January 22 – Happy Birthday to New Kinds of Celebrities

nPostednon January 22, 2016

nBacknin the first half of the Twentieth Century, to be a “star” younhad to be discovered by someone in a Hollywood studio – and therenwere only a handful of those! – and then you were carefullyn“groomed” to have the right look and the right name and the rightnlifestyle…

nAnd THEN you got a multi-movie contract and you got to seenyour name in lights!

nAndnthe movie studios continued to weigh in on every aspect of your life.nThere was a lot of pressure to keep up and particular sort of image.

nNeedlessnto say, very few people became stars, and a lot of people who hopednand dreamed of making it big at Hollywood never did.

nTonbecome a musical star, you generally had to pay your dues with yearsnof touring and playing anywhere you could, hoping again to bendiscovered by some big record label. Most music stars, back then,nweren’t all that young – even if they got their start of performingnwhen they were kids.

nNow,nflash forward to today, you can become a star in a lot of differentnways! Maybe even when you are pretty darned young.

Xiamara Jennings

nTodaynwe celebrate the birthdays of teens who are considered “stars” ofnsorts: Enya Umanzor, Vine star, turns 17; Damian Frackiewicz andnOllie Munro, You Tube stars, both turn 16; Silento, a rapper whosensingle went viral on Vine and You Tube, tuns 18; Ricky Garcia, a popnsinger who competed on The X Factor, turns 17; XiamaranJennings, a pop singer who got into a girl group based on her videosnreleased on YouTube and Instagram, turns 18; and Avery Winter, a popnsinger who competed on America’s Got Talent, turns 14.

Ollie Munro

Enjajaja
(Enya Umanzor)

Damian Frackiewicz

Silento

Avery Winter

Ricky Garcia

nThat’sna lot of stars…(that I’ve never heard of)!

nLet’snlook at some of these paths to artistic expression and possiblencelebrity:

nYouTuben is probably the most famous video-sharing website. Created in 2005,n it was bought by Google less than two years later for more than an billion dollars!

In 2014, about 300 hours’ worth of newn videos were uploaded to YouTube EVERY MINUTE!

I’m not suren how many videos are on YouTube, but I read that billions of videosn are watched per week. (Billions!)

A lot of people are gettingn exposure for their ideas, their art, their acting, their dancing, orn their music – and a fair number of people are getting paid forn this stuff! YouTube pays out millions of dollars per year ton “partners” (people who have registered to upload videos to then website), and an amazing number of people are earning six-figuren incomes from their videos on what is – remember! – a FREE videon channel!

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nVinen is the “Twitter” of video sharing services. Users sharen six-second-long looping video clips. (Twitter actually owns Vine, byn the way, acquiring the service just before its official launch.)

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nInstagramn is a mobile phone-sharing, video-sharing, and social networkingn service. Users can upload photos and short videos (up to 15n seconds). This service was purchased less than two years after itn was launched for about a billion dollars.

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nCompetitionn TV shows, including Then X Factorn and America’sn Got Talent,n aren’t especially designed for youngsters—but in many cases theirn doors aren’t closed to kids and teens, either. (And some are,n including the popular Son You Think You Can Dance,n which requires competitors to be 18 to 30 years old.)

Somen popular competition shows have spin-offs, or “junior” versions,n designed for teens. (I’m looking at you, Projectn Runway Junior!)

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nAndnhere are some more ways to share one’s art and possibly gain famenand/or fortune:

nFacebookn is one of the biggies, of course. Started in 2004, in has more than a billion active users!

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nTwittern is the other biggie. Users can send and read messages that are up ton 140 characters long. Remember, a character is a letter, a number, an symbol, or a bit of punctuation.

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nTumblrn is a microblogging platform. Users can upload stories or jokes orn poems, photos, GIFs, links, mp3s, videos, or whatever they want.n Tumblr has hundreds of millions of blogs!

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nWattpadn is a writing community with a website and a mobile app. New writers,n published writers, and undiscovered writers are all given an equaln chance.

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nFann fiction (fanfic) is fiction about characters or settings fromn someone else’s fiction. In other words, a fan of the Twilight booksn writing original stories about Bella and Edward is writing fanfic.n There are some popular fanfic websites for sharing and reading andn commenting on fanfic.

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nE-booksn are free to upload to places like Amazon, although to sell yourn work, you will need an ISBN number, and that costs money.

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nDeviantArtn is one of the largest art communities. Members often interact,n offering support and critique of others’ art.

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nRegularn blogging (rather than all the “microblogging” I was talkingn about above), of course!

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nBecausenof the internet, artists of all kinds have way more access tonmillions, even billions, of people. BUT so do all the othernartists-of-all-kinds, of course! It’s still tough to get noticednamong so many. Still, there are more people in the world than ever,nand more ways to reach people with your words / pictures / ideas /nmusic / dancing / whatever than ever, as well. So go, create, share,nand become a star!

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