Reasons not to become famous

https://tim.blog/2020/02/02/reasons-to-not-become-famous/

by imgabe • 6 years ago

850 404 6 years ago

maze-le• 6 years ago

Wow that was... unexpectedly intense. Like a microcosm of everything that is wrong with cults of personality.

bartread2• 6 years ago

I thought the same thing. That escalated really quickly, and it's certainly given me pause about having any online presence (despite not being at all famous). Bookmarked to reread later.

molteanu2• 6 years ago

I honestly thought this is bad writing. It jumps from one idea to the next without bringing any of them to the conclusion. One quote too many, maybe? And too many paragraphs that are meant to catch and arounse the reader's interest?

I guess this is the style of writing needed to catch the attention of millions of followers. Am I mistaken?

I've stopped reading this after 5 minutes. I've reallly tried, though.

Edit: Downvotes expected for an honest opinion. That's fine :)

Kiro• 6 years ago

Regarding your edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314

In other words, it's completely OK to downvote opinions. I think it's wrong but I don't make the rules here.

PudgePacket• 6 years ago

You're probably getting voted down because you're not really adding anything valuable to the discussion.

If you think the submitted article is bad just vote it down and move on.

marktangotango• 6 years ago

Huh? Are you able to downvote articles at your current level of karma? I cannot and I have than you (ie immediate parent to this comment).

floodyberry-• 6 years ago

The article is merely the author bloviating about himself for attention (which appears to be his main goal in life). Unless everyone else here is also "famous" and giving each other tips on how to deal with it, there is no useful discussion to be had other than informing everyone their attention is being grifted

amelius• 6 years ago

I think it highly depends on the kind of fame. If you connect emotionally with your audience, then sure. But if, say, you are a famous researcher then I suspect you are facing far less of these problems.

Jarwain• 6 years ago

I think his tribe-village-city analogy plays a big part in that, though.

A famous researcher probably wouldn't have as large an audience, and that audience would most likely consist of other researchers in similar or adjacent fields of research

arexxbifs• 6 years ago

I’m pretty sure someone like Katie Bouman has a lot of horror stories to tell about the downside of fame.

Reading this article makes me very happy about being more or less completely unknown and unremarkable enough to not become an overnight sensation.

pferde2• 6 years ago

It's not about you emotionally connecting with your audience, but the other way around. And that is something that is out of your control, as this article clearly illustrates. Lots of crazies out there.

woofie113• 6 years ago

Nope. More famous researchers face the same problems. It doesn't kick until it's popular fame, as far as I know. In other words, if most computer scientists know who you are, you might still be okay unless you get unlucky (but you might definitely get unlucky too). If Joe on the street knows who you are, you've got all this and more.

CM30• 6 years ago

Yeah, it's very dependent on the kind of fame, as well as the field you're in. A major kpop star/Japanese idol is probably going to have all the problems in the blog article, perhaps magnified by ten. Their fanbase tend to be... a tad less on the sane side, and there are a fair few of them who are absolutely obssessed with their idols and will resort to stalking and harassment.

But at the same time, there are plenty of fields and claims to fame that won't get this. Researchers will get less of it. Someone who doesn't show their face online will seemingly have less of these issues (though people might get obssessed with finding out who they are, ala Satoshi Nakamoto and Banksy). And those focused on more technical/specialist fields may have less issues. Your average popular YouTube glitch hunter or speedrunner will have less problems than a popular YouTube political pundit.

Expez• 6 years ago

The post has a good quote from Bill Murray:

I always want to say to people who want to be rich and famous: ‘try being rich first.’ See if that doesn’t cover most of it. There’s not much downside to being rich, other than paying taxes and having your relatives ask you for money. But when you become famous, you end up with a 24-hour job. . . . The only good thing about fame is that I’ve gotten out of a couple of speeding tickets. I’ve gotten into a restaurant when I didn’t have a suit and tie on. That’s really about it.

speedgoose7• 6 years ago

Why trying to become rich? Once you have enough money to have a great quality of life without stress, having more money isn't improving much your happiness. Sometimes it makes it worse. However trying to become rich can be very difficult, tiresome, and disappointing.

richthegeek• 6 years ago

"have enough money to have a great quality of life without stress" is how many people define "rich".

Jare• 6 years ago

Why trying to become rich? Once you have enough money to have a great quality of life without stress

Generally speaking, to me being rich (disclaimer: I'm not) means having that kind of money today and the confidence that, no matter what happens (barring large scale events like wars or asteroids) I will still have it for the rest of my life.

adventured2• 6 years ago

Why trying to become rich?

Because there is an unlimited number of things you can do with it. You're limited only by time and your imagination.

I've never understood the premise I'm responding to, it doesn't make sense, unless a person has zero ambition and zero creativity - and I don't think that's true of anyone.

I could never have enough money. I could never run out of good things to use it on. Give me $100 trillion and a thousand years, please.

You could spend $100 billion and 60 years of your life on just going after Malaria and you might not manage to vanquish it. You could spend tens of millions of dollars and decades on trying to eliminate homelessness in a small city and still not eliminate it (swap out homelessness for any number of problems that need fixing in most any nation, or city). There is what might as well be an infinite number of good uses for money, at every possible scale. I'd run out of time long before I'd run out of positive uses for large amounts of money.

balfirevic4• 6 years ago

Once you have enough money to have a great quality of life without stress, having more money isn't improving much your happiness.

If you mean without having to continue working, that is indeed what many would consider being rich.

weinzierl2• 6 years ago

However trying to become rich can be very difficult, tiresome, and disappointing.

Some people enjoy making money regardless how much wealth they already have.

jniedrauer• 6 years ago

Money is life force in a quantifiable form. We literally trade life for money. If you have a drive to accomplish something greater than you alone could accomplish in a lifetime, then you need to amass capital so you can buy other peoples time and energy.

sophiamossman• 6 years ago

I recently had a conversation with a friend regarding this and we came to the conclusion that there is a balance with wealth. For us, the more important factor was freedom, and having enough money to facilitate whatever that definition of freedom is for you.

weinzierl2• 6 years ago

The unspoken premise of this quote is that fame and fortune don't easily convert into each other. The believe that both go hand in hand is what most people get wrong already.

And there is also a certain asymmetry, because popularity at least can be bought to some degree but converting pure fame into lasting wealth is hard work if, depending on the circumstances, possible at all.

bartread2• 6 years ago

That belief has been illustrated in technicolor over the past decade. Plenty of "famous" people on social media have very little to show for it. I'm not talking about the Logan Pauls or PewDiePies of this world - they're clearly outliers - but the average famous person on YouTube or Instagram (tens to hundreds of thousands of followers), might have a decent to great income but they're not "rich", where rich is defined as not dependent on any source of income[1]. Many of them are in fact enslaved to the need to constantly produce new content, which is fine if you enjoy it but perhaps not so much otherwise.

[1] My preferred definition is actually the ability to do what you want, when you want, and with whom you want, which is a little broader than simply money.

munificent7• 6 years ago

The believe that both go hand in hand is what most people get wrong already.

That's because it used to be true and was for quite a while. Fame means lots of people know who you are, which requires widely amplifying and broadcasting your identity and work. For most of modern human history, technilogical limitations made that broadcasting very expensive. You had to spend some money for each reached human. Think printing pamphlets in Dickens' era.

This meant that, generally, only the rich could afford to become famous. Fame following money and the direction was very rarely reversed aside from occasional cases of infamy like mass murderers.

Broadcast TV made that much cheaper. A single show could reach millions. But production was very expensive so even though the marginal cost per viewer was low, the barrier to entry was still very high. That meant few got in and those were mostly otherwise well connected or part of an established privileged class.

You do start to see an increasing number of "marginally famous" people here who got recognition from being guests or contestants on shows. Think "Jerry Springer" famous. These people tend to be quickly forgotten but have the misfortune of experiencing everything about fame with almost none of the money.

Then the Internet and video streaming happened. Now the barrier of entry is virtually zero — everyone has a smart phone that can shoot video. The marginal cost is zero — ads pay for distribution so the producer fronts nothing. Some money comes in, but its very little. So now there is a larger and larger group of people for whom fame came first and wealth came later or never.

I don't think our culture has caught up to that reality yet. There's still a presumption that anyone famous always has enough money to deal with the downsides but that's sadly not true. I honestly feel bad for people like mid-level YouTubers who have stalkers and death threats but are effectively making minimum wage.

jjeaff4• 6 years ago

Bill Mahar was talking about fame recently and he said it was very nice. Because people generally perk up and are friendly most everywhere you go.

But I think it goes the other way when you become super famous.

golergka• 6 years ago

That really depends on your personality. There's a lot of things where objective value is hard to determine, and depends purely on your subjective feelings. Two people with narcissistic and schizoid personalities could have completely different experiences with fame: one could feel inspired and happy by the recognition, while the other would get anxious and depressed.

