celebrity |səˈlebrətē|
noun ( pl. -ties)
a famous person.

Until very recently, becoming a celebrity was a confluence of talent, effort and money. Stars were not born, as we’re sometimes led to believe – they were cultivated and groomed. Studios inked actors and actresses to multi-picture deals and staked a great deal of time and money on promoting the hell out of a few men and women. The public had no choice – certain individuals were front and centre in popular culture and we forcibly revered them.

Things would remain largely unchanged, but then came the advent of the (ugh) “viral” video. Nowadays, you don’t need to be handpicked by studios and groomed to achieve notoriety or, dare I say it, celebrity. The advent of online video sharing brought about the likes of Star Wars Kid. If you don’t know what that is, let me be the first to welcome you to changing face of celebrity: a Quebecois high-school student that re-enacted a scene from “The Phantom Menace” with a golf club, in the media room of his high school. Unfortunately for this poor kid, it was caught on tape and uploaded to the Internet. Fame is now a matter of mishaps shared amongst friends and then leaked to a larger audience with a healthy appetite for humiliation.

This brings us to Rebecca Black. As I write this, her video for “Friday” has accumulated 82,785,306 views and that total will have risen by several million at the time of this article’s publication. She is perhaps one of the best known people in North America right now, earning parody from some of the greatest minds in comedy (and Jimmy Fallon), earning the adoration and ire of an entire generation, and is a fixture on the talk show circuit. You can argue about her merits as an artist (she has none), but what does her astronomical success mean for the nature of celebrity? Her ascendancy to stardom involved no talent or effort and a paltry sum of money.

As the Internet increasingly fulfills Andy Warhol’s prophecy of “15 minutes of fame,” we have to reconsider how we’ve defined “fame.” The Internet has made it unnervingly easy to capture public imagination for reasons intentional or unintentional. As our manufactured icons get bigger, and our hapless Internet stars gain traction more easily, does the idea of “a celebrity” lose credibility or meaning?

In like a lion, out like a lamb? Perhaps not. But, more predictably, Big Orange Slide came into March with some great posts – and out with a few more.

What is cool? – by Daniel Gerichter
A reflection on the ever-shifting landscape of “cool,” and how it may not be as impossible to attain as it once was.

The return of the artisan – by Jacoub Bondre
Jacoub shouts for a rebellion against the cult of “good enough,” and a return to a time when people invested themselves into their craft.

Big Orange Slide asks: What makes a good brief – by Jon Finkelstein
Jon brings the Slide its first vblog post – and no lack of intriguing debate as a result.

Grip Interviews: Jamie Harvey – by Ian Simpson
Jamie Harvey, blogger for hardrockchick.com, walks through how social media has changed the landscape of music appreciation and consumption.

Comment of the month:

“Double Mint gum.
They could change their name to Dublin Mint for the day.”

In response to: Q+A: Name a brand that isn’t affiliated with St. Paddy’s Day – but should be