TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Internet Fame Is Cruel Mistress for a Dancer of the Numa Numa

Internet Fame Is Cruel Mistress for a Dancer of the Numa Numa

Monty Solomon (monty@roscom.com)
Sun, 27 Feb 2005 22:58:51 -0500

By ALAN FEUER and JASON GEORGE

There was a time when embarrassing talents were a purely private
matter. If you could sing "The Star Spangled Banner" in the voice of
Daffy Duck, no one but your friends and family would ever have to
know.

But with the Internet, humiliation -- like everything else -- has now
gone public. Upload a video of yourself playing flute with your nose
or dancing in your underwear, and people from Toledo to Turkmenistan
can watch.

Here, then, is the cautionary tale of Gary Brolsma, 19, amateur
videographer and guy from New Jersey, who made the grave mistake of
placing on the Internet a brief clip of himself dancing along to a
Romanian pop song. Even in the bathroom mirror, Mr. Brolsma's
performance could only be described as earnest but painful.

His story suggests that the quaint days when cultural trinkets, like
celebrity sex tapes, were passed around like novels in Soviet Russia
are over. It says a little something of the lightning speed at which
fame is made these days.

To begin at the beginning:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/26/nyregion/26video.html?ex=1267160400&en=1d48bf539f85dc0e&ei=5090

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