In the end, learn who you are and what's comfortable for you, before listening to anyone else's advice.

sdan• 6 years ago

This was a pretty heavy piece. Further reinforces Naval’s quote about being rich and anonymous is far better than being poor and famous.

pferde2• 6 years ago

Yep, I thought so. It very much reinforces the gut feeling I've always had - to avoid fame (not that I am in any danger of being famous myself :) ).

On that note, that is what has always bugged me about the traitor guy in The Matrix movie, when he negotiated with the agents, and wanted to be reinserted into matrix as someone famous. But I guess wanting to be famous said something about his character. :)

ak39• 6 years ago

What can you achieve with fame that you cannot achieve with money alone? What is this need for wanting others to know that you exist at all?

Jobs that demand "fame" of some sorts will always take an emotional toll on personalities that are never comfortable with fame, limelight and podiums.

I have been an introvert my whole life but only recently realised this about myself at the tender age of 40! It was a cold slap for me to accept it. I have always imagined myself gregarious and outgoing and friendly - wanting to speak to strangers, breaking silence in a lift - but these have never really sat comfortably with me afterwards. I'll be chewing and ruminating about the imagined mistimed comments or miscued lines for ages. I have bruised myself emotionally believing that I needed to be an extrovert to be successful when in fact I was only demanding too much of myself. Fame, and outrageous fame will likely kill me too.

thaumasiotes• 6 years ago

What can you achieve with fame that you cannot achieve with money alone?

You can use fame to get money. If you're poor and famous, you can become rich off of your fame. But obviously, if you're poor and not rich, you can't become rich by using the money you don't have.

k__4• 6 years ago

Don't know if it's that simple.

I mean, sure, since I started blogging and wrote a book, I'm seen a bit more "famous" than the average developer, and this got me a bunch of projects.

But I know a bunch of really famous people who struggle.

They sell their face for ads or go to reality shows. Don't onow if they would do this if they had something better to do to get money.

keiferski8• 6 years ago

For one, if you’re any sort of “thinker” (i.e. an economist, philosopher, writer, etc.) that wants to spread your ideas, fame goes a lot further than money. Sure, you can buy a marketing budget and people to spread your message, but that has its limitations.

mrkstu2• 6 years ago

The Bloomberg candidacy will be an interesting test of this- he is emphatically not a charismatic personality, I’m curious to see how far his unlimited budget will carry him.

KineticLensman• 6 years ago

Something I've come to realise is that being introverted isn't necessarily the same as being shy. I consider myself more introverted than extroverted (I'm happy with my own company) but over the years, I've learned to communicate confidently to individuals and groups.

A lot of the learning was due to the need to communicate at work (e.g. giving complex presentations / demonstrations to challenging audiences) and also exposure to life situations that helped me realise that a presentation going wrong really isn't the worst thing that could happen to you.

mft_• 6 years ago

Amen. My experience exactly.

I’ve tried to express this a few times online and fallen foul of offended introverts - my observation is that some people like to use the label of being an introvert as a shield or justification of (their dissatisfaction with?) their shy or antisocial behavioural traits.

econcon6• 6 years ago

I made lots of money but always felt rejected/ignored by society. So I ended up lonely.

I was sold a dream that become financially well off and affluent and women will flock to you - it never happened!

I stayed a non smoker, non drinker because I consider these uncessary risks. I don't see any upside Aced the classes, did good in sports but still become Mr. Noone.

But lately, I got into body building and started using steroids (I know they are harmful) but I've decided that with all the money - I don't wanna live a long life, just wanna be famous and be desired by opposite sex and if it comes at a price of dying after few years - it meets my risk profile.

So, yes validation, being desired and getting sexual opportunities and so people feel intimidated in my presence is all I want.

Money helps you buy expert supervision, time and quality drugs and outfits and also being able to afford a nice car all helps. But money can't directly help you buy the attraction.

I've been getting lots of attention lately from opposite sex since I've got Greek physique dialed in, so anyone who thinks it doesn't matter and all you need is money - I am just a millionaire, there are many like me. I don't want to become a huge man, I just do minimum required to build a physique that opposite sex finds attractive.

keiferski8• 6 years ago

The majority of the most "desirable" men in the world have lean, muscular physiques, not bodybuilder physiques. Think Brad Pitt in Fight Club.

So, if your main reason for using steroids is to attract women - seriously reconsider, as your premises are wrong.

umvi3• 6 years ago

This seems like a very superficial way of attracting girls. From my experience if you want girls you need experience dating and having an attractive personality which isn't easy. It takes time to be comfortable being yourself around girls. And you don't wait for women to "flock to you". You have to pursue them by asking them on dates.

austhrow7433• 6 years ago

Groupies

eru7• 6 years ago

Just replace with gold diggers?

Mountain_Skies6• 6 years ago

One of the odder experiences in my life was when I started a social meetup and suddenly became many times more attractive. Up until that point I was just another nice guy in the crowd but once I was the leader of something, even something as inconsequential as an after work drinking club, women who in the past would always forget my name suddenly were coming on to me, sometimes in obnoxiously aggressive ways. It was a nice ego boost for a very very short period of time but quickly became annoying and got in the way of the purpose of the meetup, which was for a group of similar people to have a relaxing way to end their work day.

Experiencing the dynamics of social proof was quite the eye opener.

munificent7• 6 years ago

wanting to speak to strangers, breaking silence in a lift - but these have never really sat comfortably with me afterwards. I'll be chewing and ruminating about the imagined mistimed comments or miscued lines for ages.

This resonates very strongly with me. I will throw a party, have a great time, and then lay in bed replaying scenes and focusing on every slightly awkward thing I could have done differently.

I have bruised myself emotionally believing that I needed to be an extrovert to be successful when in fact I was only demanding too much of myself.

For me, I think don't it is the extroversion part of the equation that's wrong, it's the negative obsessing afterwards. Sure, being less social avoids that, but it feels like a crutch and not a cure. The cure I am pursuing is learning to care for myself enough including all of my flaws such that I don't beat myself up afterwards for not having every social interaction go perfectly.

DenisM2• 6 years ago

Consider that negative obsessions is a particular case of a more general problem - attention you don’t control.

JKCalhoun4• 6 years ago

What can you achieve with fame that you cannot achieve with money alone?

Reaching a larger audience.

dragonwriter• 6 years ago

> What can you achieve with fame that you cannot achieve with money alone?
Reaching a larger audience.

Money alone can do that; all fame does is make it more likely than someone else (or multiple people) substitutes their money so you don't need your own.

But then, money can also buy fame pretty easily, so if fame did allow something directly that money did not directly, money would still be sufficient.

sillysaurusx• 6 years ago

Hypothesis: On twitter, when your follower count exceeds the number you're following, you become a little nutty.

I've noticed this odd trend where if people gain a lot of twitter followers, then often their views become reinforced to the point that outsiders look at their tweets and wonder what happened to make them express such ideas.

But there's bias here: for tweets like these to be noticed, they need to be seen. Only those with followers are in that position. It makes sense that wacky tweets we notice tend to come from people with lots of followers. So I'm not sure if it's true, or if there are just a lot of odd people on twitter.

My own experiences indicate that the sweet spot is around 1k followers. More than that, you attract a lot of noise. Less than that, and it's hard to get noticed. But perhaps this is just personal taste.

The reason I mentioned this is that I'm in the fortunate position of having attracted a lot of followers recently (for whatever reason), but I'm concerned that things will turn sour. I like twitter right now. There are cool people on there, and I've met friends through the platform. But will it still feel like that at 5k followers? 10k? 50k? I feel like I should stop whatever is accelerating the follower count before it reaches an inflection point. So the article resonated with me.

If you're ever jealous of people with lots of followers (or fame in general, for that matter), just tune in to https://twitter.com/paulg and see the way people respond to pretty much anything he says. What's the point of being famous if you can't express an idea without being beset by thoughtless people?

ealexhudson• 6 years ago

I'm following ~375 and have ~800 followers, so by your theory I'm becoming a little nutty. Hopefully that hasn't happened yet, but I have definitely noticed thinking about tweets a lot harder recently before sending them - "would I be embarrassed to say this in front of my mom?" basically.

I suspect you're right about the sweet spot.

smitty1e3• 6 years ago

I got my follows close to 50k, but Twitter seems to squelch my posts a lot.

Doubtless due to the flavor of views expressed.

Or maybe because I've never paid to boost anything.

And then I realized, as with TFA, that attaining the notoriety of the BigNames wasn't worth the hassle, and for this reason not cited in the article:

As we lurch toward a "social credit" system, 20 years of stupid gags from Slashdot to Twitter to HN will only be so much rope to hang me.

Best focus on having fun until that day the fun has me.

smitty1e3• 6 years ago

Q.E.D.

YorickPeterse• 6 years ago

Hypothesis: On twitter, when your follower count exceeds the number you're following, you become a little nutty.

I follow 8 people, and have 1029 followers. Following this hypothesis, I would be batshit crazy. I don't think this is a very good hypothesis.

meheleventyone• 6 years ago

Yeah I tend to associate having even followers/following being people that are trying to build up their account by following loads of people hoping to get followed back.

coffeefirst• 6 years ago

Alternately, everyone has dumb thoughts from time to time, and the bigger and more tempting your megaphone, the more you risk shouting it out before having the chance to wake up 3 days later thinking "wow, that's completely insane."

