New Year’s Resolution 2017: Be Your Own Celebrity Entertainer. DIY

Word today is that another celebrity—likely too rich and personally unaccountable for her own good—bit it way early.

fisher

Well, let’s see. If you were an alien just visiting earth right now for the first time, you would understand that the very most important events of 2016 were the deaths of Prince, Bowie, Ali, Wilder, Michael, and Fisher, among a bunch of others.

Are you tired of it, yet, all the obsession and faux sense of loss?

Here’s the thing. Celebrity is hyper-inflated—just like everything else now. The bar is low and ever lower. Think back to the 40s, 50s, 60s…when there were only handfuls of truly celebratory entertainers, by comparison to the apparent tens of thousands that suck all air out of rooms, now.

Kanye? The Kardashians?

There used to be 3 channels on the TV, a few on the radio dial…few enough shows you could have some familiarity with all of them and music was still music. Now, there’s hundreds of channels, thousands of programs, and everyone involved is somehow under the umbrella of “celebrity.”

The whole industry is now the equivalent of “every kid gets a trophy.”

Take a gander at that show Dancing With The Stars, or the segment during the Oscars, where they flash up every member of the Screen Actor’s Guild who died in the last year, and ask yourself: “who the hell are these people, and why should I care?”

Here’s an idea. Stop living so vicariously. You like literature and books? Write a book or a blog or a news journal. You like dance? Take lessons and practice. Learn to play an instrument. Take acting classes. Write a screenplay. Join a church choir. Produce a play and source local talent.

You get the idea.

…Or, nurture memes about how broken you are, then defy them.

lx4nd

Or, just have hope.

15781714_10211570608691512_4561043305264776882_n

Hahaha.

Join Over 5,000 Subscribers!

Get exclusive content sent directly to your inbox.

Please enter a valid email address.
Something went wrong. Please check your entries and try again.

Richard Nikoley

I started writing Free The Animal in late 2003 as just a little thing to try. 20 years later, turns out I've written over 5,000 posts. I blog what I wish...from diet, health, lifestyle...to philosophy, politics, social antagonism, adventure travel, expat living, location and time independent—while you sleep— income by geoarbitrage, and food pics. I intended to travel the world "homeless," but the Covidiocy Panicdemic squashed that. I became an American expat living in Thailand. I celebrate the audacity and hubris to live by your own exclusive authority and take your own chances. ... I leave the toilet seat up. Read More

13 Comments

  1. poop monster on December 27, 2016 at 18:17

    Speaking of lines of blow and celebrities dying, what will happen to your blog when you go to hell (we know you ain’t going to heaven, right)?

  2. poop monster on December 27, 2016 at 18:19

    Oh. Yes. New years resolution: get shredded. That’s mine.

  3. John on December 27, 2016 at 21:07

    Yep, Faux sense of loss. The utter ridiculousness of it struck me when the guitarist for The Outfield died. You know, the band that had that one hit “Your Love?” I saw too many people on Facebook claiming their day or week was ruined by the death of THE GUITARIST FROM THE FUCKING OUTFIELD. Seriously, I don’t even think half of them could have named their fucking hit.

    I really did laugh out loud at that Lena Dunham meme.

    I fully deleted my Facebook profile this year. It felt great, and I only wish I’d done it sooner.

  4. John on December 27, 2016 at 21:12

    Also, I find it a bit odd that George Michael died from Heart Failure on Christmas. When I was a kid and heard “Last Christmas” by Wham!, I always wondered how he could survive without his heart, since he kept on giving it away. Now that I’m an adult, I have the answer….. He couldn’t.

    • David on December 28, 2016 at 08:33

      I’m glad I’d already finished my coffee before reading this or I would have spewed it all over my monitor.

  5. poop monster on December 28, 2016 at 13:14

    Whoa. Have I been banned? My witty and insightful posts are not comming through anymore.

    • poop monster on December 28, 2016 at 13:15

      Nope. Just the posts with links have been banned. Damn!

    • Richard Nikoley on December 28, 2016 at 17:15

      Nope, poop, no moderation, no filtering, no bans and I see nothing in the queue (I do have auto filtering for more than three links.

      It’s on you. I get a mild kick out of your comments.

  6. Peter on December 28, 2016 at 13:16

    Your curmudgeon credentials remain fully intact.

  7. Natasha on December 29, 2016 at 06:45

    I’m a little surprised by how personally people are taking these deaths. But! I don’t have TV. The people on the “boob tube” (my grandma’s term) seem to be family. That’s is what is sadder than these celebrity deaths. People don’t have their own friends, family or community.

  8. Woodchuck Pirate on December 30, 2016 at 11:35

    Hey Richard,

    What with all this talk about heaven I figured you’d dig on this a bit.

    https://youtu.be/3m_toat654c

    Woodchuck Pirate
    aka Raymond J Raupers Jr USA

  9. EDR on January 3, 2017 at 22:25

    You mean we are supposed to derive our inspiration and passion from our own hobbies and interests? That sounds like expressing yourself as an individual which is not to be tolerated.

    Reminds me of all of the people who have asked me over the years how I lost over 100 lbs…my answer has pretty much been the same – because I wanted to! The more you focus on things external to yourself that you have no control over…the less energy you will have to focus on your own life.

    It’s like that one line from George Carlin regarding Michael J. Fox’s illness:

    “I wish him well, and I admire the way he copes. But at any given moment, my thoughts are probably on pussy”.

    Amen. 🙂

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.