Love this video by Innuendo Studios analysing one case of ‘internet fame’ and meltdown, specifically Phil Fish who made Fez.
The irony is all the people in the comments who haven’t actually watched the video, or missed the point completely and come to grumble about a few ‘internet famous’ people.
Clue: the video is not about Phil Fish, or Anita Sarkeesian. And if you missed that, you’re part of the problem.
Who it is isn’t really important, it’s more the reality show / internet fame cycle, a self-created snake eating it’s own tail, i.e. we make you, you don’t conform to what we expect of you, so we destroy you – or will do so for lulz. This will happen more and more – like with Flappy Bird – and more so with random people who didn’t even ask to be famous for those 15 minutes. People make these monsters, then destroy them, but the question is why did you bother? Certainly in the case of Fez it’s rather sad, as I loved that game…one of the few games of recent times I thought was worthy of notice, was truly original like Portal was. 99.9% of games I see advertised are generic shooting fests or boring rehashes of previous games.
I can see why him or the Flappy Bird guy ‘took their toys away’ because it’s the only reaction to loss of control, down tools, let ’em rant away – whereas if you keep playing by their rules and release another game or keep it going, they’ll just keep using that to snipe away. Refuse to play that game. But I wish there was going to be a Fez II, I really do – this is what happens when you push people over the edge, doesn’t usually matter what they’ve done, if they are an asshole or not. Everyone loses in that mob dynamic (I feel the same about mob activism online, it wins the battle but loses the war – making someone leave the Internet and destroying their life is not success, it’s sad and horrible, and it probably won’t change their mind).
I would never go so far to say anything I’ve done has ever been even internet famous, a few things have gone viral, some press, but nothing really big. But I recognise the green-eyed devil of backlash, the whole ‘deserving of fame’ thing, as I’ve experienced that from my mashup peers on the few times I got recognition – rather than being happy for me, several of them acted like I didn’t deserve it, like ‘who does he think he is? He’s a talentless unmusical fuck and I’m a genius! *throws toys*’.
Small scenes are like that, obviously – from indie gamers to DIY remixers and mashup scenes. A lot of perceived hierarchy, a lot of ‘why did HE or SHE get fame/attention, and not me?’ – especially if you’re not part of the in-crowd, you’re not seen as A-list. It might be luck, timing, or it might be they are actually good but not seen as such by the dominant clique(s).
Fame in itself isn’t a judge of quality as I posted on Facebook recently, the assumption that ‘if it got press it must be good / worth looking at’ – not at all. It is an indicator only that they either lucked out (as I did), or were just pushy and irritating enough to get press, and being an arrogant dick quite often helps with that. But even then, I’ll give you a pass if you are actually really good…the false modesty approach is disingenuous, since people are complete whores when it comes to their own creations. VOTE FOR ME! etc.
Sometimes though, the extremes of ego and arrogance is misplaced – for instance there are a few people in the mashup scene who thinks their shit smells of unicorns and sparkles, and have egos the size of Deep Thought, partly because they have had press – but their work doesn’t really bear that out (and interesting they’ve never really become real-Famous, only niche/Internet Famous – a big fish in a very little pool). And sometimes it’s actually confidence, pride or a ‘fuck you’ to those who constantly brought you down on the way up…it’s a hard line to call. I don’t publicly judge those people unless they are being ‘phobic in some way, but just ignore their output. It doesn’t need me anyway if you’ve got a few tame journos from a DJ mag, or you’re ligging with famous people taking selfies – if people are good and promoted then it will spread naturally. It’s why I tend to push those people who are not only genuine and probably too nice to push themselves on people, but never got those opportunities, they aren’t part of the Get Along Gang, the accepted (white, straight, male, upper/middle class, Tory, Oxbridge educated) people who magically get all the breaks.
Whereas I love those moments when someone unexpected breaks out, in Britain the underdog is king, but whenever someone who makes it look easy and ‘one of us’ gets success, someone who doesn’t seem all Mozart-level talented, it actually enables others to have a go. This is a punk ethic, Sex Pistols were a case in point. So when in a small way it’s happened to me, I was always happy to inspire others (even in a sour grapes ‘WTF, even this loser can do it?’ way) to try and pile in and have a go…because this idea that you have to be super-talented before doing anything is complete bullshit. But those who think that success is ‘earned’ by social approval are actually holding everyone back – and I suspect we lose out on a lot of future Picassos and Mozarts because they see all this cliquey bullshit and go home.
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