Snow Melt

Opinion Thursday: What is Fame?

The July 25, 2013 prompt for "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  is
What makes a person become famous and stay famous? Do most people become famous because of their innovative/"new-age" thinking, or because they adhere to a traditional mindset? In today's world, what is the "easiest" way to get famous? Pick examples from history or current events to illustrate your point.

What is fame?
A fleeting moment in space and time,
Three minutes of excruciating pain
         in front of a news camera
         or behind a podium.

What makes a person famous? Almost anything can make a person famous or infamous in this age of reality television voyeurism. Whether or not this type of fame is lasting depends on the attention span of the audience and the lengths to which a fame seeking individual will go to for gratification. I suspect that in one hundred plus years the famous of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries will be those who did something to help humanity survive the Armageddon we are passing through today.

I have already mentioned the easiest way to become famous. I do not think we are capable of judging those whose fame endures over the millenniums because we do not yet know what the near future holds for humanity. I think the Martin Luther King, Jr.'s and Mahatma Gandhi's fame will last because they made contributions to the unity, and therefore survival, of the human race. I think Hitler's and Osama bin Laden's infamy will last because they worked toward the destruction and extinction of humanity. However, in between those two extremes fame depends on numerous and unknown factors.

Thought of the Day: "Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars." - Henry David Thoreau