This is also one of the reasons I abhor twitter. Everything is RIGHT NOW. Really, nobody should send a message to 1000+ people without sleeping on it or getting a second opinion.

JohnStrangeII• 6 years ago

Most people are also easily flattered and everybody is naturally opinionated. It's hard to keep your ego in check.

For example, you see respectable scientists and artists write a popular book, then the next one (because their publisher nags them), then a third one that is borderline unprofessional (no time, publisher send ghostwriter), and so on. Maybe some of them realize that a best seller can yield a lot of money and in no time time they appear in talk shows talking about topics they couldn't possibly know anything about (alien invasions, politics, the future of mankind). Finally, they appear to be nuts and everybody is angry about how "fake" they are and speculates about their mental problems.

If I would get book proposals and interview requests every day, I'd probably end up the same way.

AJ007• 6 years ago

There is a threshold where your Twitter account flips from being a medium you communicate among a group to it’s just a microblogging platform. It’s amazing how much noise anyone with even a moderate number of followers will get as responses. It’s even more amazing how people can still continue to post good stuff after that.

munificent7• 6 years ago

I am at 1,189 following and 12.6K followers.

I don't think I've gotten nuttier, but I have gotten more circumspect. I'm cognizant that my broader audience size means I can assume any person will have context for my tweets. It's really hard to make good jokes without a shared understanding so my humor tends to be more watered down.

I do miss the time when my twitter feed felt more like a hangout with a group of like-minded game dev and programming language nerd friends. It's still that, but it's sort of that + some nebulous cloud of strangers, which effects the feel.

At the same time, I am grateful that having a higher Twitter profile helps draw more attention to my writing. I've sold more books because of it and that materially helps me and my family, so I certainly can't complain.

It's not worse, just different. It feels very much like the difference in how you conduct yourself at a party with friends, versus on stage at a work conference. I'm still me and I still try to be interesting and funny. But I'm a more carefully cultivated, safe subset of me in the latter venue.

z3t4• 6 years ago

Just assume that whatever you say to anyone will end up in the news next morning.

majos• 6 years ago

But this is a terrible way to live. You’ll never be vulnerable with anybody, and vulnerability is a big component of close relationships.

keiferski8• 6 years ago

I’ve always thought being famous with a pseudonymous name but an anonymous appearance and legal name is the best of both scenarios.

Someone like Bansky or Daft Punk, for example. Everyone knows your artist name and your work, but virtually no one recognizes you on the street and you can check into hotels or use your real name without most people noticing.

nefitty• 6 years ago

Is the point that you get your work recognized, instead of your “self”?

keiferski8• 6 years ago

Depends on where you draw the line between work and self, I guess.

christiansakai5• 6 years ago

I read Kevin Hart’s autobiography and one takeaway from the book was that famous comedians or famous people don’t use pseudo/nicknames but just use his/her own name.

Kevin Hart was known as Lil’ Kev the Bastard until one of his early mentor told him to drop that nickname.

keiferski8• 6 years ago

Kevin Hart was known as Lil’ Kev the Bastard until one of his early mentor told him to drop that nickname.

This is also just a monumentally bad name. In comedy alone, there are plenty of people with nicknames or not-their-actual name:

- Louis C.K. (Louis Székely)

- Jon Stewart (Jon Leibowitz)

- Larry the Cable Guy (Daniel Lawrence Whitney)

- Mel Brooks (Melvyn Kaminsky)

- Gene Wilder (Jerome Silberman)

- Tim Allen (Timothy Alan Dick)

- Rodney Dangerfield (Jacob Cohen)

- Jamie Foxx (Eric Bishop)

woofie113• 6 years ago

Law suits. The big one missing is law suits. That's a higher level of fame than this blogger has hit. That includes:

1) Nuts and idiots. For example, people who genuinely believe what you're doing is out to get them.

2) Jackals and vultures. People want what you've built, and see the legal system as a good way of extorting you to get it.

I hit this level of fame, and quickly backed down from anything which might give me more visibility.

I also stopped believing random accusations of famous people until there's proof or unless the accusers are really close. If someone is CEO of a 20,000 person company, and their closest associates accuse them of sexual harassment, exploitation, fraud, or otherwise? That's a plausible accusation. If someone runs a 20,000 person company, and 20 seemingly random people do? Well, that's almost guaranteed by statistics.

ikeboy5• 6 years ago

My understanding is even without fame, if you get anywhere interesting in the business world you'll need to get comfortable with litigation. Every wealthy person is entangled in it, even people you've never heard of that "only" have 50 million.

dman• 6 years ago

This is an eye opener, I didnt realize it was that bad.

lacker2• 6 years ago

It is certainly not true that every wealthy person is entangled in litigation. Your typical not-famous, post-exit startup founder just doesn’t have any reason to get sued by anybody.

danbmil99• 6 years ago

This. Any company with any kind of marketing footprint is going to be the target of numerous lawsuits, from disgruntled employees, investors, shareholders, customers Etc.

The people who do best with Fame are like Bill Clinton, who ignored impeachment and went on to be a popular ex-president. You have to be able to compartmentalize. If you're the sort of person who takes things personally, let's things get under your skin, well, I think the public life is simply not for you.

sneak4• 6 years ago

One of the mitigating strategies here is to have a liability waiver that people sign to enter your office or home. Mine also has an NDA with a nondisparagement provision.

It has been useful for dating, too.

grawprog2• 6 years ago

Personally, the only time i've had to sign a waiver is right before i've been doing something dangerous or life threatening. If a date made me sign a waiver before entering their home I'd be wondering what kind of fucked up things they've got planned and probably turn around and leave right there.

ikeboy5• 6 years ago

This sounds overkill, but mandatory arbitration clauses in business agreements is a good idea. In particular with partners, you don't want to have a nasty public fight over your company.

Can also include winner gets fees clause to discourage baseless claims.

juped• 6 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVa8NaYTMIQ

dharmon• 6 years ago

For what it's worth, rich people do not do this. It sounds like one of those nonsense things a person would do if they want people to think they're rich when they're not.

They do, however, have a good umbrella insurance policy to cover extra liability. If you have even a modest net worth you should also do this.

And don't invite randos into your home/office.

tazjin• 6 years ago

I opened this on a computer without an adblocker installed (yeah, my mistake), and a minute or so into reading the article it suddenly pops up a full-screen ad to buy this guy's book. That's on the same level of annoying as autoplaying videos imo.

ehnto• 6 years ago

Ah, the humble pop up. I don't see them so much anymore, but I also don't visit many websites that would do that anymore. It's always startling, sometimes it can take a good minute just to get through the onslaught of popups, popovers, chat widgets and permissions requests just to see the article.

simonebrunozzi2• 6 years ago

Yes. Sometimes I like what Tim writes, but his marketing tactics on the website and elsewhere are really bad and annoying.

Tim, if you're reading this: please consider a different approach. You're rich and famous, you don't need the extra $$ of a slightly better conversion rate.

hycaria2• 6 years ago

What if it's the team working on this that's looking for a better conversion rate ?

gherkinnn• 6 years ago

I never wanted to be famous. Now I feel confirmed. Jesus. There’s liberty in being a nobody.

Suffice to say, I didn’t realize that this type of thing was part of the Faustian fame-seeking bargain.

Again, reading classics holds more weight than 90% of current self help and motivational books. Goethe was on point.

After having mastered all the sciences and still unfulfilled, Faust seeks Mephisto to know “was die Welt in ihrem Innersten zusammen hält” (What binds the essence of the world). And enters a pact with the Devil. Of course it all goes to shit.

kaybe• 6 years ago

It's fun to summarize Faust II for those who haven't read it. Faust I is so commonly read in school here, and so earnest and serious that the time-traveling madness of the second part comes at a surprise.

dannyw2• 6 years ago

Anecdotal, but have known someone who because famous. They like getting their emails responded to; but they'd rather not get the publicity.

This was cemented when I was walking with them had to take a detour to avoid a news crew that was looking for them.

MayeulC2• 6 years ago

I think I do not want fame, but it's obviously easier to navigate some circles if your name is known: you don't have to introduce yourself, nor prove other people what you are worth.

This works on many scales: from a small team at work, where it's much easier to co-ordinate if everyone knows each other's strong points. It's also great for arguments: if you know that a person is very knowledgeable on a topic, you won't ask them to substantiate their claims, which speeds up the process.

I've been toying with the idea of creating multiple identities for multiple areas I'm engaging in: use my real name for socializing in real life with close acquaintances as well as paperwork, but maybe use a pseudonym for publishing papers, another for engaging in open-source communities, and online in general. I'm happy to say it's quite hard to find pictures of myself online, but it would be even better if they didn't come attached to a meaningful name.

I'm about to submit a paper with my real name this evening, and I am a bit unsure about this. Any experience on using pen names in that domain specifically?

