Today My Name is Lissie

Ideally I'd really like some meaningful historic figure to talk about here. Or something awesome. But as it turns out today I'm Lissie and that's not exactly a meaningful historic name. Or awesome. But this is a great opportunity to talk about where we are as a society. Since I've been watching a lot of The West Wing recently, this will be my State of the Union address.

Not that long ago - and by not that long ago, I mean it, like five/ten years ago - people became famous the traditional way. By doing something extraordinary and then other people noticing. Now people become famous by doing nothing remotely extraordinary and posting it on YouTube. I understand the desire to catalog every minute detail of your life and wanting the world to listen. Hey, I Tweet. I completely-ruining-my-life book status update. Ever worse, I Foursquare. I get what The Presidents of the United States of America were singing about.

The part I have problems understanding is why we care. What propels us to watch a video of somebody we've never met doing something unremarkable? Is it voyeurism? If that's the case go be a peeping tom, I'm sure you'll voir way more interesting things than what people post online. And there is an added bonus that you might by chance, accidentally, do something interesting and happen upon living your life instead of just watching other people live theirs.

Are we instead driven by insecurity? Does watching other people do stupid things make us feel better about ourselves? If that's the case go volunteer at a soup kitchen. Then you can do something good for other people and still feel good about yourself. Or just go make fun of homeless people you insensitive asshole.

The cup that inspired it all:

Lissie is a singer who became famous by singing other people's songs in videos on YouTube. She is, I'm more than willing to admit, an extremely talented singer. And she has written her own songs. But it really bums me out that this is how things work now.