> You mean like movie stars?

Looks get you in the door here, but the large majority of movie stars are experts in a legitimate art form -- acting.

What do you think social media celebrities are doing?

So you don't see a difference between, say, kim kardashian's instagram feed and what a top hollywood actress does?

> So you don't see a difference between

Nope. There is no difference. @jonknee is right. I once met this camera grip boy at a boxing fight watch here in San Francisco. He worked at various sets in L.A., very close to the filming. He would say how he was on Kim Kardashian's "Reality Show" and how the whole thing was completely scripted for shock effect, drama etc. He said "They'd sometime do retakes and tell Kim - "This time yell at your sister louder, and then throw in a I hate you B*tch at the end."

They are all actors. The only difference I see is hollywood actors are elite level, having gone to school, and experienced and top notch, whereas the likes of Kim Kardashian, that Jersey Shores girl are low end trash, but both types make a ton of money on 2 different medium - the former in big screen, the latter on fake "Reality TV shows", and social media (where they get paid to promote crap).

Interesting point.

I suppose if I press myself hard enough I have to admit that I just don't like what they are doing, and think it's a net negative to our culture, by my own standards.

There's always been lowbrow culture and pop culture -- so there's nothing essentially new here. But it seems like its ubiquity and popularity have reached new heights. "Seems" being the operative word, one could argue. I think it's really really hard to disentangle surface generational changes from true long-term shifts in major cultural values. Old man syndrome is mistaking the former for the latter. But there's also the opposite syndrome -- which is to insist that the latter doesn't even exist.

I just personally wish the entertainment industry isn't big in the first place. Movies, music, sports, models, etc. So much money and human resources spent on something that produces little tangible value.

“There are only two industries. This has always been true,” said Madame Ping, enfolding a lovely porcelain teacup in her withered fingers, the two-inch fingernails interleaving neatly like the pinions of a raptor folding its wings after a long hard day of cruising the thermals. “There is the industry of things, and the industry of entertainment. The industry of things comes first. It keeps us alive. But making things is easy now that we have the Feed. This is not a very interesting business anymore. “After people have the things they need to live, everything else is entertainment.

Diamond Age?

Yup :-)

Damned good book. Though I disagree with Mme. Ping here.

Funny for a book that's so rooted in tribes and tribalism that Stephenson didn't go with the classic cultural castes.

Roughly: Labourer, farmer, gatherer (forestry, fishes, herds, hunting), trades & crafts, merchant, warrior, priest (now includes teaching and science, also, arguably, storytellers), rulers. I get about eight out of that, off the top of my head.

Five of those are "things" (the first set). There's a case which might be made for priests and rulers as entertainment / storytelling, but I don't think I could put warriors there.

Which is an interesting omission given the Colonel's role in the story -- clearly Warrior. (Though also, given his media screens, very much taken with Story. Hrm....)

We have a society that requires everyone to work to live. But thanks to automation we don't have anything else for them to do. So they do this.

The Kardashians are a cautionary tale about what fame and fortune do to you.

Interesting tangent here. The growth in "reality" TV was driven by the desire to ditch a very particular kind of skilled, unionised talent: writers. The writers' strike caused a wave of these improvised shows that were pretending not to be acting, they became popular with the public, and the rest is history.

Kim Kardashian's ethnicity is highly relevant as well. Hollywood is a very white place. There really aren't all that many opportunities for black character actresses. Or for people who want a black star to look up to. Kim fills that gap in the market.

"people who want a black star to look up to. Kim fills that gap in the market."

? Not sure what you mean. She isn't black.

Do you mean because Kanye is on there?

.. good point, I can't remember why I thought that; almost certainly to do with Kanye.

Truth.

And remember, the Kardashians became celebrities at the OJ Simpson trial :)

The last election cycle gave me the idea:

A reality TV show about making a reality TV show.

With The Garry Shandling Show, Entourage, political campaigns (and their documentaries), social influencers, paid placement, Spinal Tap...

Everything's so meta now, I can barely discern fact from fiction.

"All the world's a stage." -- Shakespeare

> A reality TV show about making a reality TV show

A success recipe right here.

Just like how the only bloggers who got rich in the early 2000s were the ones who were blogging about "How to get rich blogging".

"Fifteen Million Merits", an episode of Black Mirror, went pretty much half-way there.

You may not respect the skillset in question, however Kim Kardashian is an extraordinarily talented entertainer. She knows what to give her audience to keep them watching her. And she managed to climb to the top in an already hyper crowded celebrity atmosphere.

I don't particularly care for Howard Stern's style of entertainment as an example. Tens of millions of people in the US over the last several decades, have, however. He's an extraordinary entertainer. Ryan Seacrest falls under that same brush.

The other thing these people have in common, they've all regularly made smart business decisions, another skill they share.

If you were to draw a Venn diagram of "Hollywood stars" and "Actors known for acting skills", you'll get a tiny cross-section.

The majority of "stars" are known for their big budget blockbusters. I'm not saying that playing Iron Man or Ethan Hunt is easy, but it's definitely not as hard as playing a difficult character actor role.

That doesn't disprove the point. Sure, the most famous actors might not be the best in the world at acting, but this is true of many fields. Is Bill Gates the most skilled programmer in the world?

Bill Gates is famous for being a businessman, not a programmer. People know him because he's rich and led Microsoft - not because of the code he wrote. I think there's a pretty good argument that he is among the best businessmen in the world.

there is a difference ... any actress is an artist actually co-producing art in form of movies or plays. kim kardashian is merely publicly living a hedonistic and materialisitc life - nothing more.

She may not be an actress (although she's still probably better than many out there), but she is certainly a savvy businesswoman and marketeer. Don't discount her skills just because you can't recognize them.

and you think she is being idolized for being a businesswoman? That is just the reason for why she is able to sell herself so successfully - that doesn't change though that she doesn't have anything of value to offer.

If you're looking at people not contributing anything meaningful to society, don't look at movie stars - look at those who write about movie stars, spinning the celebrity gossip industry.