#221: “The tension of staying too long”

Many seem to believe fame is fun until it’s the big, bad, alienating kind, but I’d argue the challenges start at the beginning—with any modicum of attention online, say—and scale from there. Finding peace, I think, requires a certain trepidation around your desire to be seen as exceptional. I saw this idea captured perfectly the other day, by the a... See more

Many seem to believe fame is fun until it’s the big, bad, alienating kind, but I’d argue the challenges start at the beginning—with any modicum of attention online, say—and scale from there. Finding peace, I think, requires a certain trepidation around your desire to be seen as exceptional. I saw this idea captured perfectly the other day, by the a... See more

There it is again, that ill-fated delusion: to be special is to belong. To be spotlit, and comfortable there, is to finally be home. I want it to go on and on and on because it’s who I am. There’s a rigidity to the dynamic between a public figure and the public, no matter how porous and genuine we believe the figure to be. Which isn’t to say the dy... See more

“I kind of want it to go on and on and on because it’s who I am,” she said in her TikTok. I wonder about that. What does it mean to fully self-identify with your artistic output, or marketing concepts, or public reception? What is sacrificed when your primary mode of relating to the world is by way of attention received rather than by attention exc... See more

What could be better than feeling so fucking special? The answer, I think, is not feeling so alone.

This worldview lost its shine in the usual ways. I met some of my heroes and some of them sucked; I attended events that were hollow and demented but looked fun online; I eventually realized the best parts of my life weren’t exclusive whatsoever but run-of-the-mill: a result not of being elevated above my peers (on a stage, say) but thrust among th... See more

Ten years later, I still think of that arena tour and the nauseous mix of revulsion and yearning it produced in me. I was more comfortable with the former than the latter, fancying myself closer to a “critic” of Hollywood than a hopeful. But looking back, my yearning made sense; to be spotlit would suggest (maybe) a public alignment between what I ... See more