27 ms·

Reasons not to become famous

• _rrnv 7y ago
  Ok, boomer /s The 2000s generation already embraced parallel identities and anon profiles, and they are able to make them popular. The more digital we go the easier it will be to be a famous virtual identity. Sure, all the threats will still be there, just going to /dev/null instead of the real you.
  • sdan 7y ago
    Must be why Twitch streamers get swatted? There’s always going to be a way around things, especially on the internet. I do agree anon names will act a nice proxy initially.
  • pjc50 7y ago
    Name half a dozen who've managed to keep it anon for a few years while remaining famous. The only one that comes to mind is _why.
    • Taek 7y ago
      Gwern
    • jaredsohn 7y ago
      Mini-Microsoft
• amelius 7y ago
  I think it highly depends on the kind of fame. If you connect emotionally with your audience, then sure. But if, say, you are a famous researcher then I suspect you are facing far less of these problems.
  • Jarwain 7y ago
    I think his tribe-village-city analogy plays a big part in that, though. A famous researcher probably wouldn't have as large an audience, and that audience would most likely consist of other researchers in similar or adjacent fields of research
    • arexxbifs 7y ago
      I’m pretty sure someone like Katie Bouman has a lot of horror stories to tell about the downside of fame. Reading this article makes me very happy about being more or less completely unknown and unremarkable enough to not become an overnight sensation.
  • pferde 7y ago
    It's not about you emotionally connecting with your audience, but the other way around. And that is something that is out of your control, as this article clearly illustrates. Lots of crazies out there.
  • woofie11 7y ago
    Nope. More famous researchers face the same problems. It doesn't kick until it's popular fame, as far as I know. In other words, if most computer scientists know who you are, you might still be okay unless you get unlucky (but you might definitely get unlucky too). If Joe on the street knows who you are, you've got all this and more.
  • CM30 7y ago
    Yeah, it's very dependent on the kind of fame, as well as the field you're in. A major kpop star/Japanese idol is probably going to have all the problems in the blog article, perhaps magnified by ten. Their fanbase tend to be... a tad less on the sane side, and there are a fair few of them who are absolutely obssessed with their idols and will resort to stalking and harassment. But at the same time, there are plenty of fields and claims to fame that won't get this. Researchers will get less of it. Someone who doesn't show their face online will seemingly have less of these issues (though people might get obssessed with finding out who they are, ala Satoshi Nakamoto and Banksy). And those focused on more technical/specialist fields may have less issues. Your average popular YouTube glitch hunter or speedrunner will have less problems than a popular YouTube political pundit.
• Expez 7y ago
  The post has a good quote from Bill Murray: > I always want to say to people who want to be rich and famous: ‘try being rich first.’ See if that doesn’t cover most of it. There’s not much downside to being rich, other than paying taxes and having your relatives ask you for money. But when you become famous, you end up with a 24-hour job. . . . The only good thing about fame is that I’ve gotten out of a couple of speeding tickets. I’ve gotten into a restaurant when I didn’t have a suit and tie on. That’s really about it.
  • speedgoose 7y ago
    Why trying to become rich? Once you have enough money to have a great quality of life without stress, having more money isn't improving much your happiness. Sometimes it makes it worse. However trying to become rich can be very difficult, tiresome, and disappointing.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • richthegeek 7y ago
      "have enough money to have a great quality of life without stress" is how many people define "rich".
      • speedgoose 7y ago
        True. I guess "rich" because you can pay your family bills and have the hobbies you love and "rich" in "rich and famous" don't mean the same kind of wealth.
        • woofie11 7y ago
          The threshold is whether you need a job. The difference in stress of needing to hold onto a job, versus of being their voluntarily, is huge. And it's not binary. If you have a few years cushion saved up, it's a huge decrease in stress. If you have a mortgage paid off and enough to retire off of, most people in the world would call that 'rich.'
• sdan 7y ago
  This was a pretty heavy piece. Further reinforces Naval’s quote about being rich and anonymous is far better than being poor and famous.
  • pferde 7y ago
    Yep, I thought so. It very much reinforces the gut feeling I've always had - to avoid fame (not that I am in any danger of being famous myself :) ). On that note, that is what has always bugged me about the traitor guy in The Matrix movie, when he negotiated with the agents, and wanted to be reinserted into matrix as someone famous. But I guess wanting to be famous said something about his character. :)
• maze-le 7y ago
  Wow that was... unexpectedly intense. Like a microcosm of everything that is wrong with cults of personality.
  • bartread 7y ago
    I thought the same thing. That escalated really quickly, and it's certainly given me pause about having any online presence (despite not being at all famous). Bookmarked to reread later.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• molteanu 7y ago
  I honestly thought this is bad writing. It jumps from one idea to the next without bringing any of them to the conclusion. One quote too many, maybe? And too many paragraphs that are meant to catch and arounse the reader's interest? I guess this is the style of writing needed to catch the attention of millions of followers. Am I mistaken? I've stopped reading this after 5 minutes. I've reallly tried, though. Edit: Downvotes expected for an honest opinion. That's fine :)
  • Kiro 7y ago
    Regarding your edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314 In other words, it's completely OK to downvote opinions. I think it's wrong but I don't make the rules here.
  • PudgePacket 7y ago
    You're probably getting voted down because you're not really adding anything valuable to the discussion. If you think the submitted article is bad just vote it down and move on.