The issue I have is that the longer you wait, the harder it is to change (which can also be a good thing: to change names is to get a fresh start).

It all boils down to reputation and identity somehow, two hot (and hard) topics in (distributed) social networks.

graeme7• 6 years ago

There’s a big difference between being known in your field and being generally famous as Tim Ferriss is talking about.

I am well known in my field and it has all the benefits you speak of. But it’s not a large field. So I have none of the negatives that the article speaks of.

MayeulC2• 6 years ago

That's right, of course, and I should have made this a bit clearer: I am mostly concerned with being known under the same name in multiple independent fields. While it certainly has benefits, it:

* Lowers the Signal/Noise ratio when searching for your works in that field

* Might not always be relevant for your future employer that (forgive my bad example) you are a skilled baseball player, for them to find some drunken pictures of you, or for your date to know that you are a speaker at defcon.

I think of it as controlling the flow of information, installing firewalls between different aspects of my life. I would prefer personal matters not to intervene in my work life, and vice-versa.

By virtue of not having a common first name, if you look mine up with a few keywords related to my interests, you can quickly track me down. This is not a big deal in general, and I don't do anything that would deserve it, but you always are one scandal away from fame, especially in today's world...

accidentalrebel6• 6 years ago

There’s a big difference between being known in your field and being generally famous as Tim Ferriss is talking about.

Thanks for actually making me realize this distinction.

Kinda like being known for something instead of being famous for something. Does that make sense?

H8crilA• 6 years ago

Perhaps I'm missing something, but what's good about being famous? I.e. what are the reasons to become famous?

jamesrcole• 6 years ago

The article covers that, near the start.

reidjs2• 6 years ago

More opportunities for wealth, women, power. More social interaction. Ego stroking. Getting a message out there. There’s a lot of great reasons if you’re the type of person who enjoys these things and can handle the pressure.

PragmaticPulp• 6 years ago

The last time I wrote a mild critique about Tim Ferriss online, someone scoured the internet to reverse engineer my personal identity and sent an e-mail to my personal e-mail account to debate with me. (I have since switched to anonymous handles). I can only imagine what it's like for Tim Ferriss himself.

If you're not familiar with Tim Ferriss, there are several reasons why he's more attractive to dangerous followers than the average influencer:

- He was among the first to crack the "influencer" code, gaining fame and popularity through book publishing and early social media websites (pre-Instagram). Back then, there weren't nearly as many influencers to know about, let alone follow.

- He rose to fame via punchy self-help books like "The Four Hour Workweek" and "The Four Hour Body". He talks about having chosen those topics to give solutions to the average problems faced by modern people. He makes calculated moves to target the widest range of people who are looking for answers to life's basic challenges.

- He has moved toward more respectable topics over time, but his early work tended toward fantastical claims and unrealistic promises. It was more fantasy than practical, but always grounded in an inspiring shroud of "What if he's right?" This leaves the hopeful readers hooked while filtering out the rational skeptics. I joke that he applied the Nigerian prince scam filtering mechanism to self-help books.

- In the past, he dabbled in pure clickbait that wasn't grounded in reality. For example, consider his famous blog post about gaining 34 lbs of muscle in 28 days with only 4 hours of total gym time using secret techniques of the "little-known Colorado Experiment": https://tim.blog/2007/04/29/from-geek-to-freak-how-i-gained-... If you're at all familiar with weightlifting or exercise science you'll understand how impossible this is, yet it circulated for years on message boards from beginners who were convinced that Tim Ferriss was a guru who could help them achieve the impossible.

- One of Tim's books has a section about contacting famous people who you wouldn't normally expect to respond to you. He encourages readers to contact famous people as an example of achieving what you previously thought was impossible. This is intertwined with his stories about life hacking or using clever tricks to achieve impossible goals. It's not surprising that his fans have chosen to apply those techniques to Tim Ferriss himself, by following his social media and calling around at hotels to find him. He all but encouraged this behavior in his first book.

- Recently, Tim has been pushing Psychedelic medicine as a miracle cure for depression, anxiety, and PTSD. He has made some very respectable and noble efforts to raise money for proper scientific research. He also gives pseudo-warnings on his podcasts to not attempt DIY psychedelic treatment for psychiatric issues, but his disclaimers have a very "wink, wink" after we've received fantastical advice about getting rich, traveling the world, getting fit, and so on from Tim over the years. I have no doubt that many of his fans have begun experimenting with psychedelics to treat their severe depression and anxiety without the help of psychiatrists, which is not a recipe for healthy outcomes.

In other words, Tim Ferriss almost defines the modern "Guru" archetype. Fame and publicity always come with a risk of stalkers and negative attention, but I believe Tim's position as a self-help guru and psychedelic medicine pusher has amplified uniquely amplified his reach among the most vulnerable individuals. I feel truly sorry for him, of course, but it's helpful to understand the larger context of how he arrived in this position if you're wondering how this could apply to other internet-famous people.

mordymoop• 6 years ago

Ferriss also frequently gives instructions on how to send cold emails or make cold calls to influential people for personal advantage. He’s strongly selecting for and maybe even actively creating the kind of person who will be predisposed to harass him.

SyneRyder• 6 years ago

I remember that chapter of Four Hour Work Week. I just found it again:

"Find Yoda: Call at least one potential superstar mentor per day for three days. E-mail only after attempting a phone call. I recommend calling before 8:30am or after 6pm to reduce run-ins with secretaries and other gatekeepers. Shoot for A players - CEOs, ultrasuccessful entrepreneurs, famous authors etc. Don't aim low to make it less frightening. Use [specific website for finding contact details of celebrities omitted here] if need be. Base your script on the following..."

The thing is, as annoying as that sounds, that chapter was actually really useful to me as an extremely shy guy who was too intimidated to even contact the 'CEO' of a shareware company. I never phoned & only emailed once, but having a template script for how to succinctly ask a question of a busy person I felt intimidated by was very helpful to me then.

graeme7• 6 years ago

All solid points, but I think the larger truth remains that you can’t get to an audience of 1 to 10,000,000 people without attracting crazy people in that audience.

I moderate a discussion board with about 50,000 members and we see a decent chunk of this unhinged behavior. Maybe 10 to 20 people per year? If you have an audience of 10 million multiply that by 200.

You would expect the audience of this forum to be dull and well adjusted.

simonebrunozzi2• 6 years ago

Could you share your critique? I think it would be interesting to read.

Edit: btw, I find your commentary on Tim very grounded and balanced.

andreilys• 6 years ago

“ Recently, Tim has been pushing Psychedelic medicine as a miracle cure for depression, anxiety, and PTSD”

Which is grounded in scientific research which backs up his claims.

It’s a shame that the drug war encompassed psychedelics whi

zepto• 6 years ago

A small number of very carefully administered treatments are backed up by research.

Nothing like a miracule cure.

paganel4• 6 years ago

Thank you for that, I really didn't know who this guy Tim was and why he said he was famous, your comment has cleared a lot of unknowns for me related to this submission.

accidentalrebel6• 6 years ago

It's not surprising that his fans have chosen to apply those techniques to Tim Ferriss himself, by following his social media and calling around at hotels to find him. He all but encouraged this behavior in his first book.

This is a funny in an ironic sort of way.

It's like teaching thieves only for them to rob you.

perseusprime11• 6 years ago

Becoming famous requires a lot of good luck and not just hard work. You have to be the right person at the right time kind of thing. I feel extreme good luck invites bad luck because of the negative energy surrounding the famous person. This has very interesting side affects on how famous people look at risk and make their decisions. But thinking of famous personalities like Gandhi, MLK, Kobe, MJ, Bruce Lee, I wonder what would have happened if they were not famous. Would their destinies be any different?

AnimalMuppet2• 6 years ago

You wouldn't know if their destinies were any different, because if they were not famous, you'd never have heard of them.

afpx• 6 years ago

Regarding the stalking ...

Reminds me of a recent "Hidden Brain" episode - about "Secret Friends" - people of whom others believe to be friends but aren't. The show implied it's fairly easy for the Human Brain to develop a belief those whom are seen or heard often are friends, even if not known personally.

Tim mentions feeling that he is a tribal leader of millions of people. And, he definitely has the attention of those people. People who trust him. And, from an anthropological (and perhaps biological) perspective, I wonder if people stalk him because they really believe him to be their tribal leader Maybe those people really do look at him like he's a friend.

I know our Westernized cultures cherish individuality and independence, but I also wonder if people who decide to enter (and stay within) the limelight have a Human responsibility to be a leader and friend. I know, that's a crazy thought.

bittercynic• 6 years ago

I don't think it's a crazy thought at all - being famous gives a person some kind of power, and I think some responsibility comes with that.

However, if a famous person behaves in a way that doesn't seem to be fulfilling that responsibility I think the best we can do is ignore them - trying to enforce our idea of responsibility in this area seems unlikely to be a net positive.

opportune4• 6 years ago

I've heard of podcasts being described as "friend simulators" because of this phenomenon

accidentalrebel6• 6 years ago

That is very interesting. I follow a number of "Just Talking" podcasts and I have come to consider the members as my friends. Some of them really are, but others are just purely because I listen to their podcast.

