Fifteen Minutes by Andy Warhol

In 1968 the famous American popart artist Andy Warhol said his famous words: “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”
It was considered to be an exaggerated prophecy then, now it is a fact.

15 minutes of fame (or famous for 15 minutes) is an expression coined by the American artist Andy Warhol. It refers to the fleeting condition of celebrity that grabs into an object of media attention, then passes to some new object as soon as people’s attention spans are exhausted. It is often used in reference to figures in the entertainment industry and other areas of popular culture.

The expression is a paraphrase of Andy Warhol’s 1968 statement: “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” In 1979 Warhol reiterated his claim: “…my prediction from the sixties finally came true: In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.”

In 1986, Warhol had a short-lived MTV television series, Andy Warhol’s 15 Minutes.
Wikipedia: 15 minutes of fame

Well what made Warhol say these words that were later going to paraphrase the change of popular culture? He definitely saw the effect of mass production of art on society and media. I hear you say “What does that mean?” It means that since the invention of the camera, we have been able to save, store, multiply, duplicate, reproduce works of art, such that the difference between the original and the replica fades away. The original work of art has no orginality left for us to observe.

Andy Warhol also questions industrial production and the outcomes. Can Industrial products be considered as art? Warhol creates his major works from objects of mass consumption such as the Campbell cans to the left. He states that what we consume is what we admire as art.

What has all this to do with being famous?

Let’s make an assumption: If celebrities are products of mass media and the images we receive via transmittors such as tv, radio, cinema, press and of course internet are reproductions, then we consume the images that pass on to us.

The more the images reach us and we respond the more the fame. The more we see images of the celebrity the more we get detached from the original person. Look at the images of Marylin, we know who the images belong to very well. The image of Marylin Monroe is maybe the most reproduced personal image of all time. The thing is it is not a reproction of Marylin, it is the copy of her image. The fame of her image has outgrown her being as a celebrity. In this case we would say “look at the famous image of MM”.

We want images of ourselves to be reproduced and distributed all over. We want ourselves or our products to be reproduced and to be consumed by popular culture. We all want to be Marylin Monroe!

100 Campbell’s Soup Cans by Andy Warhol              

Nowadays with the internet we have so many things to pick through, so many people have so much to say. We produce and want to distribute our products, whether it be words, imagery, video clips, or objects. We want to reach a wide audience, maybe even everyone in the world. Well think about it, so many people want to be seen, read, thought about, admired, and so on. We have a limited capacity to absorb all these. Our attention span of accepting each images is shortening with the increase of the number of broadcasts.

Before the internet there was a specific amount of media out there waiting for us to receive, now its numbered by zillions. Competition is strong, however being famous has become much easier, if you accept the fact that you can be famous for a limited amount of time. How is that?

Google the line “how to start a blog”. Read and learn the topic, it’s easy don’t get discouraged! Start your blog, publish your stunnung content, reach out to your audience and you’re famous. Ain’t ya famous yet?

Ten Marilyns, c.1967 by Andy Warhol

For further reading:

About Andy Warhol’s “15 minutes of fame” quote
Andy Warhol
The Philosophy of Andy Warhol
The Warhol Foundation
The Andy Warhol Museum