Internet-famous

I talked about being famous on the Internet ages ago, here on my blog.  I've been pondering it again lately.

Wil Wheaton discussed, here, some of his thoughts on being Internet-famous.  One of his thoughts particularly struck me:

I’m incredibly grateful that I get to do more with my work than just make things, and when she meets a real celebrity, instead of someone who’s just Internet Famous like I am, I hope they’re awesome to her.

And I have to disagree with him just a little bit.  I think that people who are famous on the Internet are the real celebrities.  This is because they are considerably more real.  There are a handful of people whom I follow on the Internet - Wil Wheaton, Neil Gaiman, Amanda Palmer - who I would certainly consider 'celebrities', but I wouldn't consider them 'fake' celebrities.  

I feel incredibly special when I have a chance to interact with any of these people.  I feel very encouraged by the fact that these people, whom I respect both as people and as artists, take the time to reply to people on Twitter, or take the time to reply in the way Wil did.  

An example from my own life.

Earlier today, I tweeted the following:

pondering how to walk toward the mountain. sometimes @neilhimself is an inspiration, sometimes a bit more "well now what do I do" ...

in response to this:

Just make sure you’re walking towards the mountain, all the time.

I'm currently two years into my undergraduate degree in vocal performance.  I'm trying to find a job for this summer, so I can pay for a place to live.  I've landed an unpaid week-long internship at a drama/improv camp, which is wonderful for me and teaches me LOADS, but the rest of my summer is pretty open.  It's very difficult for me to do 'gigs', per se, because I am a classical singer ... I sing Schubert, Verdi, Britten, Fauré, etc.  I sing big, classical pieces in languages that aren't spoken where I live.  This isn't exactly something that's in huge demand.

What else do I do?  I love to act.  I have no credentials.  I live in a teeny little town.  I love to write.  I should just DO it more often.

/endwhinybit.  Sorry.

So I'm feeling stuck.  I need a job that will fund my studies; I need to walk towards the mountain.

Neil replied to me about an hour ago:

@Kaylotta Nobody said it was easy. But as advice, it might help...

to which I replied:

@neilhimself Sure, never easy. It shouldn't be easy. :) just figuring out how can be a bit of a mindbender.

I've never been under the impression that my life would be easy.  (Some days I would sure like it to be, but hey.)  It just seems to be a big fight to do what I love (classical singing) and still eat.

someday.  someday.

Anyway!  My original point with that was that even though Neil's advice was hard for me to take, as I've been trying to land jobs that really had little to do with what I want to do for a living, I still felt very special that he would take the time - not more than thirty seconds - to reply to me.  Especially when my tweet would have been buried four hours down his timeline!  To my mind, that sort of thing shows an incredible devotion to the people who care about one's art, and that is, I think, one of the best qualities that a 'famous' artist can have, whatever the medium.

This still leaves me in the difficult position of not quite knowing whether I'm taking good steps with my life.  *ponders the mountain*

VISI, day 5

As I woke up this morning, I realized I hadn't blogged the night before.  Blame Cracked.com ... 

Yesterday was very tiring.  Not much more to it.  Got up with my alarm, more or less, stretched, got dressed, went to breakfast.  Went to a performance psychology class where we talked about how difficult performing really is and how we cope with that - and how we ought to.  Listened to a lecture about rubato in Lieder and how even composers played with their songs more than we do today.  Listened to a masterclass with a couple of great Strauss pieces - I definitely want to do his Ophelia set.

Made some lunch - couscous.  Too much water; was not as appetizing as I had hoped.  Did not make a phonecall I meant to make - annoyed me.  Went off to coaching a little early to finally warm up.  Sat through four hours of coaching and just about fell asleep ... though I suppose I did learn a fair amount.

I considered going out for supper; decided not to.  Made supper in my little kitchenette, then started perusing the Internet.  Didn't finish until eleven-thirty.  Decided it was a good time to go to bed; seven hours' sleep was standard for me and was generally enough.

Wake at seven-twenty.  No.  Not enough sleep.  Sigh.  I decided to take this morning off and get things done, take a couple of hours away from the Internet (*cough*) and focus in on things.  Do some mental exercises, really warm up, really practice.  My first contact with VISI today will be a concert for solo soprano voice; I am hoping that it will be inspirational and will wake me up.  

In the meantime, I am eating an apple (I must buy a different variety next time, these are not crunchy enough) and sipping rooibos tea, and just generally being off-kilter and tired ... 

"I'm famous on the Internet"

So I've been fussing with this math for several days.  I finally figured it out: I was making it entirely more complicated than it needed to be.  Figures, eh?  Just like me.

I've been pondering the concept of Internet fame.  I follow Wil Wheaton's and Neil Gaiman's Twitters, along with several others (Fred Gallagher, Dave Kellett, Zoë Keating), and am constantly amused by them, and I feel connected to them.  Yes, I know, it's a standard celebrity thing, but it's cool to have a different sort of look into their lives: a personal one, rather than a media-official one - which is why I like reading Wil Wheaton's blog so much.  Not only because he's a writer who knows how to write well, but because it's way more down-to-earth and approachable than, say, reading an interview.  (I'd read Neil Gaiman's blog too, but with the amount of feeds in my Google Reader, that might be a few months away.  I think I would like to read into the archives of his blog, so I'd like to have a day where I don't feel bad about neglecting other things to do so.  ^^; )

I've been considering why it is these people (and many, many others whom I could list) have hit it big on the Internet - and wondering if they would be so successful, say, thirty or forty years ago.  I don't think so.  The general populace of today is a strangely different beast (but then, any generation could say that), with our instant-access addiction (it's so true!) and off-kilter etiquette.  I only wish the Netiquette that seems to be prevailing in civilized corners of cyberspace would spread to the real world - but that's a rant for another time.

In pondering why these people are big names on the 'Net (I recently heard it put that one of the first things anyone does when they get a Twitter account is follow @wilw, which made me giggle), I wondered just what it takes to become an Internet phenomenon.  Do you have to make a fool of yourself?  (Looking back at the past four years of posts, that shouldn't be hard.  XD)  Do you have to be brilliant at what you do?  (This one seems more likely, with the people I follow actively at least, but then it's not a rule: there are many people who are phenomena for not being brilliant ... but are they more gawked at, or listened to?)

Oh, and in other news, 4+x (my boyfriend, if you didn't know already) has hooked me onto classical techno remix.  It's honestly addictive.  I'm listening to a remix of the Bagatelle in a-Moll für Elise (yes, it's more commonly known as just Für Elise, I'm just being my music-geek self: the actual names are often much more interesting than the common names), and I want to dance.  Or rather, groove.  ... No, I suppose one could choreograph this.  Ballet to techno!  I'd so watch that.  Now it's changed to the Toccata und Fuge in d-Moll.  *headbang*

Connecting to dancing, and also to 4+x: I took an hour-long introduction to ballroom dancing Monday morning (meringue and jive), and was astonished at how simple it is in principle.  Even better, 4+x agreed to learn with me!  I'm quite excited about this now, as I've wanted to dance since I was little, even though I'm not suited for professional ballet (which is what I took briefly) - gotta be triple threat in this world, eh?

I'm going to have to find a way to keep these from becoming blurbs of random musings, and actually giving them subjects.  (Might take a while.)