Celebrities transformed fame from by-product into their own professional capital by the 1970s

Evidence

What was becoming evident was something that now seems virtually axiomatic: celebrities were becoming attention merchants in their own right. Fame, they were discovering, was not merely the by-product of what they did; it was their professional capital. And while endorsements were in vogue during the 1920s, during the 1970s celebrities began leveraging their drawing power as never before. Now was the time of Polaroid’s pathbreaking campaign engineered by the daring firm of Doyle Dale Bernbach. The camera maker, then a cutting-edge tech company, did a series of spots with stars including James Garner, Candice Bergen, Alan Alda, the Muppets, and perhaps most famously, the great Shakespearean actor Sir Laurence Olivier. Two years later, ad agency Ted Bates would open the door for athlete endorsements when it tapped Buffalo Bills star running back O. J. Simpson for Hertz Rent-a-Car. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 778

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the book’s core notion that fame is professional capital and celebrities themselves are attention merchants.
• XREF: Connects to the earlier 1920s endorsement era (Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth) which Wu traces throughout the book. — connects to: Celebrity fame now functions as a loss leader for other products — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 656; Meme celebrities institutionalize their viral fame into sustained commercial businesses. — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame…, 172; Reality TV decoupled celebrity from objective merit or achievement — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 844 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Meme celebrities institutionalize their viral fame into sustained commercial businesses. #expands (0.75) — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity, 172
• Celebrity fame now functions as a loss leader for other products #expands (0.72) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 656
• Reality TV decoupled celebrity from objective merit or achievement #complicates (0.72) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 844
• Micro-celebrity involves fame detached from any discernible achievement or work #expands (0.72) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 316