Feels weird to realize this.

appleflaxen• 6 years ago

I think this is exactly the right way to understand celebrities: our primitive brain thinks it understands who these people are, how they relate to things we care about (shows, books, issues, movements), and identifies them as "familiar", and "known".

And on the other side, this looks utterly bizzarro to the celebrity, because not only don't they know the fan, but it should be obvious to the fan they know absolutely nothing fundamental (or very little) about the celebrity as a human being.

It is a really crazy set of circumstances. The culture of celebrity is completely crazy.

nlh• 6 years ago

The stalker thing is real - and I didn’t realize how real until a buddy who’s a moderately-successful YouTuber (750k subs) got his very own.

Thankfully it’s a relatively benign case, but man, it’s real. There’s a kid who, for the past ~10 years, calls him Every. Single. Day. Without fail. For 10 years (that’s 3600+ phone calls). He leaves a voicemail and just talks about his day - what video games he’s playing, etc. I think his mom once called and apologized (although she doesn’t seem to try and stop the behavior, which is also odd, but who knows).

Now imagine the same kind of obsessive behavior, but...less benign. Scary.

mprev• 6 years ago

Could he change his number?

Spooky232• 6 years ago

That can trigger the stalker to escalate.

saghm2• 6 years ago

I think an important question to ask is how they got his number in the first place; it's possible that they could find the new one in the same way

k__4• 6 years ago

Yes.

A friend of mine is a famous musician and there is a women who somehow pops up on most public events he visits. He's often too nice and hugs her before telling her that she should leave him alone because he's there in private with his friends.

He's always "yes, stalkers bother me a bit, but they aren't that bad"

Well, yes, if it's a small cute woman bothering you now and then it's not that bad, but who has the luck to only get such harmless stalkers?

tartoran3• 6 years ago

The way someone looks doesn’t say much about their mental health. Being stalked by someone raises the alarm a bit but sure, not all the time a bad outcome comes of it. Theres the potential to attract nutcases and in my opinion this is a high cost for being famous.

andrewflnr• 6 years ago

Well geez, it makes Dear Mr. Henshaw sound a little less cute when you put it that way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dear_Mr._Henshaw

tartoran3• 6 years ago

The stalker thing reminds me of Bjork, the singer and the stalker who wanted to kill her through mail. Very disturbed person developed an obsession with her, imagined her telling him things through her songs and so on. There are plenty of nutcases out there and being famous only paints a target on your back.

yissp• 6 years ago

Anyways, I hope you get this man, hit me back, Just to chat, truly yours, your biggest fan This is Stan

Mandatum• 6 years ago

Reminds me of working on a CRM. Our integration was breaking because one record that was being sent over was 100x bigger than any other record we'd seen during testing.

Turns out some poor fellow had an issue with mental health, not sure the specifics - but every day like clockwork he'd fill in one of our 20 page forms, submit his identification and apply for something. We had records for this same fellow going back 20 years when he first attempted to get involved with our organisation. The team responsible for actioning those forms are familiar with him, and have manually built in steps to ignore his submissions from reporting and extraction..

Whilst debugging this issue I found notes from each new manager that came and went over the years who encountered this fellow. Each had different opinions on what should be done, thankfully humanity reigned and nobody wanting to seek legal measures won.

When debugging this, I noticed the submissions stopped 4 months prior. I looked him up online, lo-and-behold an obituary.

reidjs2• 6 years ago

My advice (not famous person):

If you want to “try before you buy” the famous lifestyle perhaps try to get comfortable at night clubs and festivals. Once you kind of learn how that dynamic works and you can get the most attractive people there to pay attention/dance/party with you, you will see a lot of the positives and negatives that come with the territory.

Beautiful, heartless women. Jealousy. Needless power positioning. Regretful spending. But also fun and memorable experiences. YMMV

scep12• 6 years ago

This seems mostly unrelated to the meat of the article. I'm not sure that your suggestion results in a productive sample of anything other than spending time in nightclubs.

throw183744• 6 years ago

This is tangential to the article, but James being “a frequent commenter on his blog and a huge help to other readers” was my first sign that he was not mentally well. Immediately knew things would not go well for him in this story.

People often say this as a joke, but I think it’s 100% accurate: Internet comment sections have a strong self-selection bias for the mentally unwell.

I’ll include Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, HN to some extent, etc.

Not exact numbers, but the math goes something like 100% of comments are written by 10% of readers. Of those that do bother to comment, the less utilized and less psychology stable and healthy they are, the greater their commenting volume is.

Healthy happy people simply do not spend much of their time that way.

(I’m including myself in that btw.)

The world treats these comment sections as if they represent a perfect cross-section of the general population, and the result is all the insane cultural rambling and nonsense you hear and read about in media and blogs, all the way up to Fox News and NYT. They think these insane ramblings are what represent the people and what the people want.

Then the population adjusts to some extent to match those insane ramblings, because they think that’s how other people must feel.

It’s a global feedback loop of political and cultural madness and hysteria.

gist3• 6 years ago

Healthy happy people simply do not spend much of their time that way.

But what if making comments makes you happy?

While I don't disagree with the premises of what you are saying I think you are not considering that for some people saying something makes them feel good and they are perfectly mentally sane.

I could also say that 'healthy happy people do not spend their time socializing with others at parties' but we know people do that because 'it makes them happy'.

paganel4• 6 years ago

For what it's worth "mentally sane" and "healthy happy people" can be a little boring in real life, that's why lots of people like myself have decided to spend time arguing with people from the other side of the world on websites like this one or on reddit just because the subjects being argued about are interesting and there's no way you could find a person in your real life that could be interested in said subjects.

imgabe3• 6 years ago

"Healthy, happy" in this context, happy is not a momentary emotion as a response to external stimulus. This is happy in the sense of generally content and well-adjusted. One doesn't get made that way by something else, one makes oneself that way by adjusting the way they view the world. A better word would be equanimity. You can be "happy" in that sense even while going through distressing events.

celticninja• 6 years ago

I think the 80/20 rule is fairly well established, 20% of the users are responsible for 80% of the content.

mandelbrotwurst• 6 years ago

That's an interesting theory, would you mind explaining why you think that's the case?

I wouldn't be surprised if there is at least a correlation - e.g. maybe those who spend a lot of time commenting online do so because they are trying to compensate for a lack of meaningful offline interactions, relationships, etc.

That said, is it so hard to imagine that someone might have both? i.e. even if there's a correlation, it seems like a bit of a stretch to suggest that a prolific internet commenter is necessarily mentally unwell. It seems very plausible to me that someone might both have a robust real life social life while simultaneously engaging in online interactions as well, no?

I'd also posit that this might depend on the forum - e.g. someone actively engaging in learning or sharing their expertise on e.g. nutrition or car repair forum may be a bit different than the median commenter on news articles linked from The Drudge Report.

chubot• 6 years ago

This came up a year ago under "Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18881827

https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most...

I think there is a grain of truth to that, but it depends heavily on what you read. If you read a lot about politics and pop culture, probably. Likewise, as other people have said, the "personal development" audience likely has a lot of unstable people.

It's more accurate to say "outliers" than "insane", and some outliers are good!

throw18376• 6 years ago

i think you are completely right about this. for one thing, mania/hypomania can lead people to compulsively post, in the same way that it can make people hyper-talkative IRL. sometimes people taking stimulant drugs or having adverse reactions to other medications can end up in a similar state. to me this explains a lot of the strange behavior on the internet, in aggregate, although i make an effort not to diagnose individual people on the basis of some internet comments.

ruminasean2• 6 years ago

I am publicly in close proximity to someone famous for my job and with a modest (~15k) Instagram following because of that, I've experienced most of this behavior to one degree or another. I was completely unprepared for it and it really freaked me out.

I love the Bill Murray quote, and I've been living by this, also from the article: "You want everyone to know your name and no one to know your face.” It really seems to affect people that I don't post selfies and pics of myself anywhere....second to requests to be put in contact with the famous person to whom I'm obviously connected, people really want to know what I look like. As someone who is fairly private as well as nothing special in the looks dept, I'm in no rush. I'm googleable because of the absurd name under which I started, but most people can't or won't put in the effort.

I've definitely concluded that in my particular case, some respectable form of following on IG is necessary (I'm a photographer) and I certainly won't get rich, but damn I was utterly not ready for nor was I expecting 5-screen-long tales of woe and death and disease and pleas for help and mercy along with the same kind of "I know what you did and I'll expose you" shit several times a week.

rootusrootus• 6 years ago

I'm surprised a photographer would be such a target, even if they identify themselves with a well-known (and somewhat controversial, I suppose) figure. TIL!

Reading stories like this just makes me that more determined to never be well-known. Not that I'm in any particular danger of that, mind you, but still...

ruminasean2• 6 years ago

I was surprised too. It's a variety of "I need X to speak at my charity event," "hey can you give X my contact info," "here's my nude selfie and my number, please tell X," to "X is impersonating himself on social media and swindled me out of thousands of dollars, I'm going to report you and everyone else."

