain can be quite lonely and there's not much oxygen up there. (playful) — 00:01:19

  • ★★★ John says proper fame is far from the worst thing he has experienced, but it is the worst purportedly good thing he has experienced. — 00:01:19 · celebrity

    “it is the worst purportedly good thing I've ever experienced”

  • ★★ Tony Hawk (quoted): John reports that Tony Hawk said he had tried all the major drugs and fame was the worst one. — 00:01:19 · celebrity

  • ★★ Fred Rogers (quoted): John reports that Mr. Rogers once said fame is a four-letter word, then paused a long time before adding 'like love'. — 00:01:19 · celebrity
  • ★★★ John says fame is very much an intoxicant: being at parties with famous people and receiving so much outside affirmation, but intoxicants have downsides. — 00:01:48 · celebrity
  • ★★ John says many people disliked his work, and some defined themselves in part by disliking his work or even him. — 00:01:48
  • ★★ John says negative feedback penetrates him in a way positive feedback doesn't: he remembers almost nothing positive anyone said, but many negative things. — 00:02:18
  • ★★★ John didn't understand the pleasure of privacy until he lost it: unlike the middle-school belief that everyone is watching you, when you're famous people actually are. — 00:02:18
  • ★★ John says strangers watching a famous person eat form an opinion from the only interaction they will likely ever have with them. — 00:02:47
  • ★★ A stranger who saw John at dinner called him a very deliberate chewer; he is, because of his eosinophilic esophagitis, but doesn't want strangers noticing. — 00:02:47
  • ★★ John says he enjoys being observed by strangers far less than he expected while climbing the mountain. — 00:03:16
  • ★★ John grants that fame is beyond a first world problem, a 'zeroth world problem', but still a problem for Chappell Roan and for him. (playful) — 00:03:16 · First World problem
  • ★★ John says fame is a problem for almost all famous people he knows, except a very few who navigate it with grace and embrace its responsibilities. — 00:03:16

00:03:45 — What John likes and dislikes about fame; how he feels about fame is a function of how he uses it

  • ★★★ John says fame is a problem because, as a culture, we worship at the altar of fame. — 00:03:45 · celebrity
  • ★★ John likes it when people tell him his work has helped them, has gotten better at taking that in, and is grateful to improve someone's day with a selfie. — 00:03:45
  • ★★ John disliked feeling overwhelmed, overexposed and scared, nerve endings outside his body; he feels it less now after a lot of work and being past the summit. — 00:03:45
  • ★★★ John has come to understand that how he feels about fame is mostly a function of how he uses it; when the photo was taken he only knew to make more of it. — 00:04:15 · celebrity
  • ★★ John says he can use fame to write a book about tuberculosis, though no Saturday Night Live sketch will result, because it can help people and his deepest self wants to. — 00:04:15 · Everything Is Tuberculosis, tuberculosis
  • ★★ John says he can use fame to connect with people and make their days better, and even to do silly and wondrous things like Pizzamas. — 00:04:44 · Pizzamas
  • ★★★ John concludes Mr. Rogers was right: fame is a four-letter word, and as with other four-letter words, it's all about how you use it. — 00:04:44 · celebrity

00:05:13 — Pizzamas is ending: get it at pizzamas.com; sign-off

  • ★★ Noting that the end of Pizzamas is nearly upon them (with a playful twist on a line by "the poet"), John asks viewers to get Pizzamas items at pizzamas.com while still available. — 00:05:13 · Pizzamas

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: celebrity · Fred Rogers

Also: People: Chappell Roan · Tony Hawk

Projects: Pizzamas

Works: Everything Is Tuberculosis · Paper Towns · Paper Towns (film) · Saturday Night Live · Time 100

Organizations: Time

Concepts: eosinophilic esophagitis · moustache · negativity bias · panic attack · privacy · spotlight effect · tuberculosis

Memes: First World problem

Also centred on Fred Rogers: Flags and Helpers

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