Celebrity on celebrity
: Adam Curry, celebrity, writes about the Michael Jackson case. After carefully issuing the standard caveats — don’t know whether he did it; not trying to defend him if he did — he issues a few unique perspectives. First, on sexuality:
When it comes to sexuality I find american culture to be completely off center.
We’ll never forget Frank from the one hour photomat, who warned us that we shouldn’t take pictures of our daughter naked. “People might take it the wrong way”. Huh? She was 4 years old and wearing her mousketeer ears and mom’s high heels.
From that day on I never dared to take a bath with my own daughter for fear she might offhandedly mention it at school, triggering a witchunt against those ‘long haired european MTV freaks’.
Our fears were confirmed when a ‘representative’ of ‘all the mothers’ came to our house requesting that my wife wear ‘loose fitting clothes’ when picking up Christina from school becuase “the boys are noticing”.
One Hour Photo meets Harper Valley PTA.
Adam’s not wrong about any of that.
But still, this guy did say that he likes to sleep with other people’s children — and other people let him. I’d say that’s what’s off-center here.
Next, Adam warns of the dangers of celebrity, of being accused of something and finding that cut-and-paste into media everywhere without a fair chance at reply (he says it happened to him recently in a tax matter).
Then he warns us that webloggers can be celebrities, too:
Warhol’s ’15 minutes of fame’ is now more true than ever. A weblog can make you a celebrity, even if you don’t own one. And your 15 minutes may only be valid for 15 people, but the cultural response to fame by media still applies. In other words, this could happen to you.
It could be your neighbors calling you ‘wacko’, not just behind your back, but to a [potential] audience of millions.
: Meanwhile, leave it to France to hold a candlelight vigil for Michael Jackson.