    • marktangotango 7y ago
      Huh? Are you able to downvote articles at your current level of karma? I cannot and I have than you (ie immediate parent to this comment).
      • molteanu 7y ago
        Nope, I cannot.
        • AnimalMuppet 7y ago
          Neither can I, at my level. I don't think anyone can. (Of course, there are those with a lot more than me. Maybe they can... but I doubt it. So far as I know, the only real level in karma is at 500, when you can downvote comments.)
• ak39 7y ago
  What can you achieve with fame that you cannot achieve with money alone? What is this need for wanting others to know that you exist at all? Jobs that demand "fame" of some sorts will always take an emotional toll on personalities that are never comfortable with fame, limelight and podiums. I have been an introvert my whole life but only recently realised this about myself at the tender age of 40! It was a cold slap for me to accept it. I have always imagined myself gregarious and outgoing and friendly - wanting to speak to strangers, breaking silence in a lift - but these have never really sat comfortably with me afterwards. I'll be chewing and ruminating about the imagined mistimed comments or miscued lines for ages. I have bruised myself emotionally believing that I needed to be an extrovert to be successful when in fact I was only demanding too much of myself. Fame, and outrageous fame will likely kill me too.
  • thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > What can you achieve with fame that you cannot achieve with money alone? You can use fame to get money. If you're poor and famous, you can become rich off of your fame. But obviously, if you're poor and not rich, you can't become rich by using the money you don't have.
    • k__ 7y ago
      Don't know if it's that simple. I mean, sure, since I started blogging and wrote a book, I'm seen a bit more "famous" than the average developer, and this got me a bunch of projects. But I know a bunch of really famous people who struggle. They sell their face for ads or go to reality shows. Don't onow if they would do this if they had something better to do to get money.
  • keiferski 7y ago
    For one, if you’re any sort of “thinker” (i.e. an economist, philosopher, writer, etc.) that wants to spread your ideas, fame goes a lot further than money. Sure, you can buy a marketing budget and people to spread your message, but that has its limitations.
    • 7y ago
• sillysaurusx 7y ago
  Hypothesis: On twitter, when your follower count exceeds the number you're following, you become a little nutty. I've noticed this odd trend where if people gain a lot of twitter followers, then often their views become reinforced to the point that outsiders look at their tweets and wonder what happened to make them express such ideas. But there's bias here: for tweets like these to be noticed, they need to be seen. Only those with followers are in that position. It makes sense that wacky tweets we notice tend to come from people with lots of followers. So I'm not sure if it's true, or if there are just a lot of odd people on twitter. My own experiences indicate that the sweet spot is around 1k followers. More than that, you attract a lot of noise. Less than that, and it's hard to get noticed. But perhaps this is just personal taste. The reason I mentioned this is that I'm in the fortunate position of having attracted a lot of followers recently (for whatever reason), but I'm concerned that things will turn sour. I like twitter right now. There are cool people on there, and I've met friends through the platform. But will it still feel like that at 5k followers? 10k? 50k? I feel like I should stop whatever is accelerating the follower count before it reaches an inflection point. So the article resonated with me. If you're ever jealous of people with lots of followers (or fame in general, for that matter), just tune in to https://twitter.com/paulg https://twitter.com/paulg and see the way people respond to pretty much anything he says. What's the point of being famous if you can't express an idea without being beset by thoughtless people?
  • ealexhudson 7y ago
    I'm following ~375 and have ~800 followers, so by your theory I'm becoming a little nutty. Hopefully that hasn't happened yet, but I have definitely noticed thinking about tweets a lot harder recently before sending them - "would I be embarrassed to say this in front of my mom?" basically. I suspect you're right about the sweet spot.
  • smitty1e 7y ago
    I got my follows close to 50k, but Twitter seems to squelch my posts a lot. Doubtless due to the flavor of views expressed. Or maybe because I've never paid to boost anything. And then I realized, as with TFA, that attaining the notoriety of the BigNames wasn't worth the hassle, and for this reason not cited in the article: As we lurch toward a "social credit" system, 20 years of stupid gags from Slashdot to Twitter to HN will only be so much rope to hang me. Best focus on having fun until that day the fun has me.
• z3t4 7y ago
  Just assume that whatever you say to anyone will end up in the news next morning.
  • majos 7y ago
    But this is a terrible way to live. You’ll never be vulnerable with anybody, and vulnerability is a big component of close relationships.
• keiferski 7y ago
  I’ve always thought being famous with a pseudonymous name but an anonymous appearance and legal name is the best of both scenarios. Someone like Bansky or Daft Punk, for example. Everyone knows your artist name and your work, but virtually no one recognizes you on the street and you can check into hotels or use your real name without most people noticing.
  • nefitty 7y ago
    Is the point that you get your work recognized, instead of your “self”?
    • keiferski 7y ago
      Depends on where you draw the line between work and self, I guess.
  • christiansakai 7y ago
    I read Kevin Hart’s autobiography and one takeaway from the book was that famous comedians or famous people don’t use pseudo/nicknames but just use his/her own name. Kevin Hart was known as Lil’ Kev the Bastard until one of his early mentor told him to drop that nickname.
