I Want to Be Famous: When Everybody and Nobody Is a Celebrity, by Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber, Crown, 256 pages, $33
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Everybody → want → 33
In the spring of 2025, I started seeing fan-made videos of the same young man everywhere on TikTok.
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I → start → TikTok
They were set to all manner of obnoxious earworms, with captions like "He ascended…."
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He → set → captions
One particularly memorable one compared the kid to Jesus Christ, claiming people "hated him" because he "spoke the truth."
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he → compare → truth
I couldn't quite figure out who this person was.
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person → figure → ?
From what I could gather, an attractive forum moderator who posted selfies to an audience of—at least on TikTok—under 20,000.
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who → gather → 20,000
These days, for a follower count to really mean something, you're usually talking about numbers in the high hundreds of thousands or millions.
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you → mean → thousands
And still, this guy had a pretty active fanbase.
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guy → have → fanbase
So I reached out to the star of these edits and asked him if he would be down to do an interview.
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he → reach → interview
"Ok sure we can do it," he direct-messaged me back.
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he → do → me
I pitched the article to a publication; the editor asked me what the story was.
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story → pitch → me
I actually didn't know.
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I → know → ?
That more people than ever seem capable of developing a cult following is an interesting observation, but it isn't a story.
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it → seem → following
Many people online exist in this gray area where they are neither "influencers" nor really celebrities either.
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they → exist → area
But there isn't always a product they're selling, like music, writing, or a podcast.
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they → be → music
Sometimes the aura develops into something more, and sometimes it doesn't.
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it → develop → something
Anyway, the interview never happened.
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interview → happen → ?
I got busy, forgot, and moved on.
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I → get → ?
A few months later, right before Thanksgiving, I started seeing this guy everywhere again.
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I → start → guy
His name was Braden Peters, but you might know him as Clavicular.
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you → know → Clavicular
And today, even my mom knows who he is.
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he → know → ?
This seems like territory for Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber, hosts of the celebrity gossip podcast Who? Weekly and authors of I Want to Be Famous: When Everybody and Nobody Is a Celebrity.
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Everybody → seem → podcast
I Want to Be Famous revolves around a binary the authors invented: Who vs. Them.
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Who → want → Them
A Who elicits a "Who?" and a Them, "Oh, them."
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Who → elicit → Who
Rita Ora, a recurring fascination for Finger and Weber, and patron saint of the show, is the paradigmatic Who, simultaneously headline-making and utterly forgettable.
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Ora → recur → show
When it comes to the sometimes bewildering world of traditional celebrity—people who are on television, in movies, or making music—this is one of the best books on the topic I've ever read.
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I → come → topic
It's a genuinely laugh-out-loud funny romp through gossip columns, grocery-store tabloids, reality television, sponsored content, nepo babies, and Notes app apologies.
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It → laugh → columns
We take fascinating detours through Beyoncé's career (including back when she gave real interviews), the genesis of The View, and Tyra Banks, the ultimate multihyphenate, who since the COVID-19 pandemic has gone on to sell "hot ice cream."
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who → take → cream
Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Lopez, and Britney Spears all get their due, as does Courtney Love.
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Love → get → due
We learn about celebrity romances and Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop, and how Ryan Reynolds went from Two Guys and a Girl to Mint Mobile and Aviation American Gin.
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Reynolds → learn → Mobile
This is also a book you can learn a lot from.
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you → learn → lot
The historical interludes woven through each chapter are especially good.
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interludes → weave → chapter
An account of Ivy Lee's response to a 1906 railroad disaster takes us back to the origins of publicity.
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account → take → publicity
A history of gossip columns reminds us that writers as renowned as Truman Capote have practiced the craft.
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writers → remind → craft
They contextualize President Donald Trump too: The Apprentice turned a New York celebrity into "an embodiment of the American Dream," attracting viewers who believed that getting in front of the cameras might make them rich as well; and finally, it turned him into the president.
But as much fun as I had reading I Want to Be Famous, there was something conspicuously missing: how the internet changed the nature of celebrity not just for celebrities as we understand them but for regular people.
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we → contextualize → people
We're not just living in a time where everybody and nobody is famous; we're living in a time where it's increasingly unclear who counts as a public figure and who counts as a private citizen.
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who → live → citizen
The book's Whos and Thems belong to a recognizable celebrity world, even when the individual celebrities aren't recognizable.
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celebrities → belong → world
The authors explain how people have made the jump from reality television to network television, but they pay less attention to how some people acquire such an audience without first passing through an institution.
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people → explain → institution
Influencers, streamers, and people who are simply very committed to posting online complicate the authors' description of celebrity.
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who → commit → celebrity
And while Finger and Weber acknowledge that fame is increasingly fragmented, I was left wondering how we got from Kim Kardashian to Clavicular.
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we → acknowledge → Clavicular
…and 22 more, not listed.
The Aporia
