mills:

• that we do not distinguish between moral and immoral; deliberate and accidental; inspiring and revolting; intelligent and successful; or renown and infamy when choosing to whom we’ll pay attention;

• that where we pay attention directs where technology and commerce occur, which in turn produces systems for concentrating our attention ever more on those parts of culture;

• that as a result, celebrity culture is not merely a matter of the public’s attentiveness to phony, flagrantly moronic nonsense, but is additionally a catalyst that compels media, platforms, and systems of information delivery to mirror its priorities;

• that the web, in particular, is driven by the imperatives of celebrity culture, both in organizing activities around the transmission of gossip and superficial chatter about “the froth and scum” and in permitting us all to become celebrities.

• “In the future, everyone will be anonymous for 15 minutes.”

• that whatever your intentions, or your outdated modesty, if you wish to interact with your peers you are forced into the ludicrous position of the celebrity: coerced by the permanently interrogative blank text field —status? what’s happening? add a post?— you are in a never-ending interview which ranges far from your areas of expertise or personal engagement;

• “Thanks for joining us tonight Mr. Bieber. What are your views on climate change? How do you feel about Iraq? And what do you think of the criticism levied against the parents of the Columbine shooters?”

• that like a celebrity, you must answer; it would be inhuman not to lament a tragedy, callous not to join in the universal support of a victimized people, immoral not to condemn the latest injustice; and like a celebrity, you have only a few words —perhaps 140 characters— and small tokens of your feelings: a ribbon on a tuxedo, an icon on an avatar;

• that it is all you can do, or nearly; and if you give money, you’d better share that you’ve done so; this is a public interview, and your commitment to every cause is a matter of record and judgment;

• but that this a telecast, a telethon, a red-carpet interview; this is a cocktail party at which one must take the proper position, play to the hostess or the boss, nod at the appropriate moments, say the somber or saccharine words;

• that even if it is sincere —especially when it is sincere— because the utterance is public it is a performance; and a performance always considers the audience; and we are performers and audience members alike; and our technologies turn friends into one and the other; and now you are performing your grief, carefully articulating your disempowered positions, enacting all the right roles;

• that you are a celebrity, a politician, an entertainer; you hear from your technological interlocutor of the tragedy and you say just the right thing; you know your tears will be measured for salinity, spontaneity, sincerity; your words will be parsed for their implicit politics, their explicit generosity;

• and your writing, your conversations, they are splashed across web pages no different from a People or Us in the supermarket; and you scan the sentences, looking for signs of agreement or cues for indignation: who doesn’t sympathize? Who is flip, superficial, reactionary, leftist? Who is on the wrong side of the issue?

• and this is how celebrity culture replaces real culture, celebrity discourse replaces ordinary conversation, and the public celebrity replaces the private individual.