THE CELEBRITY COMPLEX OF MILLENNIALS - 50% WANT TO BE FAMOUS

My friends were buzzing about Devin Schadt's appearance on Matt Fradd's podcast, and they invited me to check it out asap so we could natter about it. Devin Schadt held forth for 3 hours on the importance of how fathers treat their children and their wives. Devin is truly an amazing fellow, and is doing so much good that his reward in Heaven will be great indeed. I'm enthused to read his book, The Power of St. Joseph. 

I was struck by a study he mentioned where it found that 50% of millennials want to be famous. I'm just surprised it is not higher, cynically or realistically I imagine that the other 50% might not be admitting their aspirations.  I'd wager that in my native Ireland the real stat might be off the charts. I've lived in L.A. for some years, and can say with some small measure of confidence that the Cork City of my childhood and young adult life was more L.A. than L.A. by that I mean I was surrounded by some peers who yearned to be celebrities more than they desired air to breathe. 

The Irish have always had tremendous literary ambition. I am very guilty of that, but in my defense it was the only thing I was ever good at, and so it became my way to make a crust. But among my age-group there was something of a desperation to become a celebrity that it was like sacrificing oneself for fame had replaced the practice of Christianity where one is called to die to self.  Let me furnish this with but one example. I knew a girl from early childhood who I always felt I'd wronged in some way; she was cold and hostile, her mother snubbed me whenever I waved. I had the feeling I was embarrassing her by being so weird. The years turned into decades and suddenly we found ourselves as young professionals in London, and the odd time I'd bump into her. It wasn't pleasant; she sneered at my practice of the Catholic faith, that I leant legitimacy to child-abuser priests and implied that unlike me, she didn't side with them. I know, that's par for the course. 

But one evening I rushed out to the shops to grab some goods for supper and met her randomly. She coolly asked me what why I was scrambling to get home and I said I had to make a deadline, and she asked me some more questions and found out I had a friend, an editor who could make a valuable contact for her. Instantly, she was warm and friendly, inviting me out to drinks or to buy me lunch and when I got home I found she'd connected with me on every possible social media platform. It was like seeing Everest melt into a puddle in seconds. A few weeks later I passed a restaurant where her mother was eating dinner, most likely visiting her daughter, but this time she looked at me with pleading eyes and smiled a rictus. I'd known her for 25 years and only at that moment did she acknowledge me. From snubs to smiles. Only when I could help a peer, a young woman my own age, become more high profile was I awarded basic civility.