opinion
All of a sudden, John Cleese wants to spend time with me.
The actor and performer who rose to fame with the Monty Python troupe has been hounding me on Facebook to arrange a personalized video message or a brief Zoom call to chat in person – like a distant uncle eager to catch up with a nephew, except that Cleese has no idea who I am, has no reason to care, and he and I both know it.
“I’ve been reduced to doing these shout-outs,” the 80-year old comedy giant quipped in an advertisement, half-jokingly blaming it on a lack of work.
The COVID-19 pandemic has halted film productions, closed theaters and other venues, and many celebrities find themselves at home with less to do – and reduced income.
Cameo is an internet service that brokers personal interactions with famous people. For fees ranging from tens to hundreds of dollars, you can engage one of these icons to send you or someone else a brief video. I could, for a price, have John Cleese insult my father on his birthday.
For significantly higher prices, some celebrities will agree to a 10-minute Zoom call. NFL player emeritus Brett Favre reportedly charges $5,000 for a chat. Actor Jeremy Piven made news last week for charging up to $15,000, although that option has since been removed from his profile.
Cameo has stated it expects more than $100 million in bookings this year as it recruits more and more celebrities, past and present. Here is one industry that is thriving thanks to the coronavirus.
If I want to meet Cleese or hire him to ridicule my dad, I’ll have to catch up with him, as he seems to have migrated to Fanmio, a competing service that offers opportunities to meet Cleese via laptop for just a few hundred dollars.
The essence of this is not new. People have long stood in line to meet famous people who are paid to appear, give talks, interact with fans, maybe sign books.
In 1989, the Associated Press wrote about baseball players’ lucrative autograph trade: “It’s not for love of the game, but rather for love of money – $5,000, $15,000, $20,000 or more for a couple hours of writer’s cramp, sitting at the end of a long line of signature seekers at some baseball card show.”
Our fascination with celebrities – our desire to touch them personally, rather than simply appreciate their works – is the hook by which commodity culture persuades us to pay. Celebrity endorsements have long been effective in selling merchandise, and Cameo affords an easy way to merchandise famous people themselves, directly to consumers.
“Celebrity culture is irrevocably bound up with commodity culture,” sociologist Chris Rojek wrote in his 2001 book, “Celebrity,” adding: “Celebrities humanize the process of commodity consumption. Celebrity culture has emerged as a central mechanism in structuring the market of human sentiments. Celebrities are commodities in the sense that consumers desire to possess them.”
Included in his examination of celebrity culture and its role in capitalist society, Rojek observed that our fascination with celebrities is accompanied by a desire “to construct ourselves into objects that immediately arouse sentiments of desire and approval in others,” to achieve fame for ourselves, leading to a “celebrity race” that has, since that book came out, flourished with the proliferation of social media platforms.
And in this mediagenic culture, it seems natural now that John Cleese wants to connect and feign interest in my life for a few minutes and a fee. Yet it is also possible he actually enjoys this.
Maybe I'll sign up and ask him if he’s read Rojek.
Desert Sage enjoys hearing from readers at adammassa@lcsun-news.com. He is no celebrity, but can be found on Twitter at @AlgernonWrites.
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