    • keiferski 7y ago
      > Kevin Hart was known as Lil’ Kev the Bastard until one of his early mentor told him to drop that nickname. This is also just a monumentally bad name. In comedy alone, there are plenty of people with nicknames or not-their-actual name: - Louis C.K. (Louis Székely) - Jon Stewart (Jon Leibowitz) - Larry the Cable Guy (Daniel Lawrence Whitney) - Mel Brooks (Melvyn Kaminsky) - Gene Wilder (Jerome Silberman) - Tim Allen (Timothy Alan Dick) - Rodney Dangerfield (Jacob Cohen) - Jamie Foxx (Eric Bishop)
      • christiansakai 7y ago
        I see. I didn’t know that. Thanks for clarifying
• woofie11 7y ago
  Law suits. The big one missing is law suits. That's a higher level of fame than this blogger has hit. That includes: 1) Nuts and idiots. For example, people who genuinely believe what you're doing is out to get them. 2) Jackals and vultures. People want what you've built, and see the legal system as a good way of extorting you to get it. I hit this level of fame, and quickly backed down from anything which might give me more visibility. I also stopped believing random accusations of famous people until there's proof or unless the accusers are really close. If someone is CEO of a 20,000 person company, and their closest associates accuse them of sexual harassment, exploitation, fraud, or otherwise? That's a plausible accusation. If someone runs a 20,000 person company, and 20 seemingly random people do? Well, that's almost guaranteed by statistics.
  • ikeboy 7y ago
    My understanding is even without fame, if you get anywhere interesting in the business world you'll need to get comfortable with litigation. Every wealthy person is entangled in it, even people you've never heard of that "only" have 50 million.
    • dman 7y ago
      This is an eye opener, I didnt realize it was that bad.
      • swat535 7y ago
        I personally know some "law firms" (notice the quotes) that specialize in bogus class action lawsuits. They just gather whatever random evidence they can, from news paperclips to emails and then threaten big companies. Then quickly settle for ~700k-2M as a cash grab instead of going to court. Majority of big companies pay up instead of going to court. To cut costs, these firms also operate on only free interns and maybe have 1 or 2 actual lawyers.
        • mam2 7y ago
          Seems like a nice side project
• tazjin 7y ago
  I opened this on a computer without an adblocker installed (yeah, my mistake), and a minute or so into reading the article it suddenly pops up a full-screen ad to buy this guy's book. That's on the same level of annoying as autoplaying videos imo.
  • ehnto 7y ago
    Ah, the humble pop up. I don't see them so much anymore, but I also don't visit many websites that would do that anymore. It's always startling, sometimes it can take a good minute just to get through the onslaught of popups, popovers, chat widgets and permissions requests just to see the article.
  • simonebrunozzi 7y ago
    Yes. Sometimes I like what Tim writes, but his marketing tactics on the website and elsewhere are really bad and annoying. Tim, if you're reading this: please consider a different approach. You're rich and famous, you don't need the extra $$ of a slightly better conversion rate.
    • hycaria 7y ago
      What if it's the team working on this that's looking for a better conversion rate ?
• notyourword 7y ago
  Psychotic episodes don't make you violent!
• gherkinnn 7y ago
  I never wanted to be famous. Now I feel confirmed. Jesus. There’s liberty in being a nobody. > Suffice to say, I didn’t realize that this type of thing was part of the Faustian fame-seeking bargain. Again, reading classics holds more weight than 90% of current self help and motivational books. Goethe was on point. After having mastered all the sciences and still unfulfilled, Faust seeks Mephisto to know “was die Welt in ihrem Innersten zusammen hält” (What binds the essence of the world). And enters a pact with the Devil. Of course it all goes to shit.
  • kaybe 7y ago
    It's fun to summarize Faust II for those who haven't read it. Faust I is so commonly read in school here, and so earnest and serious that the time-traveling madness of the second part comes at a surprise.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• dannyw 7y ago
  Anecdotal, but have known someone who because famous. They like getting their emails responded to; but they'd rather not get the publicity. This was cemented when I was walking with them had to take a detour to avoid a news crew that was looking for them.
• MayeulC 7y ago
  I think I do not want fame, but it's obviously easier to navigate some circles if your name is known: you don't have to introduce yourself, nor prove other people what you are worth. This works on many scales: from a small team at work, where it's much easier to co-ordinate if everyone knows each other's strong points. It's also great for arguments: if you know that a person is very knowledgeable on a topic, you won't ask them to substantiate their claims, which speeds up the process. I've been toying with the idea of creating multiple identities for multiple areas I'm engaging in: use my real name for socializing in real life with close acquaintances as well as paperwork, but maybe use a pseudonym for publishing papers, another for engaging in open-source communities, and online in general. I'm happy to say it's quite hard to find pictures of myself online, but it would be even better if they didn't come attached to a meaningful name. I'm about to submit a paper with my real name this evening, and I am a bit unsure about this. Any experience on using pen names in that domain specifically? The issue I have is that the longer you wait, the harder it is to change (which can also be a good thing: to change names is to get a fresh start). It all boils down to reputation and identity somehow, two hot (and hard) topics in (distributed) social networks.
  • graeme 7y ago
    There’s a big difference between being known in your field and being generally famous as Tim Ferriss is talking about. I am well known in my field and it has all the benefits you speak of. But it’s not a large field. So I have none of the negatives that the article speaks of.
