Celebrity in this day and age of global and instant information exchange through social media is something quite different than it was even a generation ago. And with successive introductions of new technology and mediums for creative types to use and abuse there have come successive warnings of the death of celebrity. This once again is what the Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Henninger presumes when he informs us that celebrity has lost its meaning, and that the golden age of mega stars being previously clubbed into a coma by Anna Nicole Smith, has officially died with Michael Jackson . How many more weeks before we can stop mentioning MJ in a blog btw? But Richard Florida thinks quite otherwise. According to Florida:

“My hunch is that sooner or later we will see a new mega-star on a truly global scale. Not arising in one country like Elvis from the U.S., or the Beatles coming from the U.K. to “invade” America, or Jackson, an American conquering the world. This will be a celebrity who emerges simultaneously on a global scale – a person less tied to one country of origin who will be seen from the outset as a world mega-star”

He makes mention of M.I.A a Sri Lankan refugee become international mega star through her multi cultural infusion of ethnic (a soon to be extinct word I believe) beats and western counter and popular culture as reference to the relatively commonplace genre and culture crossing in music today. The internet in effect bypasses geography altogether, as new sounds and ideas get sprinkled like stardust or pop pollen simultaneously on the face of the earth. And anyone can suddenly become the talk of the town from Lima to London. So I guess we’ll be seeing a lot more work for SEO strategists in the music biz. I always had my dream of starting a Mariachi-Funk fusion project called Funkasaurus-Mex. Maybe the time is right?

Related posts:

1. Celebrity Death Hoaxes Spread at the Speed of Tweet
2. Social media, the death of the English language and the rise of the multilingual internet
3. Facebook, Freud and Marx: Social stratification and profit in social media

Tags: Celebrity, Michael Jackson, Richard Florida, Social Media

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