AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Ever get the feeling that celebrity isn't what it used to be? - that everywhere you turn, a movie star or pop idol is selling out? Why did pop star Bebe Rexha develop a musical potato chip with Lays? Why did comedian Chelsea Handler go up in a hot air balloon to put on Gold Bond cream?
Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber have been dissecting celebrity culture for a decade on the podcast "Who Weekly," and now they've written a book, "I Want To Be Famous: When Everybody And Nobody Is A Celebrity." And Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber join us now from our studios in New York. Welcome.
LINDSEY WEBER: Hi.
BOBBY FINGER: Hi.
RASCOE: So you two have this taxonomy of celebrities. It's who versus them. So explain that dichotomy to me.
FINGER: Happily. We found the celebrity hierarchy, the traditional A-B-C-D letter grades, a little too complex, especially in our modern world. So we put them in two buckets. The whos are the people who, when you see them on the cover of a magazine, on a headline on a story, they're the ones that make you go, who's that? Who? And we realized we needed to make this a binary. We needed an opposite. And so what do we call the people who you recognize instantly? Those are the thems. You go, oh, them.
RASCOE: Kim Kardashian would definitely be a them 'cause I think everybody knows her.
WEBER: For sure. But she was once a who not too long ago in kind of the scope of celebrity.
RASCOE: Yeah, and she seems to touch on so many of the trends that do define celebrity now. Is she kind of, like, the real example, the modern example of a them?
WEBER: Well, it's interesting because Kim Kardashian kind of represents, like, the new form of celebrity in which thems are getting who-ier (ph), where you have these people that everybody knows, but the way that they've gotten famous is through realms and pathways where you would normally see a who - reality TV, sponsored content, kind of social media - all these more, like, thirsty ways of putting yourself out there.
FINGER: And when she was first getting famous, she was more of a friend of Paris Hilton. She was a hanger-on. And then over time, she just worked her way into the American subconscious. She's almost, like, inescapable at this point.
RASCOE: Well, you know, one thing that you talk about in the book is, like, the idea of, like, sponsoring different products. There used to be this time where if you were going to do a commercial for something, you would, like, do it overseas in Japan, where, you know, the U.S. would never see it...
WEBER: Yeah.
RASCOE: ...'Cause it was seen as, I guess, gauche. But now you have celebrities with enormous wealth, like LeBron James or Larry David, and they still do ads for things like gambling or crypto. Why are they doing that now?
WEBER: I mean, is there never enough money that a celebrity can make? I think it's a mix of kind of the tolerance of the culture, where we used to think of things as really shameless. We used to really push back against that. And now we're in this weird place where we celebrate, oh, get your bag. We celebrate, like, money and access and stuff like that to power. I think that's how we got to where we are now.
FINGER: For a long time, it was just the influencers, the sort of lower-tier celebrities, doing that. But once the thems saw that the culture was getting used to that behavior, they thought, well, where's mine?
RASCOE: Well, how does the internet change celebrity?
FINGER: I think the algorithmic nature of social media feeds has changed everything. The ability for everyone to remain siloed and in their own little celebrity bubbles - whether it's music, sports, movies, whatever, politics - it's so easy to tune out anything that is not being served to you. And because of that, there are more opportunities for people to become famous across the spectrum, but there's also more opportunities for you to feel at a loss. You know, you see this person that your friends are saying, they're so popular, but they haven't made it to your feed. So to you, they're a who, even though the - to your friends, they're a them.
RASCOE: The other thing that has changed is, like, scandals. I guess, like, what is a scandal these days? And the way people can kind of move on from scandals - and you do have these kind of armies of stans, these superfans who support people and, you know, make their arguments no matter what the person does, right? Is there really true scandal in this new world that we live in?
WEBER: There's definitely scandal. People definitely get canceled, then it affects their careers and their ability to make money and stuff like that. But also, you know, the collective memory is really short these days. I mean, there's always something new, so we don't really dwell. So I do think that things that maybe feel like a big deal really, like, whiff out the window, you know, very quickly in our culture.
But also, it's, like, there are degrees of scandal where it's like - you're talking about stan accounts, right? There are big groups of fans that don't care what their beloved celebrity does, right? They are going to stay with them to the end. And so these celebrities can continue to make money, be famous, sell stuff. As long as they have a certain amount of fans who kind of, like, do what they say, you do not need to have huge mass appeal to make money as an influencer or a celebrity.
RASCOE: And nowadays, you also don't necessarily need the middleman if you're at that level of them. Like, Beyonce has totally removed herself from many of the things that people have to do as celebrities, like taking questions and, like...
(LAUGHTER)
FINGER: Yeah.
WEBER: Yeah.
RASCOE: ...Talking to reporters...
WEBER: Yeah.
RASCOE: ...And doing press runs. She doesn't do a lot of sponsorship deals, but she does some, and she does a lot of her own stuff. So...
FINGER: Yeah.
RASCOE: SirDavis, her liquor brand, and her hair brand Cecred. Is she kind of an exception to the rule?
WEBER: I think...
FINGER: Absolutely.
WEBER: Yeah.
FINGER: And I think the recent Tom Cruise GQ profile and his sort of appearance in big press conversations recently has proven why Beyonce is right, because Tom Cruise has made himself scarce over the past many years, decade-plus. He doesn't really grant a lot of access and a lot of interviews. And when he's finally doing it to promote this new movie "Digger," he's being scrutinized. He's becoming the butt of jokes. And it proves why a lot of A-List thems, like Tom Cruise and Beyonce, don't need all that attention. It's not worth the risk of any pushback.
WEBER: Yeah.
RASCOE: Would you rather be a who or a them or a nah, which is, I - which is...
WEBER: What we are.
RASCOE: ...Pretty much everybody else.
FINGER: Yeah.
RASCOE: No one knows us yet.
WEBER: We always say we'd rather be a who. I think being a who is, like, the best place to be, right? Like, you want to go to a bar, have a person tell you they love your work, get you a drink for free...
FINGER: And not be annoying.
WEBER: ...Not be annoying, say, thank you so much, goodbye - no photos, no paparazzi, no scrutiny. You want to be in that perfect place where you're being supported for your art, you're being paid for your work, which is awesome, but you're not being hounded by the press. You're not being scrutinized at every turn. Like, I think it's ideal. People might say, wait, you - somebody comes up to you and buys you a drink, and then someone else says, who are you? You know, then you have to kind of...
FINGER: (inaudible).
(LAUGHTER)
WEBER: Then you're dough. That's miserable. That's misery. But...
RASCOE: (Laughter).
WEBER: You know, but I think that is a good place to be.
RASCOE: That's Lindsey Weber and Bobby Finger. They are the authors of "I Want To Be Famous" and co-hosts of the podcast "Who Weekly." Thanks so much for talking with us.
WEBER: Thank you.
FINGER: Thank you for having us. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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