    • MayeulC 7y ago
      That's right, of course, and I should have made this a bit clearer: I am mostly concerned with being known under the same name in multiple independent fields. While it certainly has benefits, it: * Lowers the Signal/Noise ratio when searching for your works in that field * Might not always be relevant for your future employer that (forgive my bad example) you are a skilled baseball player, for them to find some drunken pictures of you, or for your date to know that you are a speaker at defcon. I think of it as controlling the flow of information, installing firewalls between different aspects of my life. I would prefer personal matters not to intervene in my work life, and vice-versa. By virtue of not having a common first name, if you look mine up with a few keywords related to my interests, you can quickly track me down. This is not a big deal in general, and I don't do anything that would deserve it, but you always are one scandal away from fame, especially in today's world...
• H8crilA 7y ago
  Perhaps I'm missing something, but what's good about being famous? I.e. what are the reasons to become famous?
  • jamesrcole 7y ago
    The article covers that, near the start.
  • reidjs 7y ago
    More opportunities for wealth, women, power. More social interaction. Ego stroking. Getting a message out there. There’s a lot of great reasons if you’re the type of person who enjoys these things and can handle the pressure.
• PragmaticPulp 7y ago
  The last time I wrote a mild critique about Tim Ferriss online, someone scoured the internet to reverse engineer my personal identity and sent an e-mail to my personal e-mail account to debate with me. (I have since switched to anonymous handles). I can only imagine what it's like for Tim Ferriss himself. If you're not familiar with Tim Ferriss, there are several reasons why he's more attractive to dangerous followers than the average influencer: - He was among the first to crack the "influencer" code, gaining fame and popularity through book publishing and early social media websites (pre-Instagram). Back then, there weren't nearly as many influencers to know about, let alone follow. - He rose to fame via punchy self-help books like "The Four Hour Workweek" and "The Four Hour Body". He talks about having chosen those topics to give solutions to the average problems faced by modern people. He makes calculated moves to target the widest range of people who are looking for answers to life's basic challenges. - He has moved toward more respectable topics over time, but his early work tended toward fantastical claims and unrealistic promises. It was more fantasy than practical, but always grounded in an inspiring shroud of "What if he's right?" This leaves the hopeful readers hooked while filtering out the rational skeptics. I joke that he applied the Nigerian prince scam filtering mechanism to self-help books. - In the past, he dabbled in pure clickbait that wasn't grounded in reality. For example, consider his famous blog post about gaining 34 lbs of muscle in 28 days with only 4 hours of total gym time using secret techniques of the "little-known Colorado Experiment": https://tim.blog/2007/04/29/from-geek-to-freak-how-i-gained-34-lbs-of-muscle-in-4-weeks/ https://tim.blog/2007/04/29/from-geek-to-freak-how-i-gained-... If you're at all familiar with weightlifting or exercise science you'll understand how impossible this is, yet it circulated for years on message boards from beginners who were convinced that Tim Ferriss was a guru who could help them achieve the impossible. - One of Tim's books has a section about contacting famous people who you wouldn't normally expect to respond to you. He encourages readers to contact famous people as an example of achieving what you previously thought was impossible. This is intertwined with his stories about life hacking or using clever tricks to achieve impossible goals. It's not surprising that his fans have chosen to apply those techniques to Tim Ferriss himself, by following his social media and calling around at hotels to find him. He all but encouraged this behavior in his first book. - Recently, Tim has been pushing Psychedelic medicine as a miracle cure for depression, anxiety, and PTSD. He has made some very respectable and noble efforts to raise money for proper scientific research. He also gives pseudo-warnings on his podcasts to not attempt DIY psychedelic treatment for psychiatric issues, but his disclaimers have a very "wink, wink" after we've received fantastical advice about getting rich, traveling the world, getting fit, and so on from Tim over the years. I have no doubt that many of his fans have begun experimenting with psychedelics to treat their severe depression and anxiety without the help of psychiatrists, which is not a recipe for healthy outcomes. In other words, Tim Ferriss almost defines the modern "Guru" archetype. Fame and publicity always come with a risk of stalkers and negative attention, but I believe Tim's position as a self-help guru and psychedelic medicine pusher has amplified uniquely amplified his reach among the most vulnerable individuals. I feel truly sorry for him, of course, but it's helpful to understand the larger context of how he arrived in this position if you're wondering how this could apply to other internet-famous people.
• perseusprime11 7y ago
  Becoming famous requires a lot of good luck and not just hard work. You have to be the right person at the right time kind of thing. I feel extreme good luck invites bad luck because of the negative energy surrounding the famous person. This has very interesting side affects on how famous people look at risk and make their decisions. But thinking of famous personalities like Gandhi, MLK, Kobe, MJ, Bruce Lee, I wonder what would have happened if they were not famous. Would their destinies be any different?
  • AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    You wouldn't know if their destinies were any different, because if they were not famous, you'd never have heard of them.
• afpx 7y ago
  Regarding the stalking ... Reminds me of a recent "Hidden Brain" episode - about "Secret Friends" - people of whom others believe to be friends but aren't. The show implied it's fairly easy for the Human Brain to develop a belief those whom are seen or heard often are friends, even if not known personally. Tim mentions feeling that he is a tribal leader of millions of people. And, he definitely has the attention of those people. People who trust him. And, from an anthropological (and perhaps biological) perspective, I wonder if people stalk him because they really believe him to be their tribal leader Maybe those people really do look at him like he's a friend. I know our Westernized cultures cherish individuality and independence, but I also wonder if people who decide to enter (and stay within) the limelight have a Human responsibility to be a leader and friend. I know, that's a crazy thought.
