Crikey!

Andy Warhol famously said, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." My generation seems to have turned his sarcastic observation about the state of pop culture into some sort of birthright - "reality" show contestants and internet "celebrities" are often heard expressing an appalling sense of entitlement - "Dammit, I want my 15 minutes of fame!"

 

Dude. The quote doesn't say a peep about anyone actually DESERVING it.

 

But we do live in an ADHD culture, where in the blink of an eye you can go from Nobody to Somebody and right back again. When I started writing this thing, I figured it would probably go the way of every attempt I made at writing a journal as a kid - I'd write one paragraph, realize I had nothing worthwhile to say, and drop it. Besides, writing longhand is slow and makes my hand hurt. When I started grad school, one of my best friends from college and I used to write journal entries and mail them to each other - yep, that's right, actual letters with postage and everything. That's when I realized that just writing down my thoughts was incredibly unsatisfying - I need at least one other person to read them before they are suitably purged. So who knows, if I hadn't told Em about this thing the very night I started it, I might never have continued it. And now, this here little blog of mine has grown, to the point where I have tens, yes TENS of readers. Okay, maybe more like ten, singular, but hey, that's a whole order of magnitude of growth in, like, a year and a half!

Okay, yeah, that's pretty lame. But I've said before that I write this thing for my own mental health/amusement, and don't really care how many people read it, just as long as someone's out there to occasionally tell me I'm brilliant or that I made hot beverages fly out of their sinuses.

 

But then something happened.

 

Unbeknownst to me (until pointed out by the beautiful and charming maja in the comments), I was quoted and linked by a site called Crikey. To sum up, Crikey is an Australia-based news and commentary site run by incredibly insightful and brilliant people with excellent taste. They did a little "morning after" Oscars piece - a digest of what those in the blogosphere were saying about the ceremony. Among those quoted were Gawker...Slate...Salon...

 

...and The Alchemist.

 

I think the words you're looking for here are "what the fuck?"

 

The statement that got me in? "Number 9: Nicole Kidman's inability to move her eyebrows."

Apparently, Aussies like it when you make fun of Nicole Kidman. Or Botox. Or some combination thereof. Apparently.

 

On any normal day, this page gets approximately 10 hits - most of them courtesy of Ian, Will, and Mup, who faithfully check in every day even though I rarely reward them with anything new to read. In the last two days, I've gotten over 500 hits. That's another order of magnitude, baby! Four more and I'll be Perez Hilton! Except prettier. And more articulate. And with an IQ slightly higher than that of a rotten cabbage.

Of course, the more people are reading your thoughts, the greater the chances that someone you've written bad things about might actually read them. So, just in case they're out there, I should probably apologize to a few people:

Celine Dion - I've actually met you in person. You are a delight. I just HATE THAT FUCKING SONG.

Canada - I give you a hard time sometimes, but I kid because I love. Same goes for you, U.S.A.

Tila Tequila - Oh, who the hell are we kidding, you deserve every bad thing I've ever said about you. I look forward to season 2 of your show so that I can once again rejoin the hatas.

Robin Antin and anyone who has ever appeared on that damned Pussycat Dolls show - See above.

 

As far as being World-Famous, well, I think my recent activity map speaks for itself:

Not bad. Although clearly I have some work to do in Africa and South America. And Greenland. And, well, anywhere that ever embraced Communism. Of course, the vast majority of these people will never return to this page, but it was nice having you here, no matter how short your stay. This is all very surreal - it's like when someone cites a paper I've written - my first reaction is always, "wait, someone actually READ that???" Or when, in my Civic Theater days, I'd meet someone and they'd say, "oh, I know you...you were in <insert name of show here>." Wait, someone actually purchased tickets and SAW that???? Weird. If even a handful of you stick around, then groovy. I'll even try to throw a little Australian content your way occasionally (RussellCroweShirazIanThorpeKeithUrbanColinHayTimTamRupert 
MurdochVegemitePAULHOGAN,BABY!!!). I intend to enjoy this unexpected popularity while it lasts. I also intend to completely forget about all of the little people who got me where I am today. That is, until this all blows over in, I'm betting, the next 24 hours.

 

Tick tock, kids.