Ironically, being relatively faceless has burned me as well. I have a fairly common name, so when someone else with the same name made a shitty comment on some board on Facebook, I had days of being attacked, getting DMd to kill myself, brutal comments on all my posts...it was hours and days of cleanup and banning people.

delaaxe• 6 years ago

The fact he’s a photographer doesn’t have anything to do with the downsides mentioned. Could just as well be any family member or a close friend of the famous person

throw183744• 6 years ago

I hate to admit this but I wrote 3 of these woe—and-misery letters in the late ‘90s, when I was a teenager.

One to Bill Gates, one to Bill Roper, and another to Chris Metzen.

I didn’t send them expecting a response, and didn’t even really consider that. The act of writing it down and throwing it out there just lifted my mood somehow, like throwing coins in a fountain.

I didn’t choose Bill Gates, Bill Roper and Chris Metzen because I was expecting anything from them. I chose them because they were significant to me, and connecting what I was going through to them somehow provided relief and made things feel surmountable.

Not saying that’s how a perfectly healthy brain thinks, but that’s how teenage me felt at the time.

The people writing you might be the same way?

Next time you get one of these letters, just think of yourself as the fountain they’re throwing the coins into.

C1sc0cat2• 6 years ago

There is a famous Marilyn Monroe quote where she commented that she could turn the Marylin Persona on and off

gist3• 6 years ago

This was a surprisingly good article and I had not even really (odd actually) heard of Tim until literally the other day. Maybe I came across his name somewhere in the past but thought "he's a self help type author no interest". That said the thing that surprised me is the fact that he is doing the least likely things to make himself less of a target. You go to the blog there's a big picture of him on display and not exactly understated. So sure he could write his books and provide information and make it less likely that people would get mental over what he has and his success (because they would be less likely to focus on him and be jealous). After all something sparks the person who stalks him and I don't think a large part of that is words. Yes writers and others (w/o pictures) get stalked but for whatever reason my guess is it's much less.

Let's look at it this way. Not saying it would be possible to be famous w/o displaying yourself personally in a prominent way but what if he provided his helpful info and never had a picture of himself and/or used a pseudonym for his name?

eb3c90• 6 years ago

I'd rather not be rich or famous. If I happened to become either I'd try and leverage them in some way to help or form organisations that can navigate the hot mess of our societies next few decades.

tempsy• 6 years ago

I think the only way to be rich and anonymous is wealth building through stocks, real estate, etc. No one outside of your broker, yourself, and the government knows about that in the case of stocks, and you can buy real estate through an LLC if you want to be extra anonymous.

DenisM2• 6 years ago

If the problem is so widespread I imagine that all the really rich and famous have A few people on staff to filter incoming correspondence, triage and follow up on credible threats, check with police as needed etc.

What of the modestly famous and not that rich? There ought to be an agency where one could outsource this sort of work for a fraction of the in-house cost. The agency would accumulate experience and might even keep the database of known crazies which gives it economy of scale.

baby• 6 years ago

here's a start up idea

wishinghand• 6 years ago

I don't think it could work due to this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22284623

Zenbit_UX3• 6 years ago

Well, that's definitely where I'd want to work if I was a crazy. Imagine the access! Thousands of wealthy and famous clients contact information and in some cases direct access to their correspondences for filtering purposes... The potential for extortion, bribery and worse would be unprecedented.

imgabe3• 6 years ago

I'm sure there's a screening process that could be employed. After all talent agencies, movie studios, and other fame adjacent companies must do something to prevent stalkers from getting jobs there. I also suspect that stalkers don't usually have the qualifications and experience that make them attractive candidates.

Mountain_Skies6• 6 years ago

Tim's post reminds me of a video the 8-Bit Guy did a while back about how many people contact him, both to try to strike up a conversation and to offer him their old 8-bit treasures. He sounded rather annoyed by the whole thing but he is a big star in the 8-bit pond so it comes with the territory. For his area of coverage, there is lots of childhood nostalgia involved so this might make his viewer connected with the channel (and him) to a greater extent than you'd otherwise think. Likewise in Tim's area of personal development, he makes an emotional impact on a large crowd. Strength of emotional connection times crowd size is going to be the big factors here.

varjag4• 6 years ago

The 8-Bit Guy is fascinating persona, because he manages to maintain two segregated public personalities, both with heavy YouTube presence.

(The other one is a 2A NRA gun touter, the kind who takes their rifle to a restaurant and films it)

Mountain_Skies6• 6 years ago

Wow, didn't know about his other persona. I knew he has a channel named 8bit Keys but since I'm not musically inclined, haven't watched it much. Maybe his gun channel helps keep the types of fans Tim complains about away.

graeme7• 6 years ago

Can anyone comment on his statement that having mail delivered to your house puts you on searchable commercial lists?

I’m wondering if it’s actually physical mail that’s at issue, or rather having your home address as say a billing address on a site you buy something from.

This one seemed fairly tough to avoid 100%, so I want to know more about the plausibility.

luckylion2• 6 years ago

At least in Germany, the mail carrier (Deutsche Post) offers data cleanup & enrichment for address data, i.e. you tell them "I have John Doe, 123 SomeWrongStreet, ZIP" and they'll say 'He lives on 123 SomeStreet". Iirc, they collect this data (among other sources) from mail that was delivered to that address, since they OCR the recipient address for sorting etc anyhow. I wouldn't be surprised if they also (had; it's probably illegal with GDPR) sold access in general.

prepend3• 6 years ago

I worked for a company that bought mailing lists and linked them to public records. We didn’t sell to marketers but it did open my eyes that anyone who isn’t prohibited will sell info.

Some industries (utilities, banking) are prohibited from selling customer info. But most aren’t. If you ever subscribe to a magazine, donate to a charity, enter a sweepstakes, etc your info goes into commercial lists.

graeme7• 6 years ago

Gotcha. So not just physical mail: anything with your physical address on it that isn't prohibited from selling it may do so.

jkaplowitz• 6 years ago

Even billing addresses can be the off-site mail delivery services. Banks do need to know your physical address in the US due to the Patriot Act, but they don't have to put it in your statement or treat it as your billing address.

cletus• 6 years ago

So I only see three reasons to be famous:

1. The attention and adulation is your drug. I think there's no shortage of people who fall into this category.

2. To convert that fame into opportunities you wouldn't otherwise have; and

3. To convert that fame into money.

Obviously if you're just plain rich then (3) is moot. If you fall into (1) then money can buy you fame to a degree.

So that leaves (2). Wealth will give you many opportunities fame will but certainly not all. Or at least the costs to replicate that are truly ludicrous, like being a star in a Marvel movie, spending a year on the ISS, going to the Moon, that sort of thing.

The way I see it the downsides of fame are significant. I've heard tales from people who worked in media years ago that the very stars who now want the media to leave them alone and to respect their privacy would beg them for stories and coverage just a few years earlier.

I don't think I'd want to be ultra-wealthy (as in a billionaire+). At that point you're almost removed from society. I imagine you end up moving in circles with other ultra-wealthy people that are actually quite small. You risk being a target of the desperate, the criminally minded (fraud, kidnapping, blackmail, that sort of thing) and the mentally unstable.

And really what is the practical difference between having $20m and $2b? Sure you'll have nicer houses and more of them. You may well have a super-yacht at that point. But who cares? I know I don't.

You could say "you would if you had $2b" and maybe that's true. I'm sure I'd buy a nicer place but I think I'd still want to keep a relatively low profile.

sergioro• 6 years ago

An extra reason for being famous (could be included in #2 of the above list) is to amplify your positive impact in the world. E.g. if Bezos wasn't famous i'd probably never learned about his business strategies (costumer first, risk taking & innovating, etc). IMO this is the best reason for being famous.

bshoemaker• 6 years ago

Yep. This seems like the obvious one to me.

airocker2• 6 years ago

Bezos possibly does not want all consumers to know his name or he would have named Amazon "bezos" much like "ford". --bezos fan

tuesday202• 6 years ago

What is so special about customer first? I work for a small unknown company, my product managers and support team do “customer first”, I doubt any of them are reading Bezos biography or philosophy. This is just common sense and being nice to customers, that’s all.

I hope people don’t learn his “work employees to death” and related philosophy ...

JKCalhoun4• 6 years ago

4. Fame is an unavoidable byproduct of your pursuit to reach/help a larger audience.

jborichevskiy• 6 years ago

Good analysis, I think.

And really what is the practical difference between having $20m and $2b? Sure you'll have nicer houses and more of them. You may well have a super-yacht at that point. But who cares? I know I don't.

I found this Reddit comment [1] insightful on that front. Don't know to its validity but have seen it linked to in a few different places.