  • bittercynic 7y ago
    I don't think it's a crazy thought at all - being famous gives a person some kind of power, and I think some responsibility comes with that. However, if a famous person behaves in a way that doesn't seem to be fulfilling that responsibility I think the best we can do is ignore them - trying to enforce our idea of responsibility in this area seems unlikely to be a net positive.
  • opportune 7y ago
    I've heard of podcasts being described as "friend simulators" because of this phenomenon
    • accidentalrebel 7y ago
      That is very interesting. I follow a number of "Just Talking" podcasts and I have come to consider the members as my friends. Some of them really are, but others are just purely because I listen to their podcast. Feels weird to realize this.
  • appleflaxen 7y ago
    I think this is exactly the right way to understand celebrities: our primitive brain thinks it understands who these people are, how they relate to things we care about (shows, books, issues, movements), and identifies them as "familiar", and "known". And on the other side, this looks utterly bizzarro to the celebrity, because not only don't they know the fan, but it should be obvious to the fan they know absolutely nothing fundamental (or very little) about the celebrity as a human being. It is a really crazy set of circumstances. The culture of celebrity is completely crazy.
• nlh 7y ago
  The stalker thing is real - and I didn’t realize how real until a buddy who’s a moderately-successful YouTuber (750k subs) got his very own. Thankfully it’s a relatively benign case, but man, it’s real. There’s a kid who, for the past ~10 years, calls him Every. Single. Day. Without fail. For 10 years (that’s 3600+ phone calls). He leaves a voicemail and just talks about his day - what video games he’s playing, etc. I think his mom once called and apologized (although she doesn’t seem to try and stop the behavior, which is also odd, but who knows). Now imagine the same kind of obsessive behavior, but...less benign. Scary.
  • mprev 7y ago
    Could he change his number?
    • Spooky23 7y ago
      That can trigger the stalker to escalate.
      • prepend 7y ago
        It could also result in the stalker never calling again. I guess it’s important to understand the probability of outcomes before just listing negatives.
        • joshspankit 7y ago
          Personally if it’s something potentially harmful, I’d rather have it where I can see it.
      • luckylion 7y ago
        How? They wouldn't know unless he'd drop the old one. I imagine he isn't calling the kid back to say "hey, got your voice mail, sounds good, keep it up", so the kid wouldn't know that their voice mail goes straight to /dev/null while he uses a different number.
      • 7y ago
• reidjs 7y ago
  My advice (not famous person): If you want to “try before you buy” the famous lifestyle perhaps try to get comfortable at night clubs and festivals. Once you kind of learn how that dynamic works and you can get the most attractive people there to pay attention/dance/party with you, you will see a lot of the positives and negatives that come with the territory. Beautiful, heartless women. Jealousy. Needless power positioning. Regretful spending. But also fun and memorable experiences. YMMV
  • scep12 7y ago
    This seems mostly unrelated to the meat of the article. I'm not sure that your suggestion results in a productive sample of anything other than spending time in nightclubs.
• throw18374 7y ago
  This is tangential to the article, but James being “a frequent commenter on his blog and a huge help to other readers” was my first sign that he was not mentally well. Immediately knew things would not go well for him in this story. People often say this as a joke, but I think it’s 100% accurate: Internet comment sections have a strong self-selection bias for the mentally unwell. I’ll include Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, HN to some extent, etc. Not exact numbers, but the math goes something like 100% of comments are written by 10% of readers. Of those that do bother to comment, the less utilized and less psychology stable and healthy they are, the greater their commenting volume is. Healthy happy people simply do not spend much of their time that way. (I’m including myself in that btw.) The world treats these comment sections as if they represent a perfect cross-section of the general population, and the result is all the insane cultural rambling and nonsense you hear and read about in media and blogs, all the way up to Fox News and NYT. They think these insane ramblings are what represent the people and what the people want. Then the population adjusts to some extent to match those insane ramblings, because they think that’s how other people must feel. It’s a global feedback loop of political and cultural madness and hysteria.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • gist 7y ago
    > Healthy happy people simply do not spend much of their time that way. But what if making comments makes you happy? While I don't disagree with the premises of what you are saying I think you are not considering that for some people saying something makes them feel good and they are perfectly mentally sane. I could also say that 'healthy happy people do not spend their time socializing with others at parties' but we know people do that because 'it makes them happy'.
    • paganel 7y ago
      For what it's worth "mentally sane" and "healthy happy people" can be a little boring in real life, that's why lots of people like myself have decided to spend time arguing with people from the other side of the world on websites like this one or on reddit just because the subjects being argued about are interesting and there's no way you could find a person in your real life that could be interested in said subjects.
• ruminasean 7y ago
  I am publicly in close proximity to someone famous for my job and with a modest (~15k) Instagram following because of that, I've experienced most of this behavior to one degree or another. I was completely unprepared for it and it really freaked me out. I love the Bill Murray quote, and I've been living by this, also from the article: "You want everyone to know your name and no one to know your face.” It really seems to affect people that I don't post selfies and pics of myself anywhere....second to requests to be put in contact with the famous person to whom I'm obviously connected, people really want to know what I look like. As someone who is fairly private as well as nothing special in the looks dept, I'm in no rush. I'm googleable because of the absurd name under which I started, but most people can't or won't put in the effort. I've definitely concluded that in my particular case, some respectable form of following on IG is necessary (I'm a photographer) and I certainly won't get rich, but damn I was utterly not ready for nor was I expecting 5-screen-long tales of woe and death and disease and pleas for help and mercy along with the same kind of "I know what you did and I'll expose you" shit several times a week.
