"In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." I'm bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is, "In fifteen minutes everybody will be famous."
Andy Warhol's Exposures (1979) commenting on the nightclub "Studio 54", and his world famous quote.
American artist, social commentator, and icon Andy Warhol (photo top left), perhaps best known for his stylistic paintings of Marilyn Monroe (see below) and Campbell Soup cans (see below), was a paleo-blogger. Before there were blogs and the blogosphere, Andy Warhol understood the power of the media to build an image. When he coined the famous fifteen minutes label, Warhol could well have been discussing the power of blogs. After all, a blog can turn a reviously unknown individual or company into a global force. The only difference is the relative term of what constitutes fifteen minutes.
In the quotation at the beginning of this blog post, Andy Warhol provides an alternative to his original point about fifteen minutes of fame. In the context of the time, television, movies, newspapers, magazines, and radio constituted the vast majority of the available media. In a sense, the fifteen minutes of recognition required the support of others. Becoming a celebrity, for the most part, was really in the hands of someone else. Blogging has changed that dynamic to empower the writer to controlling one's own destiny.
The second part of the Warhol quote is very important, and could easily have been spoken in terms of blogging.
"In fifteen minutes everybody will be famous."
A blog can create that fame within a short time horizon. Instead of concern with getting that fabled fifteen minutes in the spotlight, the table has been turned right around. A blogger controls the situation, and can become a well known person in a very brief period. All bloggers might not seek fame, and perhaps only a small percentage blog for glory, but the result remains the same. The blog can increase a person's or a company's profile to unexpected heights in a relatively short time. It might be longer than a literal fifteen minutes, but is much light years faster than reliance on the traditional forms of media.
In a very real sense, if everyone gets fifteen minutes of fame, that standard becomes the statistical average. A blog moves a person or a company above that median with ease. The reality of getting your name out there with less difficulty, and with much more staying power, is part of the power of blogging.
Instead of seeking the fleeting spotlight, that is already moving to its next target, the blog builds a longer term relationship with customers and clients. Blogs develop a reputation quickly, and maintain that name recognition over a long period of time.
Blogs move the writer well beyond that iconic fifteen minutes, and into the realm of the long term, and the classic.
Andy Warhol would have loved the power of blogs. He might even have turned the blog into an icon.
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