Excerpts

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Women have emotions; men have sport. That’s how it was for centuries. But this all changed at the end of the twentieth century. Emotions suddenly went public. They became compulsory for men. Getting in touch with your female side was the magazine cliché. The sorry spectacle of males in tears was everywhere. If you wanted so as to sell a book, then you had to cry on a talk show. Athletes were nothing if they hadn’t been seen weeping on TV, basketball stars wept buckets, soccer stars sobbed on the field, comedians cried copiously, Presidents could hardly address the nation without tears in their eyes. If you couldn’t hack it, then you’d better damn well fake it, brother, for this was Reality TV. Celebrities wallowed in public emotion, like warthogs in a muddy hollow. So, yes, TV was to blame again, changing behavior, lowering standards, intruding, falsifying, exposing. Emotion became the trademark of endless TV harpies, the Medeas of the media, with their frozen hairdos and their refrigerated smiles. How do you feel? People were asked moments after they had scored a goal or been told their family was lost in a plane crash. Prodding and jabbing. How do you feel? Until the tears would flow and the poor victim received his benediction from the blond show queen. Pass the Kleenex, check the ratings, pass the sick bag, please.

Men were by no means the only victim of this hijack by the harpies and perhaps they had it coming anyway. There was a lot of bullshit bleating about it at the time, as men found themselves, perhaps for the first time, vulnerable to particularly public forms of female revenge. Women, it seemed, could hardly wait to get laid to lay pen on paper, saving semen stained souvenirs to offer as evidence for the courtroom or the studio, it didn’t matter which, since both were on television now. Sharon reveals all. Naked pictures of the girl who fucked the country. Read the book of the blowjob. News at nine - sex, scandal, and weather. It was of course the total breakdown of privacy. Private life - that was such a Victorian concept anyway, and it went straight out the window with TV and the computer. Now the double ages had arrived, nothing was private. I could get your credit rating, your total net worth, your purchasing patterns, your private address; dammit, I could even check you orgasms online.

For some people the oxygen of publicity is as vital as breathing. Publicity is the precious fuel of fame. It is gossip at the speed of light and it’s a poison, of course. Pollutes the soul, destroys the self, flatters the ego, but oh how good it tastes. And it certainly helps to sell books. So while fame is useful for getting tables in crowded restaurants and casual sex from strangers, admiration from strangers is desperately bad for the soul. The constant attention, the fuss, the adulation of the crowd, the seductive delight of never hearing the word “no,” the ability to bend people to your will, to seduce them, to have them do things for you. And to you. On your knees, baby. Worship me. Flatter me. Please me. All very bad for you.

I can hardly wait.

Of course I shan’t want all the entourage bullshit that goes with fame. Groupies are one thing, but I won’t need hairdressers, publicists, astrologers, chauffeurs, makeup, wardrobe, and endless assistants. The victims of fame are sad. Some are almost incapable of boiling an egg. They are terrified to be alone. For to be alone is to face what everyone else has to face: That we are all ultimately alone. That the camera is just a trick with light, and that your image too will fade. That there will come a time, horror of horrors, when your name will no longer be spoken. That there will be no more glossy pictures, no heart warming story. In short, no you.

Fame is terminal. But then, sadly, so is life.