  • rootusrootus 7y ago
    I'm surprised a photographer would be such a target, even if they identify themselves with a well-known (and somewhat controversial, I suppose) figure. TIL! Reading stories like this just makes me that more determined to never be well-known. Not that I'm in any particular danger of that, mind you, but still...
    • ruminasean 7y ago
      I was surprised too. It's a variety of "I need X to speak at my charity event," "hey can you give X my contact info," "here's my nude selfie and my number, please tell X," to "X is impersonating himself on social media and swindled me out of thousands of dollars, I'm going to report you and everyone else." Ironically, being relatively faceless has burned me as well. I have a fairly common name, so when someone else with the same name made a shitty comment on some board on Facebook, I had days of being attacked, getting DMd to kill myself, brutal comments on all my posts...it was hours and days of cleanup and banning people.
• gist 7y ago
  This was a surprisingly good article and I had not even really (odd actually) heard of Tim until literally the other day. Maybe I came across his name somewhere in the past but thought "he's a self help type author no interest". That said the thing that surprised me is the fact that he is doing the least likely things to make himself less of a target. You go to the blog there's a big picture of him on display and not exactly understated. So sure he could write his books and provide information and make it less likely that people would get mental over what he has and his success (because they would be less likely to focus on him and be jealous). After all something sparks the person who stalks him and I don't think a large part of that is words. Yes writers and others (w/o pictures) get stalked but for whatever reason my guess is it's much less. Let's look at it this way. Not saying it would be possible to be famous w/o displaying yourself personally in a prominent way but what if he provided his helpful info and never had a picture of himself and/or used a pseudonym for his name?
• eb3c90 7y ago
  I'd rather not be rich or famous. If I happened to become either I'd try and leverage them in some way to help or form organisations that can navigate the hot mess of our societies next few decades.
• tempsy 7y ago
  I think the only way to be rich and anonymous is wealth building through stocks, real estate, etc. No one outside of your broker, yourself, and the government knows about that in the case of stocks, and you can buy real estate through an LLC if you want to be extra anonymous.
• DenisM 7y ago
  If the problem is so widespread I imagine that all the really rich and famous have A few people on staff to filter incoming correspondence, triage and follow up on credible threats, check with police as needed etc. What of the modestly famous and not that rich? There ought to be an agency where one could outsource this sort of work for a fraction of the in-house cost. The agency would accumulate experience and might even keep the database of known crazies which gives it economy of scale.
  • baby 7y ago
    here's a start up idea
    • wishinghand 7y ago
      I don't think it could work due to this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22284623 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22284623
  • Zenbit_UX 7y ago
    Well, that's definitely where I'd want to work if I was a crazy. Imagine the access! Thousands of wealthy and famous clients contact information and in some cases direct access to their correspondences for filtering purposes... The potential for extortion, bribery and worse would be unprecedented.
    • imgabe 7y ago
      I'm sure there's a screening process that could be employed. After all talent agencies, movie studios, and other fame adjacent companies must do something to prevent stalkers from getting jobs there. I also suspect that stalkers don't usually have the qualifications and experience that make them attractive candidates.
• Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  Tim's post reminds me of a video the 8-Bit Guy did a while back about how many people contact him, both to try to strike up a conversation and to offer him their old 8-bit treasures. He sounded rather annoyed by the whole thing but he is a big star in the 8-bit pond so it comes with the territory. For his area of coverage, there is lots of childhood nostalgia involved so this might make his viewer connected with the channel (and him) to a greater extent than you'd otherwise think. Likewise in Tim's area of personal development, he makes an emotional impact on a large crowd. Strength of emotional connection times crowd size is going to be the big factors here.
  • varjag 7y ago
    The 8-Bit Guy is fascinating persona, because he manages to maintain two segregated public personalities, both with heavy YouTube presence. (The other one is a 2A NRA gun touter, the kind who takes their rifle to a restaurant and films it)
    • Mountain_Skies 7y ago
      Wow, didn't know about his other persona. I knew he has a channel named 8bit Keys but since I'm not musically inclined, haven't watched it much. Maybe his gun channel helps keep the types of fans Tim complains about away.
      • varjag 7y ago
        Wonder how effective is that though! I've been watching his 8-bit side for years. Had no idea until I started with competition shooting and YT recommendation engine decided it's my cup of tea.
• graeme 7y ago
  Can anyone comment on his statement that having mail delivered to your house puts you on searchable commercial lists? I’m wondering if it’s actually physical mail that’s at issue, or rather having your home address as say a billing address on a site you buy something from. This one seemed fairly tough to avoid 100%, so I want to know more about the plausibility.
  • luckylion 7y ago
    At least in Germany, the mail carrier (Deutsche Post) offers data cleanup & enrichment for address data, i.e. you tell them "I have John Doe, 123 SomeWrongStreet, ZIP" and they'll say 'He lives on 123 SomeStreet". Iirc, they collect this data (among other sources) from mail that was delivered to that address, since they OCR the recipient address for sorting etc anyhow. I wouldn't be surprised if they also (had; it's probably illegal with GDPR) sold access in general.
