It’s amazing how the internet and social media allows for an average person to become a D List Celebrity overnight… And it’s not to say that this hasn’t been happening for some time now but this Casey Anthony trial (of all things) has really put this whole internet sensation thing into perspective for me.
Why Casey Anthony? Well let’s put this into perspective for a second.
This was essentially the O.J. Simpson case of 2011 (technically 2008) and although Casey Anthony didn’t have the amount of fame OJ had prior to his case, her infamy almost undoubtedly rivals OJ’s at the time of his case.
But why did she reach this level of attention? Granted it wasn’t necessarily ‘overnight’ and she definitely isn’t the first mother to be accused of killing their child BUT she could very well be one of the first accused in this era of Facebook/Twitter/(Does Myspace still count??) in fact it was Facebook that added to her infamy; pictures of her partying and having a good time while her daughter was “missing” was not a good look… to say the least.
But this post isn’t about Casey Anthony and whether or not I (Serve) feel(her) she’s innocent (Street) or not (Justice!!! lol kidding) but the questioning of what exactly makes somebody into an internet celebrity?? lets’ review a couple that have crossed my path..
Antoine Dodson:
Figured I’d start off with someone who people are most familiar. You can’t claim to keep up with the times and not have heard the phrase “Hide yo kids Hide Yo Wife” at least once in this past year. In a video of a news report about the attempted break in/rape of his sister, Antoine Dodson got in front of the camera and said “They’re Climbing in your windows, they’re snatching your people up, tryna rape em’ so you need to hide yo kids, hide yo wife and hide ya husband cuz they raping everybody out here.”
Now I was fortunate enough to see this video before it blew up to the level it did and just the clip alone I found to be hilarious though ironically there was really nothing funny about it at all given the subject matter. Then some really talented young adults came across that clip and remixed it, threw some Auto Tune on it and had the whole country singing along for almost six months straight.
It even escalated to levels that I would’ve never predicted it reaching… He performed the song at the BET Hip Hop Awards, he performed on George Lopez Tonight, did a commercial, got his own app, his own T shirts, he pretty much milked his catch phrase for all it was worth and rightfully so, since nobody will care about the name “Antoine Dodson” by the time 2012 rolls around. By simply speaking his opinion on what was going on in his neighborhood, he was able to reach a level of celebrity stardom that many strive to achieve on a daily basis.
50 Tyson:
“I ain’t Gonna Lie Man I’m 50 Tyson”
If you haven’t heard of 50 Tyson don’t feel too out of the loop. 50 Tyson was definitely one of those word of mouth internet celebs but boyyy did he get play. A rapper whose name was based off the fact that he looked like the lovechild of Mike Tyson and 50 Cent dropped a video introducing himself and then breaks into one of the worst freestyles you’ve probably ever heard. One thing about this freestyle though was that it was hilarious depending on your taste in humor and the internets clearly shared my thought process. He also blew up to a certain extent, was parodied by Kevin Hart and was able to land a record deal(I rap with considerable more talent than him and have yet to do so myself) and was the butt of jokes in the rap world for a short while, at least until people found out he has autism. Then it got considerably less funny. Ironically I then became more of a fan of his music since he did rap on par with some of the subpar rappers of our generation, even with his disability (now that’s talent.) Last I heard he was rapping for charity to raise awareness for autism, which again, is a lane that probably wouldn’t have been available to him if he hadn’t found temporary internet stardom.
Keenan Cahill:
Another Strange Fellow of Internet Stardom, Keenan Cahill got famous for being “that big headed kid who lip syncs songs” and even after gaining Youtube stardom, and appearing on Chelsea Nightly, he still is that big headed kid that lip syncs, it’s just now we’ve found out that the big head is the result of a disease(or disorder?) and yeah… you know the rest.
Tiffany Greene:
Now she probably won’t reach half the ‘stardom’ that these other people I’ve listed have but I can guarantee her Twitter Followers and Facebook Friend Requests doubled after this years’ BET Awards Fiasco.
She was chosen to announce an award that nobody remembers at this point and when she was told to read the winner off the phone/tablet/ipad(?) it read ‘Chris Brown’ whom she initially announced, but the teleprompter read ‘Rihanna’ whom she announced after correcting herself, and as we all know, those are two names that should rarely be spoken in the same sentence much less right after each other and judging by the crowds’ murmurs they felt the same way.
Now as we know and she and BET repeatedly said, it wasn’t her fault she just read what she saw. However events like this in this day and age is all it takes for her to launch her own springboard into her 15 mins of fame.
There are other names i could mention but this post is long enough as it is. What do you all think? Is it really the Internet that allows for these people to temporarily gain the spotlight? Or do they truly have that celebrity quality in them all along.
