Fame has become a purchased product of the cultural system.
Evidence
Fame resulting from objective processes in a market society, always fortuitous and often unsought, yet with an aura of justice and free choice, has been liquidated. It has become wholly a function of paid propagandists and is measured in terms of the investment risked by the bearer of a name or the interests behind him. The hired applauder, considered by someone as recent as Daumier as an excrescence, has now attained respectability as an official agent of the cultural system. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 114
Categorization
- SEED: Essay angle: tracing the professionalization of the ‘hired applauder’ from Daumier’s marginal figure to today’s influencer/PR economy — the respectable official agent of manufactured renown.
- SHARE: The historical shift from Daumier’s ‘excrescence’ applauder to official PR agent is a neat tidbit for someone studying the history of publicity and cultural work.
- XREF: connects to: Publicity has become its own commodity rather than an image of commodities — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 303; Celebrity and commerce displaced creative invention as culture’s central values. — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 565; Poptimism legitimized marketing and spectacle as cultural production itself. — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 140 (+7 more)
Broader Connections
- Celebrity fame now functions as a loss leader for other products
#expands(0.88) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 656 - Fame shifted from costly earned status to broadcast and reality-driven attention
#expands(0.85) - Celebrity and commerce displaced creative invention as culture’s central values.
#corroborates(0.82) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 565 - Gen Z celebrity converts fame into commerce rather than cultural influence
#exemplifies(0.80) - Poptimism legitimized marketing and spectacle as cultural production itself.
#corroborates(0.78) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 140 - Media cultures measure human worth by wealth and political access.
#expands(0.75)