Celebrity

A-List FamousForBeingFamous

see Daniel Boorstin, author of The Image ISBN:0689702809

• http://slick.org/deathwatch/mailarchive/msg01289.html

• http://www.theweeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/187rmfyj.asp?pg=1

Marshall Blonsky (1992): Why the rage for letter-turning Vanna White? (An Empty Vessel - viewers can imagine her any way they want.)

Jul'2014: Kim Kardashian has a Computer Game. Kim steadfastly refuses to sell anything but herself. Or, to be more specific, she refuses to sell anything but the image of herself.

• Nov'2014: Take the stream of small faux-confidences that she offers during the interview. They reveal very little yet foster a sense of closeness. She tells me that she is "obsessed with apps" but, when I ask her to name one, she replies, "I like all different apps." Of her 72-day marriage to Kris Humphries, one of her rare missteps that actually left a footprint, she says: "It's just one of those life lessons that you have to learn, and it's OK." Her behavior suggests that the key to total ubiquity is giving up all of one's verbal edges and sharp angles (while occasionally tossing out a memorable visual flare: a sex tape, say, or a nude photo shoot). Social Media has created a new kind of fame, and Kardashian is its paragon. It is a fame whose hallmark is agreeable omnipresence, which resembles a kind of evenly spread absence, soothing, tranquil and unobjectionable.