I Want to Be Famous - by Bobby Finger & Lindsey Weber (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

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

"Nothing short of a modern soliloquy on what it means to seek the gaze of the masses. Come for the laughs and incredible cultural deep cuts, stay for the exegesis on how we wound up . . . here."--Lena Dunham, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Famesick

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.") 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 journalists behind the pop culture 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 binary 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.

Review Quotes

"Who? Weekly is the only American institution I retain faith in. Lindsey and Bobby are not-so-secretly my generation's smartest close-readers of the contemporary pop culture paradigm, in which noise, spectacle, absurdity, and meaninglessness are simultaneous givens, and in which capital and image and narrative have merged in ways that would've made our ancestors' heads explode. Because they take it as a foundational principle that we've all lost our minds, they perform the great service of making you feel far less confused and deranged about your ambient surroundings. I Want to Be Famous takes you on a Regal Cinemas rollercoaster pre-show ride through the history of celebrity, then pulls gems of insight and humor from the garbage dump of our strange present. No one is as good as Lindsey and Bobby at being brilliant and absolutely pain-free."--Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror

"I Want to Be Famous is the seminal text for the internet brain-rotted freaks, i.e. me, who are obsessed with pop music girlies and know what Spencer Pratt's dog's name is. It's sharp, funny, educational: a dissertation-length highbrow tabloid written by your coolest friends who have excellent taste in lowbrow culture."--Samantha Irby, author of Quietly Hostile

"As a Wholigan of almost a decade, there is no one I am more eager to hear contextualize the modern fame game than Lindsey and Bobby. They're funny, this we know--but you will be surprised by how I Want to Be Famous stays with you, and by the questions it forces you to ask about the attention economy, and how we the audience are just as accountable for where culture finds itself, if not more so. Come for the laughs and incredible cultural deep cuts, stay for the exegesis on how we wound up . . . here."--Lena Dunham, author of Famesick

"I Want to be Famous cements Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber as two of our most astute and thoughtful critics--and it's a genuinely laugh-out-loud experience. Their grand theory of modern celebrity encompasses so much--stardom, yes, but also the death of the monoculture, the commercialization of everything, the end of shame, the bizarre contemporary media ecosystem."--Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind

"I Want to Be Famous is a hilarious deep dive into the evolution of celebrity, from untouchable gods and goddesses to a morass of 'just like us' strivers (who manage to have more cultural currency than anyone with millions of dollars of studio backing behind them)."--Karina Longworth, author of Seduction and host of You Must Remember This

"An entertaining examination of how streaming and social media have splintered the public's attention span and, with it, the hierarchy of fame . . . Packed with pop culture history and sharp analyses, this is a definitive account of contemporary stardom."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

About the Author

Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber are the hosts of Who? Weekly, the podcast that tells you everything you need to know about the celebrities you don't. Finger is the author of Four Squares, The Old Place, and We Are Gathered Here Today. Weber is a freelance writer and editor who spends the majority of her free time at the beach in the Rockaways. They both live in Brooklyn, New York.