15 SECONDS OF FAME

Andy Warhol said that “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes” but it seems that for many 15 seconds is all they want or can get. At any major sporting event there will always be someone photobombing deliberately getting into someone else’s photo. Every piece of coverage of the England/Italy soccer final showed someone jumping in front of the person reporting the event and most of them seemed overly excited and in many cases affected by alcohol. This was a minor annoyance that interrupted the reporting.

The problem is that it can be dangerous as shown by the silly person who held a sign in front of cyclists in the first stage of the Tour de France causing a large number of riders to fall over at speed and the eventual withdrawal of three riders due to injuries they received then. They were a coward and ran away rather than helping, but the law has caught up with them. This was a major annoyance and dangerous.

We also read stories of people wanting fame from their great Instagram photo and taking major risks, sometimes fatally for that photo. This is a minor nuisance but can be fatal.

What’s wrong with just being a normal person and leaving a normal and safe life? I’m not famous, nor do I want to be and yet I live a happy life. Dennis Fitzgerald, Melbourne, Australia