15 Megabytes of Fame

Cinema can turn anyone into a celebrity. (Or so Walter Benjamin argues.) That anyone can become celebrity -- we can look at anyone (and anything) on the silver screen. And while the novelty of actually being on the silver screen (extra, anyone?) has not worn off, there are plenty of other ways for people to get their "15 minutes".

With youtube, even idiots like my friend Christophe can be seen on the LCD (the computerized version of the silver screen) by millions. (Here is a video of Christophe, whom I call an idiot in a very loving way, acting like Cookie Monster. I took the video…and no -- we were not drunk. We'd just watched a Battlefield Earth and were delirious from how bad it was.)

On the one hand, it's fantastic that everyone has the opportunity to share their "art", but as a result of so much being out there, so much art just plain sucks.

I mean, look at the above video? Does 'Stophe deserve 15 minutes of fame? Perhaps…but not for his Cookie Monster impression. Benjamin says that art goes from being a ritual to being an exhibition -- available to anyone. So did we just make Cookie Monster Porn? (scary thought.)

The point that I was looking to try and brilliantly segue into is how this can really create some bad things in society, if you ask me.

I am a musician -- and dammit, I work my ass off for it. I study it, I go in and out of gigs and sessions and lessons with some of the greatest living minds. And when some garage band puts together an album using…cough…GarageBand (TM), it makes me feel like the work I've done is bastardized. When anyone can be an artist, those of us who devote our lives to the art become run-of-the-mill, when what we do is anything but ordinary.

Now I am not a music elitist (okay -- I might be), but I am not someone who says you need to study something to actually call it what you do -- like plenty of musicians can call themselves musicians without going through the process I'm going through -- but I think we need to discuss what legitimates art if everyone can make it.

So, what does?

Outside validation. Example: I always did music for my life, from the day I started playing piano at age 5. I've pretty much always known that I wanted to do that for life. But I never called myself a "musician" until I had the outside validation of being accepted to music school. (Or multiple music schools, fortunately…) So I don't know if someone can call himself a professional at anything until he's been monetarily compensated for it. (So a painter who has been accepted to art school can call himself a painter, but he may be an amateur painter…or for myself, I call myself a semi-professional musician. I have been paid for my work, but I get a scale less than union. (I'm not in the union yet.) And I wouldn't ask for that pay, because I don't think I have the validity to do so yet.)

But then, of course, there's the question of who validates the outside validation? If your garage band makes your own album and prints it professionally using Kunaki or some services like that, and you sell it to your 25 closest friends from school, are you a professional musician? Or does a record label need to sign you? Where does the line come?

I'm not entirely sure. But while I may blog, and I may rant, and I may write better than some I know who call themselves 'writers', I will never call myself a blogger or a writer. (A ranter, perhaps. I think when people walk out on my rants, that gives me the outside validation I need to be considered a ranter.)

But art -- art has started to really suck at times. The good is getting better, it's just harder to find, because there's so much crap to sift through to make it harder and harder to find good art. So while there are some good home-made Youtube clips out there, Christophe's isn't one of them…but he still gets his 15 minutes of fame…or at the very least, his 15 megabytes.