$1billion
I am going to exclude the $10b+ crowd, because they live a head-of-state life. But at $1b, life changes. You can buy anything. ANYTHING. In broad terms, this is what you can buy:
Access. You now can just ask your staff to contact anyone and you will get a call back. I have seen this first hand and it is mind-blowing the level of access and respect $1 billion+ gets you. In this case, I wanted to speak with a very well-known billionaire businessman (call him billionaire #1 for a project that interested billionaire #2. I mentioned that it would be good to talk to billionaire #1 and B2 told me that he didn't know him. But he called his assistant in. "Get me the xxxgolf club directory. Call B1 at home and tell him I want to talk to him." Within 60 minutes, we had a call back. I was in B1's home talking to him the next day. B2's opinion commanded that kind of respect from a peer. Mind blowing. The same is true with access to almost any Senator/Governor of a billionaires party (because in most cases, he is a significant donor). You meet on an occassional basis with heads-of-state and have real conversations with them. Which leads to ... influence ... (continued)

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_i...

ghaff5• 6 years ago

Even just in terms of money. $20 million invested is--depending upon your assumptions--something like $1 million/year ~risk-free without touching the principle. (OK, a diversified portfolio is probably going to do better than that but that gives something of a baseline.)

Obviously that's a pretty nice passive income stream. But it's not really have a couple nice homes in prime locations, hire full-time assistants, fly private jets everywhere, etc. sort of money.

username90• 6 years ago

They are nice party tricks but add negligible value to your life. Money at those levels is mostly useful to project power, if you don't care about that then I don't see the point. There is a reason many billionaires live relatively normal lives without any of the things mentioned in that post.

tuesday202• 6 years ago

I worked for a small fin tech firm in NYC, saw some high profile people from gov and biz come to the office to meet the owner, who was very rich.

Honestly, I found many of them condescending and unpleasant. Money can absolutely get influence and access, but a good heart? Maybe not

mlrtime• 6 years ago

Interesting reddit article, I have only spent time with aone billionaire, and while his home was amazing, you would never know he was that rich. Very kind and honest person who does not spend much money at all. He would fix his clothes rather than buy new but ALWAYS pick up the tab at dinner. Not all 1B+ people fit into that description.

acoustep• 6 years ago

Fourth reason: To be to be remembered after you’re gone.

m3kw92• 6 years ago

Thing is, nothing matters to you after you are gone. Unless we become ghosts that can observe. Unlikely

satanasur2• 6 years ago

How many dead billionaires from the last century do you remember and can name without googling?

If it's just the feeling of being remembered for something then there are lots of other things you can do to make people remember you. Nobody remembers the rich merchants from 2000 or 3000 years ago but people still remember the conquerors who changed maps and the artists of those days whose works have been immortalized. Whether you like it or not, someone like Hitler or Tolkien will be more likely to be remembered than someone like Gates and no, Hitler won't still be considered as an irredeemable monster then, just like how people don't get offended by the conquests and massacres by Genghis or Napoleon unless for nationalistic/jingoistic reasons.

paganel4• 6 years ago

I can name you lots and lots of broke poets and writers from the last thousand or so years, but I can only name you a handful of wealthy people that died more than 100 years ago: Rockefeller, Carnegie, maybe the first Rotschilds (which one, though?), Jakob Fugger and the Medicis.

JeremyNT• 6 years ago

And really what is the practical difference between having $20m and $2b? Sure you'll have nicer houses and more of them. You may well have a super-yacht at that point. But who cares? I know I don't.

At $20m you can shape your own world, and your family's. But at $2bn you can change society. You can buy a lot of influence both by directly spending the cash to accomplish goals and by bribing politicians to act on your behalf.

throw183744• 6 years ago

Isn’t it possible to become a billionaire without anyone knowing?

What if you just get there quietly through private investment?

Not a billion, but I’ve built up a decent chunk myself and nobody seems to know or even suspect that about me. Nobody begs me for anything more than spare change, no sycophants, nobody trying to impress me. Marketing for luxury goods doesn’t even reach me.

I could easily see myself reaching a billion in a few decades just through private investment, and there must be thousands of people doing the same. I imagine there are many more who have earned millions publicly, then sold their stake and went to a billion privately.

So how does everyone find out about them?

tartoran3• 6 years ago

Whats your endgoal? I was thinking the other day about fortune, wealth and becoming wealthy. I’d very much prefer to not pursue becoming wealthy and concentrate on a diferent goal. I don’t think I could change the world in a financial sense, I might as well contribute positively from a different angle that is not from a wealthy position. That’s why I am asking you what your endgoal is since you chose anonimity and not to flaunt your wealth. I suspect you don’t need any kind of validation or any other ego tickling so do you have an endgoal that you’d like to pursue through your acumulated wealth?

umvi3• 6 years ago

When you say private investment are you just talking opening a vanguard account and putting money into stocks and ETFs?

anonu3• 6 years ago

The Bloomberg billionaires index does exactly this... Out private billionaires.

First off it's hard being a billionaire and people not knowing. You're going to make a splash somehow. But there's still plenty of billionaires, especially in emerging market countries, that have still to be uncovered.

aguyfromnb• 6 years ago

I could easily see myself reaching a billion in a few decades

So your plan to "easily" become a billionaire is to "follow Warren Buffet" and make decades worth of out-performing private investments?

Wait until you learn that markets don't go up forever, and that paper profits on out-of-touch valuations aren't cash. As they say, "everyone's a genius in a bull market".

adventured2• 6 years ago

Isn’t it possible to become a billionaire without anyone knowing?

Yes, it's possible to do it quasi-quietly. This optometrist did exactly that.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2019/02/19/the-great...

https://outline.com/9H4YAb

"Optometrist Herb Wertheim may be the greatest individual investor the world has never heard of, and he has the Fidelity statements to prove it. Leafing through printouts he has brought to a meeting, you can see hundreds of millions of dollars in stocks like Apple and Microsoft, purchased decades ago during their IPOs. An $800 million-plus position in Heico, a $1.8 billion (revenue) airplane-parts manufacturer, dates to 1992. There are dozens of other holdings, ranging from GE and Google to BP and Bank of America."

"The Microsoft shares he bought during the IPO, which have been paying dividends since 2003, are now worth more than $160 million. His 1.25 million shares of Apple, some purchased during its 1980 IPO and some when the stock was languishing at $10 in the 1990s, are worth $195 million."

nathanvanfleet• 6 years ago

My understanding of the question of "why want to be a billionaire" is that it ultimately comes down to the circles of people you associate with. You might own a small company and might take in $1 million in income a year. Great. Well if your friends are making $5 million a year and have X Y Z you might want to push yourself to get there. Imagine being friends with Jeff Bezos, you wouldn't really ever feel like you're successful enough. It's probably the worst for people born into being rich, because they get born into that world and get friends and family who are already bought into being at whatever that level is. And they have to either reject it or try and get there.

leetcrew• 6 years ago

I think the same problem exists at pretty much all income levels. I'm having sort of the opposite problem currently. I make considerably more money than most of my friends, mainly just because I was a cs major and they chose other paths. I can afford to go to nice restaurants, bars, whatever, but my friends can't and I don't make quite enough to pay for all of them to go with me. I do find myself wondering what the point is sometimes. for now I'm happy to have people over and pay for pizza/beer, but it seems a little awkward.

philippoi• 6 years ago

I don't think I'd want to be ultra-wealthy (as in a billionaire+). At that point you're almost removed from society. I imagine you end up moving in circles with other ultra-wealthy people that are actually quite small. You risk being a target of the desperate, the criminally minded (fraud, kidnapping, blackmail, that sort of thing) and the mentally unstable.

That's been the reality of Denmark's richest family (richest ever since CF Møller, head of Mærsk, died a few years ago). They've had numerous run-ins with people after a slice of their wealth. This lead them to keep as far from the public eye as possible (according to one piece I read) until they were the most talked about Danes of the season last year, as they tragically lost 3 of their 4 children in a bombing that was aimed to wipe them out.

It's hard to imagine a worse scenario to survive as a parent or sibling.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/22/three-children-of-danish-bil...

ChuckMcM• 6 years ago

It is a good analysis.

There is no way to escape the envy and judgement from your "friends" even if you are just a "little" rich. A friend of mine, who is a former Googler, and keeps a "low key" lifestyle just tries to keep all the "triggers" that people use to recognize wealth out of their life because they value their friendships.

onetimemanytime3• 6 years ago

The only wildcard in USA is lawyer fees in case of criminal charges, divorce and such. Make it $30-$50 mil, just in case and you'll live like a king without anyone knowing your networth, unless you want them to

Aperocky• 6 years ago

Obviously if you're just plain rich then (3) is moot.

That's assuming that rich people don't want _more_ riches, which I would guess to be not true in more cases than not.

20M isn't quality of life wise too different from 2B, but if you got the chance to get 2B, legally and even morally, would you not?

Frankly, All people with a annual income of either $1B, $10M, or $100K likely live in closer and better quality of life than some medieval king. I'm thankful for our times.

flashman• 6 years ago

Here's the view I subscribe to: "Being a billionaire must be insane. You can buy new teeth, new skin. All your chairs cost 20,000 dollars and weigh 2,000 pounds. Your life is just a series of your own preferences. In terms of cognitive impairment it's probably like being kicked in the head by a horse every day."

