It used to be, the only really amazingly talented people we knew were famous people. For the most part! I mean, every now and then you'd have someone tell you about "this really amazing guy" or girl they know, "she's incredible!" "you've got to see what he can do" winding it all up with "[ he or she ] is going to be famous!"
Because that's how it ends, right? Amazing talent, plus time and effort, equals famous! Sure. And if somebody like that who we knew, who we came across in our own personal experience didn't become famous, we'd just assume that some weird fluke had occurred. Because that's not the way it's supposed to happen!
And then we'd observe how sometimes, even just pretty good talent + time and effort = famous. Don't tell me it ain't so, we've all seen it! And then sometimes, we'd even see it happen without the time and effort. Or...with no talent, whatsoever.
So the rest of us had hope, too. "Hey, I'm pretty talented." "If this person's famous...I can do that better than they can!" We felt like we were right on the cusp of the fame-barrier, there, talent-wise. Because we couldn't see how much talent was really out there, just outside our field of vision. Impressive, amazing talent. Talent that makes you go "wow." Talent that nonetheless, doesn't make a damn bit of difference to the chance of getting famous, or making any money at it.
We never knew about how many people there were out there, way better than us at what we thought we could do better than Mr. or Ms. lower-tier famous. And so we thought, I have a shot!
But now! Here comes the internet! And I don't know where you hang out on the internet, but I'm constantly running across people who seem really amazingly talented, you know? Better writers than me. Better singers. Better artists, better musicians. I'm talking, WAY better than me. It's humbling! And the more of them we run across, for the most part we now realize, with a slowly-dawning, ever-growing sort of numbed dread, that there is almost zero chance that these way-more-talented-than-we-are people will ever be famous. Almost all of them will never find a workable way to get people to pay them for what they're talented at, for what they love.
And so, inevitably the cold conclusion comes: probably, neither will we.
Thanks, internet!
4 comments:
I don't believe there are that many talented people out there!
They are all sockpuppets of only like two people.
Trust me.
That would actually be awesome. That would be so cool.
Wait, whose sockpuppet am I??
Nope I agree with you. I run across people and think "Man, why do I even bother doing this crap for fun, when they're so much better at it?" It's depressing. :) Then I remind myself, "Hey it's fun, that's why you do it."
And sometimes I've even convinced.
Well you've convinced me, VegAssasa! I couldn't agree with you more.
"Fun is Yay" - that's my motto. Why would we not want to do something, when by definition, it's yay? Why should we let our yay be diminished by other peoples' yay? The global Yay Pie is not a zero-sum proposition!
I take a firm stand on Yay. I'm for it.
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