As a public relations major I found what Richard Lanham said in chapter 1 of “Economic of Attention” to be very interesting. His views concerning modern mass communications were spot on. He said:

Modern mass communications have created centripetal attention structures that bottle celebrity, and celebrities, for sale. Centripetal attention structures like these emerge so spontaneously from our behavior that they must be an inherited primate behavior pattern, part of our attention capital. So onward to our adoration of princesses, movie stars, and basketball players. These structures focus attention efficiently but on a few people. They create machine-made fame.

It might even be fair to say that we create the fame machine. In an online driven society, we are able to decide who has success and who is stuck floundering for followers, viewers, etc.  We as consumers determine who we are going to allocate our precious time to. Typically those who are able to capture our attention and remain relevant are the most succe$$ful.

But why do these princesses and basketball players get all of the attention? Why does Kim Kardashian get so much attention for literally doing nothing? Who decided the Cowboys were “America’s team”? Why in the world do we care enough about Justin Bieber to buy nail polish with his name on it? It’s not all because we decided who we liked best and that’s who won the battle. It’s about who managed their images best. Those are going to be the people who stay on top. And we accept this.

If everyone was granted the same kind of attention, then there wouldn’t be fame. As Lanham said, “If you redistribute this subspecies of wealth, fame ceases to be fame.” It’s all about being able to have the select few who stand out. There are so many people with amazing voices and can sing Frank Sinatra songs, but we only want a few to succeed. (I can only take so much Michael Buble)

Entertainment might be a bunch of fluff, but what else are we supposed to do? We don’t churn butter anymore, so we might as well spend time deciding who we want to capture our attention. Modern mass communications has created a fame drive machine that we accept. Last I checked, we were protesting Wall St. not Hollywood Blvd.

P.S. I have some Ravens “stuff” if anyone wants to come to my house and pick it up.