(https://twitter.com/Merman_Melville/status/10885276937573498...)

csomar• 6 years ago

$20m is not really that much. You can spend that buying a new nice house in LA or a new penthouse in New York. If you have a large family (say 5) and your kids are adults/studying then $20m networth is not really that much to make them live the good life. (Not that I’m saying it’s a good thing to do so).

$25m @ 10%/year (assuming your actively investing a have no real estate) can afford you a good baller life around US most expensive cities if you are single or just a couple.

collyw• 6 years ago

How about "because you are curious"?

I was always tempted to do a reality TV show where you get outside and are famous for a few months then forgotten about, for the reason that you could hopefully experience what fame is like and hopefully be forgotten about if you didn't like it.

joshspankit3• 6 years ago

One person who has talked about another benefit is Dan Harmon:

(apologies as I don’t remember where or the exact quote)

In an interview he mentioned that his [particular] fame meant that he no longer had to go through the superficial conversations when meeting someone new, that everyone knew enough of his authentic self that they could just jump straight in to meaningful conversation.

I remember this because, for me, that would be the only compelling reason to become famous.

wyxuan• 6 years ago

That’s only assuming that, that particular celebrity is known to pour their thoughts out to the world. That same thing couldn’t happen to Leonardo do caprio for instance

joshspankit3• 6 years ago

Yes exactly. That’s what I meant to say with the word “particular” there. Thank you for making that clear.

JKCalhoun4• 6 years ago

Counterpoint: You want to help people, educate people, lift people up — and your only talent best suited for this is your writing skills, your speaking skills, your musical abilities or your acting skills.

Fame is how you reach a larger audience.

My high school teacher may have inspired a number of his students to love and pursue astronomy, but Carl Sagan inspired orders of magnitudes more.

Perseids• 6 years ago

Counter-counterpoint: If you are not too picky about the type of good you want to do, money can buy you an astonishing amount of it. See the effective altruism movement, e.g. https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/impact-calculator/ . For a thousand dollars you can provide 781 person-years of save drinking water or purchase 500 bednets to protect against malaria.

Unless you are over-proportionally suited or talented at being famous, you can basically always do more good by earning and donating as much money as you can.

(Note, though, that it requires more reflection and conceptualization to feel as good by giving remotely than by giving to people locally or in your community.)

unreal37• 6 years ago

I think an argument can be made that, if an artist doesn't create their art because they figure they can earn more money as an investment banker and donate money to causes they care about instead, the world is actually worse off as a result.

scottlocklin3• 6 years ago

Funny I'm just a sometime blogger and I used to get weirdos finding my house and sending me handwritten letters. At one point I was tied up with one of Steven Spielberg's schizophrenic stalkers because of some dipshit I argued with on Usenet to pass time in grad school. Now I got my face on a fairly well known startup, which means various 3rd world places I enjoy are non-starters without having actual security precautions in place (which defeats the purpose of going to such places in the first place: freedom).

Being even slightly famous is shit. I quite enjoy writing and would take it to the next level, but I'd rather not be any more famous. The culture of narcissism which encourages people to seek fame is ridiculous: it's all the downsides of being surveilled except its eyes the size of your audience instead of a couple of creepy (but probably mostly law abiding) policeman at a terminal.

Zenbit_UX3• 6 years ago

I've always been curious about traveling while famous. You generally have to show a passport at airports, hotels, etc.. So I always wondered how famous people moved around with any kind of annonimity.

Surely a fake passport is far too risky for legal reasons? Yet it would solve a lot of their problems when combined with sunglasses and a cap...

I guess what I'm asking is, what would be the "riskiest" country that you would actually entertain the possibility of visiting without serious precautions?

scottlocklin3• 6 years ago

Fancy hotels have decent security and will meet you at the airport (I mean some of the people we're talking about have private jets and own hotels -though they have security teams to take care of matters). They're probably also used to "Harrison Ford" tier famous people showing up. California allows for pseudonyms on government documents and credit cards, basically because of Hollywood.

refurb• 6 years ago

Have a personal assistance book hotel under their name and check in for you?

Airport is more difficult, but I assume the information is harder to get at (at least in developed nations). Otherwise, don’t fly commercial airlines? Charter a jet?

yters• 6 years ago

Good thing I chose not to be famous.

m3kw92• 6 years ago

I think life has more reasons than be: I can survive in luxury.

I think once you have enough, your purpose is to help others. Choose something

dropoutcoder• 6 years ago

An unfortunate consequence of fame is that celebrities are sometimes forced to take counter surveillance matters into their own hands.

As it’s difficult for a celebrity to accept new people into their inner circle without knowing their motives, pre-emptive measures can be used to vet outsiders. The unfortunate consequence of this is the application of questionable methods by shady security forces. Celebrities don’t have their own Secret Service detail so they end up relying upon their peers to perform investigations of outsiders entering their fold. This can be disastrous all around, particularly when there exists political and cultural disparities amongst involved parties. Speaking from experience.

yaitsyaboi• 6 years ago

This reminds me of Ana Delvey, the fake NYC socialite scammer of a few years ago. I originally thought it was funny that she had ripped all these ultra-wealthy people off, but the sad fact was that she scammed a lot of people who were wealthy enough to have a high limit on their credit cards (~50k), but not wealthy enough to have this kind of social sophisticated social infrastructure in place. She got by into the circles my making various friends that all suggested influence separately (investment banker, editor at Vogue, etc), and together gave her the appearance of legitimacy to all the other friends.

jcoffland• 6 years ago

By definition, most people don't need to worry about becoming famous and its consequences.

ericmcer• 6 years ago

Does anyone else feel like he really misinterpreted the parable of the blind men and the elephant?

Jim Carrey’s quote also seems out of context, given that Carrey is talking about the philosophical nature of fame as a goal. How striving for it could become a part of your identity and then actually achieving it and finding your problems still exist would lead to a loss of identity, disillusionment and other existential stuff. Ferriss is dealing more with the practical realities of being famous on a day to day basis.

okareaman2• 6 years ago

The irony of this blog entry is that Tim Ferris is a relentless self-promoter who continues that practice for the entire first half of this essay before finally getting to the drawbacks of being a successful self-promoter. I appreciate the thought, but I question the motives of the author.

accidentalrebel6• 6 years ago

Whatever the motive I'm glad that he still eventually got to the point. I don't think you can fault him for that, that's what he's good at, I guess.

okareaman2• 6 years ago

He is really good at it and does good with it, so I don't fault him. Not my cup of tea though. I tried to listen to his podcast, but for the first 8 minutes he talked about himself and his accomplishments. That's a bit much self-regard for me.

yason• 6 years ago

This question must be for stage II; so far I can't think of a reason I'd like to become famous in the first place...

cantrevealname• 6 years ago

A common assumption is rich<=>famous. Obviously, famous doesn't imply rich because someone could be, say, a notorious criminal and be poor. But it's quite amazing the degree to which you can be rich, super rich, but still be anonymous. Even in today's world.

I remember reading one of Forbes' annual listings of the world's billionaires in which they tried to include a photo of everyone in the top couple hundred. Astonishingly a few had no photos -- Forbes said that they couldn't find a photo. According to Wikipedia, "Forbes employs a team of more than 50 reporters from a variety of countries to track the activity of the world's wealthiest individuals." So you can absolutely be among the richest people on Earth and not have a publicly available photo.

On the current Forbes list the following have no photos: #23, #36, #61, #122, #153, #167, #191, #198, #215, #233, #244, #272 (two people at this rank), #290 (also two), #343, #355, #365, #379 (two again), #394, #413, #452 (two again), #504 (four people), etc.

That means that 5% of the richest people in the world (24 of the richest 500) are so anonymous that there isn't a photo that even a dedicated team of reporters can find.

Current list: https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/

accidentalrebel6• 6 years ago

That is very interesting.

That means that 5% of the richest people in the world (24 of the richest 500) are so anonymous that there isn't a photo that even a dedicated team of reporters can find.

Either they can't find it or they were asked not to put it up? They have lawyers after all and might prefer to be anonymous.

ronyfadel• 6 years ago

Nitpick: They’re not anonymous since they’re identified by name :)

basseq• 6 years ago

The link between "no photo" and "couldn't find a photo" are different things. #36 (Dieter Schwarz) pops up with a ton of photos when I google him, for instance.

anhner• 6 years ago

I read "no photo" as "paid not to have their photo included"

dx034• 6 years ago

It's interesting that the ones without photos in the top seem to be all Germans. So there seems to be some cultural aspect to it.

sifar2• 6 years ago

Lathe Biosas. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus#Politics

marc_io• 6 years ago

The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.

dot1x• 6 years ago

Never liked Tim. He always seemed to outsource his brain.

beastman82• 6 years ago

Classic Tim Ferriss BS where you can't back out of the site without seeing an ad for his stuff. This guy is a con artist

jslove• 6 years ago

Helps a lot of you want to have one night stands.

Reasons not to become famous

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