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Olympic Gold Medals a Whopping 1.34% Gold

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jgpaiva:
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-jgpaiva (July 30, 2012, 09:27 AM)
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Understood, but it fit nicely with my dim view of corporate attitudes. :)
-Stoic Joker (July 30, 2012, 12:16 PM)
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;D ;D OK, carry on, then :P

MilesAhead:
Fame is one of those things that's in the mind of the beholder. It may let you cut the line at a restaurant(or even get a free meal) if the owner is a fan. But if you watch the video when they tout the Tennis Hall of Fame
during the last grass court tournament of the season, played at that site.. a guy walks in with a hand-held video-cam.  You see a few pictures on the wall. A couple of trophy cases. And maybe 2 laptop computers showing video of old matches. I think I'd pay $5 to be spared taking that tour.

During one of the broadcasts of the Newport Tournament I remember Barry MacKay talking about how in the old days the tennis pros were paid so little he had to sleep in the attic of the museum, to the director of the tournament who came on air for a bit.  The director replied to the effect "the attic is still available if you need it Barry."  :)

TaoPhoenix:
Fame is one of those things that's in the mind of the beholder. It may let you cut the line at a restaurant(or even get a free meal) if the owner is a fan. But if you watch the video when they tout the Tennis Hall of Fame
during the last grass court tournament of the season, played at that site.. a guy walks in with a hand-held video-cam.  You see a few pictures on the wall. A couple of trophy cases. And maybe 2 laptop computers showing video of old matches. I think I'd pay $5 to be spared taking that tour.

During one of the broadcasts of the Newport Tournament I remember Barry MacKay talking about how in the old days the tennis pros were paid so little he had to sleep in the attic of the museum, to the director of the tournament who came on air for a bit.  The director replied to the effect "the attic is still available if you need it Barry."  :)

-MilesAhead (July 30, 2012, 02:42 PM)
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I think the Internet devalued fame. Back when EVERYTHING was scarce, things were "celebrated". If a local town had a winner, he'd get free lunches at the diner for life because of the name draw. Now it's "bah, you had your free meal, now go home".

It's the end of the speed-culture effect. Nothing at all matters for more than a year.

MilesAhead:

I think the Internet devalued fame. Back when EVERYTHING was scarce, things were "celebrated"
-TaoPhoenix
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It may have accelerated an existing trend. The internet wasn't in full swing when Andy Warhol noted that everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. The movie was horrid but I enjoyed the novel Bonfire of the Vanities. Once the bond broker made the front page, even though he was accused of a crime, the people who totally ignored him in the past hung on his every word.  The old "no such thing as bad publicity" bit.

The internet just lets some people who can't afford a PR firm do it themselves. :)

edit: the concept of being known for being famous is pretty weird if you think about it. When I was a kid growing up, the panelists on game shows were there for so many years I never knew what they did before to merit being on the show.  Or... Betty White will never die because she's really an android. :)

TaoPhoenix:

Nah, it's different now.

Andy Warhol was right, but more like in a futurist sense predicting now. Back then you really did get "some fame" (reference to Charlotte's Web). In small towns especially, the point was that overall events were slower, so small events really did last months. I have a running joke about those times, where some woman was a mini matriarch or something, "In a Post-Insult-To-Mrs. Whipple-World, Things Will Never Be The Same". (Play off the 9-11 meme from the US.)

In my own little reading world, the same books would be on some bookstore shelves *for years* because they were the iconic items to have stocked there. Now except certain sections, bookstores ditch their stock roughly every two years, so if you got busy, and wanted "that book", it's gone. It got so bad I had to pre-emptively buy stuff for my collection simply to keep it from vanishing off the shelf.

So it is different now, badly. Yes we have more Long Tail diversity, but in the Social Media age Fame (or Notoriety!) no longer brings money.

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