I was walking past a woman on the way to Second City the other day who was taking pictures of a building across the street. Naturally, I stared at the building , because…y’know…if someone’s taking a picture of a building, there’s probably something pretty damned special about that stupid building. Except I don’t think there was, at least not on the surface.
The point of this story isn’t the building, it’s the woman. Her attention provoked me to give my attention, and that got me to thinking about what actually causes fame. By the time you reach the early middle stages of your creative development, I think we all come to the realization that most of the people who are famous aren’t necessarily any better at the craft than anyone else, nor are they somehow more deserving. They’ve simply figured out (or, maybe more accurately, their team has figured out) how to turn one person giving a shit into millions of people giving a shit.
When you think about it in this sense, that fame is a consequence of attention and not vice versa, it seems like a much more attainable goal. We lose sight of the fact that our goal, especially in the early stages of our creative careers, isn’t to be loved by everybody, it’s to be loved by one person at a time. If you’re doing your job right, those people will attract others by virtue of the fact that you’ve warranted their attention. Like the building.
But here’s the thing about that stupid building: when I looked at it, I didn’t understand why I should care. This woman cared, but the building wasn’t coming through. There was a thing they did on The Today Show a few months ago where they took one of the NBC Pages, gave her a professional stylist and then sent her out on the streets with a fake entourage including a fake papparazzi, a fake manager, stuff like that. And even though people didn’t know who she was, they assumed she was someone famous and wanted her autograph or her picture and then asked people around them who exactly she was. What that can tell us, and what my fascination with this building might tell us, is that we’re willing to give the initial benefit of the doubt to something that other people are noticing, but that window is very limited, and you have to be prepared to take the focus and run with it once it is gifted to you. It’s not the job of the person standing across the street taking your picture to continually play advocate for you or your work.
That doesn’t mean it’s your job to wave your arms around and attract attention. Desperation will close that window before you even get the chance to prove yourself, because we perceive desperation as an indicator of lack of quality (i.e. “why do they need to do all this?”). And yet, you still have to be a shrewd self promoter to get initially noticed. So what’s the middle ground? Or is there one? Do you either have to do good work quietly and wait for it to be noticed, or do you yell and scream and risk alienating people to come look at your good work and hope that they can push past the tactics?
One of my challenges for the work I produce this year is to build in ways that encourage people to stare. That’s why I keep pushing this alternative venue thing…if people are looking in and see something going on, that’s going to make others look in, and so on and so forth. It could mean outdoor theatre, spontaneous plays that pop up in the park and draw a crowd. A walking production that pulls people in slowly, Pied Piper style. And at the end of the production, how do you get people to continue looking at others looking, even after they’ve gone home? Maybe that’s merchandise…maybe it’s a shirt with some art from your show, maybe it’s a punch card that you give them to give to a friend to encourage them to come back. I don’t know, I’m brainstorming here.
All I’ll say is that…as you’re building your next creative venture, take time to build in ways to let people stare…and even more than that, find some way to involve the people who are staring at the other people. Don’t let those folks pass by, because each one of them represents ten more who will follow close behind.
On that note, I still don’t know what was so special about that damned building.
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