All Of Our Names In Lights (CPL 2.0) - facebook

Andy Warhol said; "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." This was in 1968, long before the rise of the interweb. Given the extent to which Warhol foresaw the current state of 'fame' in the context of the online world, I would venture to say that a more prophetic statement has never been uttered.

Thanks to Twitter, The Blogosphere, MySpace, and most of all, Facebook - anyone can now become 'famous', and develop their very own online fan base.

Having a Facebook page allows one a certain notoriety that would, in Warhol's day, no doubt have qualified as 'fame.' I'm sure The Velvet Underground didn't have nearly as many followers at the Factory in 1968 as Joe What's-His-Name from Kalamazoo has on Twitter in 2010.

Nowadays, we are so accustomed to our on-line 'fame' that we take it for granted. We're all 'famous' - some just more so than others.

I think that this is perhaps why I find Facebook to be both wonderful and annoying. As much as I like being able to keep in touch with friends all over the world, I do get a little tired of hearing about the minutia of my friends' personal lives. 'Gary feels sad today.' 'Prudence just ate a raisin.' 'Thomas is crocheting.'

Who cares? I sometimes want to ask.

But I suppose this is the beauty of the whole enterprise. Now that everyone is famous, we can pick and chose who we 'follow' on Twitter and who we are 'Friends' with on Facebook; and how often we check their status updates.