The psychology of fame

November 11, 2016 Soumya Radhakrishnan

This is a sequel to one of my earlier blog posts.

According to psychoanalysts, we desire for fame because we want us to be treated well.

At the heart of the desire for fame lies a touching, vulnerable and simple aspiration: a longing to be treated nicely. Whatever secondary impetus may be supplied by appetites for money, luxury, sex or power, it is really the wish for respect that drives the will to fame. Fame allows celebrities to leverage kindness and respect others. A famous name alone can accomplish in an instant what its bearer might otherwise have had to beg for over the years with his or her whole personality. This saves a lot of time. The real cause of celebrity culture isn’t narcissistic shallowness, it is a deficit of kindness. A society where everyone wants to be famous is also one where, for a variety of essentially political (in the broad sense) reasons, being ordinary has failed to deliver the degree of respect necessary to satisfy people’s natural appetite for dignity. If we want to decrease the urge for fame, we should not begin by frowning upon or seeking to censor news about celebrities; we should start to think of ways of making kindness, patience and attention more widely available, especially to the young.

Apparently, the roots of this desire of fame were planted in our childhood itself.

Therefore, the desire for fame eventually boils down to parenting.