look at me! look at me!

As our media types have grown, our obsessive nature as humans has grown. Through media, we are able to find a group of people that identifies with our likes and dislikes, and we are able to unite through these media to create a fan base. From Beatlemania and love for Michael Jackson to Care Bears and Pokemon, it can be seen that throughout time (or at least the last 50-60 years) every age group has found a media icon to attach itself to.

The most successful book and movie trends today come in sequels. Harry Potter has seven books (and will have eight movies), the Spiderman franchise has stretched over three movies, and Shrek might just be getting a little annoying by now.

Television shows spread into several seasons, The Simpsons has stretched over 21 seasons, the popular medical show House over 6. Sex and the City, HBO's hit show based off a book, boasted 6 seasons of broadcast and 2 films. My 9 year old niece watches Hannah Montana on the Disney channel, wears Hannah Montana clothes, and listens to Hannah Montana music. She was Hannah Montana for Halloween last year, went to a Hannah Montana concert, and says she wants to be famous when she grows up.

Everything is a franchise, and these franchises are all narratives. We simply just aren't finished with a character at the end of the first movie.

Rettberg speaks of several blog cases where the readers were thoroughly upset when they found out their speaker was a fictional character. While the previous examples explain how easily we tend to become obsessed with a trend, they don't exactly explain why people got so upset that their person wasn't real.

Carrie Bradshaw isn't real. Gregory House isn't real. Why does this matter?

Fame is something that seems untouchable, while desirable, to most of us. When we become obsessed with something that is actually tangible, it reaches another level of obsession. Back when MySpace was the hit, I remember people would strive to have as many friends as possible, some even hitting the 100,000+ mark. They would make bulletin posts, comment on each other's content, and write on their pages. This type of tangible fame, where you can see you have x amount of friends who care about you every day, is important to people.

Rettberg spoke of a YouTube vlogger (video blogger) who complained that lonelygirl15 (one of the fictional blogs in the chapter) was the second most subscribed on YouTube. He was more upset that she had an advantage over him in becoming more "famous" or "popular" in the YouTube world.

In a few years, if my sister gets a webcam for her family computer, perhaps my niece will film a video of herself singing and dancing and become the next big YouTube sensation. It will become a viral video, she will be featured on Tosh.0 and then maybe get on iTunes.

This is something tangible to all of us. Did you even think that was possible when you were 9 years old?