4 ms·

I hadn't heard of cameo before, but my wife and I went to a broadway show, she very much enjoyed one of the performers, and afterwards she looked him up on twit

I hadn't heard of cameo before, but my wife and I went to a broadway show, she very much enjoyed one of the performers, and afterwards she looked him up on twitter and sent me his twitter feed to show me some tweet or other. On his twitter profile he had a link to his Cameo profile, and for $20 I had him send my wife a little video about that performance we were at, and to talk about the show generally. A couple days later she got a 45 second clip he recorded during intermission, he talked about the show, thanked her for being a fan, and was generally very gracious. She was surprised and delighted, and I felt like it was $20 well-spent. So, while I'm super skeptical about the C-list celebrity market ($50 for Chris Hansen? Presumably to make a to catch a predator joke?), I think there may be an opportunity here for fans to connect with the long tail of artists and celebrities.

clairity 7y ago
your anecdote makes me understand a little bit of the value of cameo, despite otherwise being baffled by the product. celebrity culture is fascinating, not because i care much about celebrities, but because its value seems on the surface of it both out of proportion and hard to pin down. and our emotional and social systems seem to be subverted somehow in the process. the entertainment value of a movie, show or concert, and even their cultural value, seems somewhat straightforward, but how do we (over-?)value the entertainer beyond their craft skills? why do people so adore them from a distance, enough for something like cameo to have a valuation in the hundreds of millions?
- deleted 7y ago
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- mistermann 7y ago
  I think people might be underestimating how the meaning of celebrity has changed - I have two kids who follow all sorts of different people on Youtube and elsewhere from whom they would be far more thrilled to get a personalized video message than from some "real" A-list celebrity, and I would even go so far to say the same for myself. $20 bucks for a 1 minute personalized clip for a special occasion is pocket change (how many hundreds of dollars do we spend on toys that we know very well are going to end up on the shelf with all the others), and for all but the biggest Youtubers, $20/minute (plus overhead time, etc) is easy money. Plus, 3 years later the kid gets to rewatch the video and laugh at how dumb they were for liking that person! It's a shame it's no longer an option to invest in startups like you could back during the dotcom boom, although any of the big platforms could probably knock off this technology in a weekend or two.
- PopeDotNinja 7y ago
  I think it's more practical to ask why anyone enjoys anything. The value of going to a concert might be clear to you, and he value was clear to myself at a younger age. But these days, most of the time I find most concerts kind of boring, as I have a hard time focusing on the music in front of me because I start dreaming about something else. Personally, I think getting a shout out from a celebrity would be pretty cool.
dmix 7y ago
I used to be member of a subreddit where people used to get cameos from people like Chris Hansen and get them to say inside jokes they weren’t aware of. By far the best purchase was Norm MacDonald which I believe one of the board members paid $150 just to make us laugh. There’s a real market in novelty with these things. It’s like gift shop level celebrity stuff with more personalization. But better for social media.

clairity 7y ago

your anecdote makes me understand a little bit of the value of cameo, despite otherwise being baffled by the product. celebrity culture is fascinating, not because i care much about celebrities, but because its value seems on the surface of it both out of proportion and hard to pin down. and our emotional and social systems seem to be subverted somehow in the process. the entertainment value of a movie, show or concert, and even their cultural value, seems somewhat straightforward, but how do we (over-?)value the entertainer beyond their craft skills? why do people so adore them from a distance, enough for something like cameo to have a valuation in the hundreds of millions?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mistermann 7y ago
I think people might be underestimating how the meaning of celebrity has changed - I have two kids who follow all sorts of different people on Youtube and elsewhere from whom they would be far more thrilled to get a personalized video message than from some "real" A-list celebrity, and I would even go so far to say the same for myself. $20 bucks for a 1 minute personalized clip for a special occasion is pocket change (how many hundreds of dollars do we spend on toys that we know very well are going to end up on the shelf with all the others), and for all but the biggest Youtubers, $20/minute (plus overhead time, etc) is easy money. Plus, 3 years later the kid gets to rewatch the video and laugh at how dumb they were for liking that person! It's a shame it's no longer an option to invest in startups like you could back during the dotcom boom, although any of the big platforms could probably knock off this technology in a weekend or two.
PopeDotNinja 7y ago
I think it's more practical to ask why anyone enjoys anything. The value of going to a concert might be clear to you, and he value was clear to myself at a younger age. But these days, most of the time I find most concerts kind of boring, as I have a hard time focusing on the music in front of me because I start dreaming about something else. Personally, I think getting a shout out from a celebrity would be pretty cool.

dmix 7y ago

I used to be member of a subreddit where people used to get cameos from people like Chris Hansen and get them to say inside jokes they weren’t aware of. By far the best purchase was Norm MacDonald which I believe one of the board members paid $150 just to make us laugh. There’s a real market in novelty with these things. It’s like gift shop level celebrity stuff with more personalization. But better for social media.