  • prepend 7y ago
    I worked for a company that bought mailing lists and linked them to public records. We didn’t sell to marketers but it did open my eyes that anyone who isn’t prohibited will sell info. Some industries (utilities, banking) are prohibited from selling customer info. But most aren’t. If you ever subscribe to a magazine, donate to a charity, enter a sweepstakes, etc your info goes into commercial lists.
    • graeme 7y ago
      Gotcha. So not just physical mail: anything with your physical address on it that isn't prohibited from selling it may do so.
      • prepend 7y ago
        Cynically, that’s how I operate. A friend donated to Southern Poverty Law Center and never ordered anything. They entered their address on the credit card form and now gets mail from dozens of orgs including about a piece per week from SPLC.
  • 7y ago
• cletus 7y ago
  So I only see three reasons to be famous: 1. The attention and adulation is your drug. I think there's no shortage of people who fall into this category. 2. To convert that fame into opportunities you wouldn't otherwise have; and 3. To convert that fame into money. Obviously if you're just plain rich then (3) is moot. If you fall into (1) then money can buy you fame to a degree. So that leaves (2). Wealth will give you many opportunities fame will but certainly not all. Or at least the costs to replicate that are truly ludicrous, like being a star in a Marvel movie, spending a year on the ISS, going to the Moon, that sort of thing. The way I see it the downsides of fame are significant. I've heard tales from people who worked in media years ago that the very stars who now want the media to leave them alone and to respect their privacy would beg them for stories and coverage just a few years earlier. I don't think I'd want to be ultra-wealthy (as in a billionaire+). At that point you're almost removed from society. I imagine you end up moving in circles with other ultra-wealthy people that are actually quite small. You risk being a target of the desperate, the criminally minded (fraud, kidnapping, blackmail, that sort of thing) and the mentally unstable. And really what is the practical difference between having $20m and $2b? Sure you'll have nicer houses and more of them. You may well have a super-yacht at that point. But who cares? I know I don't. You could say "you would if you had $2b" and maybe that's true. I'm sure I'd buy a nicer place but I think I'd still want to keep a relatively low profile.
  • sergioro 7y ago
    An extra reason for being famous (could be included in #2 of the above list) is to amplify your positive impact in the world. E.g. if Bezos wasn't famous i'd probably never learned about his business strategies (costumer first, risk taking & innovating, etc). IMO this is the best reason for being famous.
    • bshoemaker 7y ago
      Yep. This seems like the obvious one to me.
    • airocker 7y ago
      Bezos possibly does not want all consumers to know his name or he would have named Amazon "bezos" much like "ford". --bezos fan
• joshspankit 7y ago
  One person who has talked about another benefit is Dan Harmon: (apologies as I don’t remember where or the exact quote) In an interview he mentioned that his [particular] fame meant that he no longer had to go through the superficial conversations when meeting someone new, that everyone knew enough of his authentic self that they could just jump straight in to meaningful conversation. I remember this because, for me, that would be the only compelling reason to become famous.
  • wyxuan 7y ago
    That’s only assuming that, that particular celebrity is known to pour their thoughts out to the world. That same thing couldn’t happen to Leonardo do caprio for instance
    • joshspankit 7y ago
      Yes exactly. That’s what I meant to say with the word “particular” there. Thank you for making that clear.
• JKCalhoun 7y ago
  Counterpoint: You want to help people, educate people, lift people up — and your only talent best suited for this is your writing skills, your speaking skills, your musical abilities or your acting skills. Fame is how you reach a larger audience. My high school teacher may have inspired a number of his students to love and pursue astronomy, but Carl Sagan inspired orders of magnitudes more.
  • Perseids 7y ago
    Counter-counterpoint: If you are not too picky about the type of good you want to do, money can buy you an astonishing amount of it. See the effective altruism movement, e.g. https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/impact-calculator/ https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/impact-calculator/ . For a thousand dollars you can provide 781 person-years of save drinking water or purchase 500 bednets to protect against malaria. Unless you are over-proportionally suited or talented at being famous, you can basically always do more good by earning and donating as much money as you can. (Note, though, that it requires more reflection and conceptualization to feel as good by giving remotely than by giving to people locally or in your community.)
    • unreal37 7y ago
      I think an argument can be made that, if an artist doesn't create their art because they figure they can earn more money as an investment banker and donate money to causes they care about instead, the world is actually worse off as a result.
• scottlocklin 7y ago
  Funny I'm just a sometime blogger and I used to get weirdos finding my house and sending me handwritten letters. At one point I was tied up with one of Steven Spielberg's schizophrenic stalkers because of some dipshit I argued with on Usenet to pass time in grad school. Now I got my face on a fairly well known startup, which means various 3rd world places I enjoy are non-starters without having actual security precautions in place (which defeats the purpose of going to such places in the first place: freedom). Being even slightly famous is shit. I quite enjoy writing and would take it to the next level, but I'd rather not be any more famous. The culture of narcissism which encourages people to seek fame is ridiculous: it's all the downsides of being surveilled except its eyes the size of your audience instead of a couple of creepy (but probably mostly law abiding) policeman at a terminal.
  • Zenbit_UX 7y ago
    I've always been curious about traveling while famous. You generally have to show a passport at airports, hotels, etc.. So I always wondered how famous people moved around with any kind of annonimity. Surely a fake passport is far too risky for legal reasons? Yet it would solve a lot of their problems when combined with sunglasses and a cap... I guess what I'm asking is, what would be the "riskiest" country that you would actually entertain the possibility of visiting without serious precautions?
