I don’t want to be famous anymore

“If you can live your life without an audience …you should do it”

-Bo Burnham 

It seems that the concept of fame has always appealed to me ever since I was a kid. I grew up on the internet after all and a majority of my life has been spent watching other people share their creations on it. When I was about six I dreamed about becoming a famous toy unboxing YouTuber although at the time it wasn’t popularity or money that interested me, it was getting sponsored by big companies and receiving free toys that I wanted. Of course that dream eventually died down as I got older.

Around the pandemic and post-pandemic I gained interest in becoming a Minecraft YouTuber or a gamer or a streamer, basically anything in that field of creation. I wanted other content creator friends that I could spend time with. I wanted a fanbase that would make fanart and animatics of my personas and characters. I wanted to see people make edits of myself like the ones I saw on TikTok. I wanted money from just playing video games and having fun. At the time all of that seemed to be like a dream job to me and in August of 2021 I would create my YouTube channel in the hopes that it’d all work out in the end somehow. 

Obviously I however did not become a famous internet celebrity at the ripe age of 13 and my goodness I couldn’t imagine the travesty that that would eventually amount to. I wasn’t the only person at the time either who strived to be some sort of alternative cottagecore “comfort” streamer. There were tons at the time, some moved on but others stayed and I too kept on posting on YouTube despite not having much come to fruition but instead I decided to have fun with it.

I recorded vlogs and all sorts of nonsense that I could come up with. I promoted my videos and told people I knew all about it so they would subscribe to me. I wanted to earn money so I could use it to buy my own stuff instead of wasting my parents. I wanted some form of progress. 

And throughout all this I watched my once internet “heroes” go through all sorts of drama. People being outed as horrible people, doxxing and all sorts of awful things. The list practically goes on and on. I lost hope in thinking that any famous person out there is actually as good as they present themselves to be on screen. Obviously not everyone is perfect as we’re all human at the end of the day but some of these actions being committed is just ridiculous, I mean is it really that hard not to be a creep? Fame can get to your head sure but it horrifies me to see the amount of people in this sector who do these things. It’s practically common and no surprise at this point which is unfortunate to think about. 

Of course it’s not just the celebrities that can be bad people, it’s the fans as well. For the life of me I couldn’t imagine having a million people have all their eyes on you, being interested in everything you say or do, having fantasies in their heads about have some sort of personal connection with you and then believing that it’s true when it’s clearly not. Seeing how we’re living in the age of AI I could only imagine that it’ll all just get worse with time. It’s terrifying to think about. The first time I heard about parasocial relationships I almost couldn’t wrap my head around it but then I wondered if I’ve ever been on that end. Maybe I have at a young age, I was easily influenced and lonely at the time but I also wasn’t online that much to have done anything insane. I kept things mostly to myself so I didn’t go to lengths of messaging these famous people on the internet and treating them like I knew them. It’d be mad.

Now I imagine myself on the other end. Is that something I want to deal with? Sure sharing your art with the world and inspiring others sounds amazing but am I willing to give up my personal life and everything I’ve had before for the sake of fame? How will I have changed as a person then? Perhaps I’ve been sharing too much on the internet already and I’m just going to be the next victim of cancel culture in the future, that is if it still exists in a few years time.

Sometimes I wish I could just disappear on the web entirely like I was never there but I’ve built up too much of my life on it that it’d be difficult to live without it and just be gone like I was never there. It’s a part of me now. It connects me to people I would have never known outside of my bedroom. Without it I feel nothing more than the boring person I am outside of it. Being on the internet makes me feel like I’m the cool kid I could never be in the real world. Sure I have family and friends who care about me in the real world but my crave for attention is a bottomless pit and strangers on the web seem to satisfy that. 

People say that you shouldn’t be obsessed with numbers but I always seem to be wanting more. With every view and every comment and every like on something I post, I seem to feel more content with myself. But I don’t want too much to feel worried that I have to share everything I do with the world so I don’t lose that attention while at the same time I fear the pain of gaining too much that it becomes out of control because really, some things are out of our control. I hate to think of the influence I could have on people. If someone did something bad because of me although I’ve tried to keep everything I share to be directed to something positive, will that be my fault? Will I be responsible for that? 

It all sounds so…stressful. Perhaps I should be grateful with the things and people I have now before things get out of hand, that is if I do become as successful as I dream to be. I’ll be fine if I don’t but if I do, I hope I’ll use the influence I have for good but in the current situation we’re living in, seeing how others are and have been treated, sometimes I think to myself, I don’t want to be famous anymore.