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by wgerard 2068 days ago
> All of which require time and dedication to the craft to get good at.

I don't mean to be cynical about it, but I think you're looking at this through rose-tinted nostalgia glasses. There are plenty of examples of famous entertainment personalities both present and historical that don't exactly espouse "dedication to the craft".

Not to the throw anyone under the bus in particular, but the entire "pop punk" wave of the early 2000s wasn't really about exceptional music talent as much as it was about selling an image. I think we can all also name an actor/actress or two (or five) whose primary qualifications seem to be family connections or, well, being exceptionally attractive.

And that's not anything new, obviously. I mean hell, they made a whole movie about it back in the day: "Singing in the Rain". Ghostwriters for songs have been a thing since, I dunno, at least the 60s (and probably much longer, I'm just thinking of Carole King in particular and how she got her start).

> Being a internet celebrity (in the sense of being Instagram famous), while something that needs to be worked on to get there, does not in most cases involve as much work and creativity.

I think you're vastly underselling how much work it is to be an internet celebrity. Twitch streamers often talk about the fact that even a three day vacation sets them back considerably in terms of viewership. Differentiating yourself in a sea of sameness is creativity. Public sentiment is extremely fickle and difficult to tame.

Ultimately internet celebrities are just entertainment personalities. If you want to dismiss entertainment personalities in general that's fine, but the idea of an entertainment personality certainly isn't anything new.