All that Glitters…

My ten-year old daughter wants to be a superstar. I’m not sure doing what, but that’s mere detail. She expressed some anxiety today, proclaiming she’d best “hurry up” as time was running out. Most well-known people are already famous by the time they’re ten, she maintains. I proceeded to explain in what sounded eerily similar to my own mum’s parenting 101 tones, how being famous is not all good blah blah, lose your anonymity blah blah. Duh mum – that’s the whole point! Being recognised and adored, being noticed and revered. Celebrity! Her aspiration together with every other self-respecting Gen-Z.

Generation Z (what else could it be after X and Y?), label for those born from the late 90s to the late 2000’s, the offspring of Gen X. Also called the iGeneration (apt I think as these kids are all about Me! Me!), born into a wired world, babysat by DS’s, iPads, evolving to Playstation, Facebook etc etc, instant interaction and indulgence at their whim…

Obviously fame has its appeal. Don’t we all desire it at some level? Hankering for the shiny airbrushed lives led by the fortunate gracing our screens? Problem free and zero financial woes! But forsaking anonymity is a high price to pay. As a new arrival to Sydney, I got to experience that initial rare feeling of being completely unknown. It was refreshing! For a few weeks or months, when no-one knows or cares who you are or what you “do”, you are not defined by any of those artificial social markers people use to measure you or your worth. But before long, the craving for recognition emerges, and I can remember the feeling of satisfaction when a local shopowner remembered my name, or I randomly bumped into a new friend in the high street. As usual, we want the best of both worlds.

I recently saw Searching for Sugarman, a movie documentary describing the inspiring story of a genius 70’s era musician, Rodriguez. Rodriguez shot to cult status in South Africa with his album Cold Fact, which became an oppressed people’s anthem to anti-establishmentarianism (I always wanted to use that word) in the late 70s, the height of the apartheid regime. At the same time, despite his incredible talent (judge for yourself, listen to the album), he was a spectacular failure in the US selling literally only a handful of records. And, bizarrely, he was unaware of his stellar fame on that faraway continent - he continued to earn a meagre living as a construction worker in his home town of Detroit. This weird anomaly led later in his life to his having the most surreal experiences on several visits to South Africa - playing to sellout audiences of passionate fans, experiencing the mad clamour and glamour of fame in one life, while retaining a humble reclusive alternative life back in the US. The best of both worlds.

That situation would be impossible nowadays but in the pre-internet age it wasn’t. By the way, the movie was inconclusive about what became of the rivers of royalties derived from the hundreds of thousands of albums sold in South Africa before Rodriguez became aware of his success. But what is a good story without enduring mystery?