I Want to Be Famous

A sharp, funny examination of fame in the digital era and what makes our hunger for it equally alluring and embarrassing—from the podcasters behind Who? Weekly

While being photographed in 1966, Warhol reportedly said, “Everyone wants to be famous.” (To which his photographer, Nat Finkelstein responded, “Yeah, for about fifteen minutes, Andy.”) But Warhol was right then, and he’s right now. Fifteen minutes be damned, all you need is the drive—or desperation—and a singular spark. But if you’re not careful, you’ll end up a Who.

Who is a Who? In I Want to Be Famous, Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber, the pop culture journalists behind the podcast Who? Weekly, distill celebrity into two categories—Whos and Thems—transcending the snarky, antiquated judgment of the “A-listers” to “D-listers.” If you come across an allegedly famous face you’ve never seen before and are compelled to utter “Who?”, well, there’s your answer (Can you picture Rita Ora, Ava Max, or Hilaria Baldwin without Googling them?). If the subject elicits something along the lines of, “Oh, Them,” there you’ve found the opposite (Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Tom Cruise). It’s the fundamental duality of fame.

And yet, as more Whos spawn, the path to Themdom narrows. We’ve entered an era where accessibility to fame is within everyone’s grasp, though only a select few can crack the algorithm and hold our ever-diminishing attention spans. Celebrities have taken desperate measures to stay relevant—from the makeup, supplements, and alcohol they peddle to the Notes App apologies they post—as the media who cover them compete with celebrities breaking their own news on social media and as PopCrave decides who “stuns” next.

Blending juicy pop culture history with the authors’ signature wit, I Want to Be Famous argues fame no longer means ubiquity and examines what the future holds for those seeking our collective attention.