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These things can be serious. In another life I was co-managing the tour of a semi-successful boy band (we couldn‘t afford any Taylor Swift sized security measur

These things can be serious. In another life I was co-managing the tour of a semi-successful boy band (we couldn‘t afford any Taylor Swift sized security measures, then again the concerts were usually less than 1000 people). The breaches were egregious. One day, one of the guys came home into his hotel room exhausted after a concert and there were three nude girls in his bed. Another walked out from his shower into a similar situation and was more shocked and angry than anything else. None of this could have happened without the help of Hotel personnel. On top, all of these intruders were getting very hostile when they weren‘t being „taken advantage of“ but sent out. Being famous, even slightly so, isn‘t as nice as it seems from the outside.

loudmax 8y ago
> Being famous, even slightly so, isn‘t as nice as it seems from the outside. It's not that I don't believe you. I can rationally accept that what you've said makes sense. However, being on the outside, it takes some mental effort to make the fame you've described not seem extremely nice.
- soundwave106 8y ago
  There's a level of fame, the more superstar type level, where simply walking by yourself in public is much less feasible because of the tendency to get mobbed or attract unwanted attention. This is probably the level where problems like stalkers are much more serious. I'd guess that this is the level where it isn't "as nice". You no longer can do things without considering potentially crazy fans or overly uncomfortable levels of recognition. A long time ago, I remember the difference being illustrated at a Dragoncon in the early 2000s. Guests on the fame level of, say, Babylon 5 cast members, could walk around the convention just fine. They could do standard things like, say, go to the restaurant and have a meal without being heavily interrupted. Walking around they'd maybe get some hellos and photo poses and whatnot but it didn't seem terribly intrusive. And then there was Alice Cooper, who walked around the main convention floor one day and instantly got mobbed by a huge crowd. My hunch is that Taylor Swift probably is at the fame level where she needs security of some sort merely to walk around in public. That's a negative in my mind.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    Babylon 5 is probably a bit too obscure, but you don't even need to be a Taylor Swift to get that "treatment"; I'm guessing anyone playing a main character of, say, Grey's Anatomy is probably getting constantly interrupted in public (meals, gym, parks, everywhere can be fair game for shrieking fans to badger you and demand you act like the character). At least that's my experience living with someone who got such a part (although at the scale of a small country, not worldwide like Grey's).
- zaroth 8y ago
  There’s a Sev2 bug report sitting Unassigned in God’s JIRA, something about humans fundamentally lacking the capacity to understand how even the poorest people can shine and how even the richest can suffer. There’s no magical set of circumstances that result in happiness or joy. In fact I think the external things that we most often identify as bringing happiness or joy, apparently when most people are faced with these things, it results in quite the opposite. In my opinion Taylor Swift has one of the hardest and most unrelenting jobs on the planet. Going out night after night trying to appeal to the teeming masses sounds like absolute hell. Everyone you meet more likely to be a vampire than not. No thanks!
- HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
  It takes all kinds, I guess. None of what he describes seems pleasant to me. Maybe I'm just old :-)
kakarot 8y ago
> taken advantage of Are you insinuating that the goal wasn't to have sex with a pop idol but instead to blackmail them?
- justtopost 8y ago
  Seems to not be mutually exclusive...
  - kakarot 8y ago
    If the goal is blackmail, sex is just the means.
setquk 8y ago
Indeed. There are some fucking crazy people out there. I was at a relatively minor gig, right at the front and someone threw a full beer can at the frontman and smashed him right in the face. He picked a stage speaker up and threw it at the guy, then dived off the stage and tried to strangle him. He had just lost it by then. So gig ended there and when the police turned up and took statements, I overheard that apparently this guy had followed the frontman round the last 5 gigs and thrown cans at him at each one.
gdy 8y ago
"and there were three nude girls in his bed" The horror.
- checkyoursudo 8y ago
  That would actually be horrible to me. But I'm more curious about whether they all knew each other, or if it was like, one girl gets in and gets naked, and then another and she sees the first one and thinks, meh no biggie, and then what happens when the third one gets in? The story would be a little more boring if they all knew each other ahead of time.
sizzle 8y ago
Sounds like a cool gig, how did you end up in the tech field?

loudmax 8y ago

> Being famous, even slightly so, isn‘t as nice as it seems from the outside. It's not that I don't believe you. I can rationally accept that what you've said makes sense. However, being on the outside, it takes some mental effort to make the fame you've described not seem extremely nice.

soundwave106 8y ago
There's a level of fame, the more superstar type level, where simply walking by yourself in public is much less feasible because of the tendency to get mobbed or attract unwanted attention. This is probably the level where problems like stalkers are much more serious. I'd guess that this is the level where it isn't "as nice". You no longer can do things without considering potentially crazy fans or overly uncomfortable levels of recognition. A long time ago, I remember the difference being illustrated at a Dragoncon in the early 2000s. Guests on the fame level of, say, Babylon 5 cast members, could walk around the convention just fine. They could do standard things like, say, go to the restaurant and have a meal without being heavily interrupted. Walking around they'd maybe get some hellos and photo poses and whatnot but it didn't seem terribly intrusive. And then there was Alice Cooper, who walked around the main convention floor one day and instantly got mobbed by a huge crowd. My hunch is that Taylor Swift probably is at the fame level where she needs security of some sort merely to walk around in public. That's a negative in my mind.
- icebraining 8y ago
  Babylon 5 is probably a bit too obscure, but you don't even need to be a Taylor Swift to get that "treatment"; I'm guessing anyone playing a main character of, say, Grey's Anatomy is probably getting constantly interrupted in public (meals, gym, parks, everywhere can be fair game for shrieking fans to badger you and demand you act like the character). At least that's my experience living with someone who got such a part (although at the scale of a small country, not worldwide like Grey's).
zaroth 8y ago
There’s a Sev2 bug report sitting Unassigned in God’s JIRA, something about humans fundamentally lacking the capacity to understand how even the poorest people can shine and how even the richest can suffer. There’s no magical set of circumstances that result in happiness or joy. In fact I think the external things that we most often identify as bringing happiness or joy, apparently when most people are faced with these things, it results in quite the opposite. In my opinion Taylor Swift has one of the hardest and most unrelenting jobs on the planet. Going out night after night trying to appeal to the teeming masses sounds like absolute hell. Everyone you meet more likely to be a vampire than not. No thanks!
HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
It takes all kinds, I guess. None of what he describes seems pleasant to me. Maybe I'm just old :-)

kakarot 8y ago

> taken advantage of Are you insinuating that the goal wasn't to have sex with a pop idol but instead to blackmail them?

justtopost 8y ago
Seems to not be mutually exclusive...
- kakarot 8y ago
  If the goal is blackmail, sex is just the means.

setquk 8y ago

Indeed. There are some fucking crazy people out there. I was at a relatively minor gig, right at the front and someone threw a full beer can at the frontman and smashed him right in the face. He picked a stage speaker up and threw it at the guy, then dived off the stage and tried to strangle him. He had just lost it by then. So gig ended there and when the police turned up and took statements, I overheard that apparently this guy had followed the frontman round the last 5 gigs and thrown cans at him at each one.

gdy 8y ago

"and there were three nude girls in his bed" The horror.

checkyoursudo 8y ago
That would actually be horrible to me. But I'm more curious about whether they all knew each other, or if it was like, one girl gets in and gets naked, and then another and she sees the first one and thinks, meh no biggie, and then what happens when the third one gets in? The story would be a little more boring if they all knew each other ahead of time.

sizzle 8y ago

Sounds like a cool gig, how did you end up in the tech field?