Internet opens doors to fame

It's easy to get famous.

Or, at least, it's easier to get famous now than ever before. Of course fame is both a relative and indefinite thing, not always paired with fortune, and sometimes subject to almost-instantaneous failure.

It used to be that most famous people got famous through newspapers, radio, cinema, television or other regulated media. That is, generally speaking, there was some level of institutionalized control over who was given a chance to capture the public's attention.

Today, any blogger, video-blogger, YouTuber, MySpacer and almost anyone else with Internet access has a shot at fame, be it 15 minutes, 15 days or any other span of public attention-getting time.

In July of 2006, YouTube surpassed 100 million video downloads per day. That mass of megabytes amounts to eons of independently generated airtime. And whether it's with a piano-playing cat, amateur sketch comedy, illegal pranks or a pirated Family Guy clip, you can be sure that some hopeful video-wielder somewhere is about to get noticed by a few hundred thousand people.

Before the advent of interactive Web sites like YouTube, this simply didn't happen.

People use the Internet for information, entertainment and communication, out of boredom and for a number of other uncertain purposes. And nearly every fathomable domain of Internet usage has been exploited by Web sites like YouTube and MySpace.

It might be argued that ephemeral notoriety on a popular Web site is not comparable to the exposure gained on television, radio or in newsprint. While this may be true for the time being, there are many instances of crossover publicity.

MySpace music artists have landed recording contracts, and popular YouTube videos are sometimes featured in news and other television broadcasts. In the reverse, many television shows have reached a new audience through YouTube. For example, network giant CBS regularly posts clips from various network shows.

In the blogosphere, independent bloggers have become employed journalists, and already-employed journalists have started blogging. The blogosphere is like a newspaper of unlimited size with unlimited writers covering unlimited topics. Naturally, bad writers covering boring topics with long-winded columns are abundant. No jokes, please.

In many ways, the free exchange of ideas that has ensued is a positive thing. I particularly appreciate the outlet that talented musicians and other artists have been given, where previously exposure in that vein was mostly relegated to a fortunate few. In many other ways, however, I wonder if the cheapening of publicity is a bad thing.

For one, many people without any discernable talent or credibility have been given unlimited access to a worldwide audience. This obviously doesn't much matter for the piano-playing cat and some variety of natural selection tends to filter out the worst of the worst, but a load of worthless material is still disseminated every day.

Of course all media demands critical consumption, but the Internet these days is an especially easy place for many to be led astray.

Studies have indicated that many college freshmen writing research papers have difficulty distinguishing credible Internet sites from non-credible ones. Books and journals have in some cases been left behind all together. How do you cite a YouTube video, anyway?

Blogs and other online media will play and already have played a major role in the 2008 presidential election, more so than any before. Candidates have relied on YouTube for exposure to younger voters. Most every candidate has a MySpace page. If you work really hard, I bet you could get into Dennis Kucinich's top friends list.

I suppose politics have always been about the people with the most "friends," but the notion that the nation's fate from 2009-2013 may be decided in part by happenings on a teen-driven Web site owned by News Corp is a little unsettling to me (although perhaps no worse than the effects of slanderous campaign ads and mindless partisan pundits).

In the broader picture, as the lines between news, entertainment, fact and opinion continue to blur, I can imagine the day that all information will be taken from computers that play television, movies, music and other sound bites, and also work as phones and maybe some other stuff. Actually, I think that day is already iHere.

There will probably always be a contingent of more-famous celebrities, but as the impact of independent media continues to expand it will increasingly become the task of average people to decide which entities actually deserve attention. In that light, Paris Hilton's continued popularity may be a harbinger of doom.

Ultimately, the best solution may be to step away from the monitor and go for a walk. In fact, I think iWill.

[Reach columnist Andrew D. Brown at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]