    • scottlocklin 7y ago
      Fancy hotels have decent security and will meet you at the airport (I mean some of the people we're talking about have private jets and own hotels -though they have security teams to take care of matters). They're probably also used to "Harrison Ford" tier famous people showing up. California allows for pseudonyms on government documents and credit cards, basically because of Hollywood.
    • refurb 7y ago
      Have a personal assistance book hotel under their name and check in for you? Airport is more difficult, but I assume the information is harder to get at (at least in developed nations). Otherwise, don’t fly commercial airlines? Charter a jet?
• yters 7y ago
  Good thing I chose not to be famous.
• quijoteuni 7y ago
  Privilege people problems! Best Ignore!
• m3kw9 7y ago
  I think life has more reasons than be: I can survive in luxury. I think once you have enough, your purpose is to help others. Choose something
• dropoutcoder 7y ago
  An unfortunate consequence of fame is that celebrities are sometimes forced to take counter surveillance matters into their own hands. As it’s difficult for a celebrity to accept new people into their inner circle without knowing their motives, pre-emptive measures can be used to vet outsiders. The unfortunate consequence of this is the application of questionable methods by shady security forces. Celebrities don’t have their own Secret Service detail so they end up relying upon their peers to perform investigations of outsiders entering their fold. This can be disastrous all around, particularly when there exists political and cultural disparities amongst involved parties. Speaking from experience.
  • yaitsyaboi 7y ago
    This reminds me of Ana Delvey, the fake NYC socialite scammer of a few years ago. I originally thought it was funny that she had ripped all these ultra-wealthy people off, but the sad fact was that she scammed a lot of people who were wealthy enough to have a high limit on their credit cards (~50k), but not wealthy enough to have this kind of social sophisticated social infrastructure in place. She got by into the circles my making various friends that all suggested influence separately (investment banker, editor at Vogue, etc), and together gave her the appearance of legitimacy to all the other friends.
• jcoffland 7y ago
  By definition, most people don't need to worry about becoming famous and its consequences.
• ericmcer 7y ago
  Does anyone else feel like he really misinterpreted the parable of the blind men and the elephant? Jim Carrey’s quote also seems out of context, given that Carrey is talking about the philosophical nature of fame as a goal. How striving for it could become a part of your identity and then actually achieving it and finding your problems still exist would lead to a loss of identity, disillusionment and other existential stuff. Ferriss is dealing more with the practical realities of being famous on a day to day basis.
• okareaman 7y ago
  The irony of this blog entry is that Tim Ferris is a relentless self-promoter who continues that practice for the entire first half of this essay before finally getting to the drawbacks of being a successful self-promoter. I appreciate the thought, but I question the motives of the author.
  • accidentalrebel 7y ago
    Whatever the motive I'm glad that he still eventually got to the point. I don't think you can fault him for that, that's what he's good at, I guess.
    • okareaman 7y ago
      He is really good at it and does good with it, so I don't fault him. Not my cup of tea though. I tried to listen to his podcast, but for the first 8 minutes he talked about himself and his accomplishments. That's a bit much self-regard for me.
• yason 7y ago
  This question must be for stage II; so far I can't think of a reason I'd like to become famous in the first place...
• cantrevealname 7y ago
  A common assumption is rich<=>famous. Obviously, famous doesn't imply rich because someone could be, say, a notorious criminal and be poor. But it's quite amazing the degree to which you can be rich, super rich, but still be anonymous. Even in today's world. I remember reading one of Forbes' annual listings of the world's billionaires in which they tried to include a photo of everyone in the top couple hundred. Astonishingly a few had no photos -- Forbes said that they couldn't find a photo. According to Wikipedia, "Forbes employs a team of more than 50 reporters from a variety of countries to track the activity of the world's wealthiest individuals." So you can absolutely be among the richest people on Earth and not have a publicly available photo. On the current Forbes list the following have no photos: #23, #36, #61, #122, #153, #167, #191, #198, #215, #233, #244, #272 (two people at this rank), #290 (also two), #343, #355, #365, #379 (two again), #394, #413, #452 (two again), #504 (four people), etc. That means that 5% of the richest people in the world (24 of the richest 500) are so anonymous that there isn't a photo that even a dedicated team of reporters can find. Current list: https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/ https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/
  • accidentalrebel 7y ago
    That is very interesting. > That means that 5% of the richest people in the world (24 of the richest 500) are so anonymous that there isn't a photo that even a dedicated team of reporters can find. Either they can't find it or they were asked not to put it up? They have lawyers after all and might prefer to be anonymous.
    • ronyfadel 7y ago
      Nitpick: They’re not anonymous since they’re identified by name :)
      • accidentalrebel 7y ago
        Good point. :)
  • basseq 7y ago
    The link between "no photo" and "couldn't find a photo" are different things. #36 (Dieter Schwarz) pops up with a ton of photos when I google him, for instance.
• sifar 7y ago
  Lathe Biosas. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus#Politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus#Politics
• marc_io 7y ago
  The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.
• dot1x 7y ago
  Never liked Tim. He always seemed to outsource his brain.
• beastman82 7y ago
  Classic Tim Ferriss BS where you can't back out of the site without seeing an ad for his stuff. This guy is a con artist
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• jslove 7y ago
  Helps a lot of you want to have one night stands.