Conceptual Celebrities

Hola!

So I've been thinking about this post for quite some time now. Quite some time.

It all started a good 3-4 years ago when I was in the heavy midst of writing one of my novels, I was busy scrambling all the details, still in the heavy planning stages for it. Well, the novel flopped--never really made it with me. Maybe one day, but not anytime soon. I have bigger & better ideas to tackle first. But the ideas presented in the novel really stuck with me, apparently, considering I'm writing about one of them right now!

The novel was a *very* futuristic novel. Like, in the next millennium type of novel. Or at least in a couple hundred years...a millennium is kind of a long time. Anyway, I had to re-conceptualize everything. The novel took so much time to plan because obviously, the human race then will have nothing in common with the human race today. Nothing. I can't even say we will have the same body organs in common because who knows what they will have, with adaptation and evolution and all that fun stuff. Also, who's to say we won't all be half robots that live til 500 by then, because we will probably find some sick, twisted way to re-grow our organs and just live forever? Heart failure? No problem- Just make a 30 minute doctor appointment, come out with a new heart. But thats not the point. The point is that I had to think about every single aspect of human life as we know it today, and re-wrap my mind around the idea and make it somehow, futuristic. Dating, the food industry, parenting, life, birth, death, school, healthcare, elderly, employment, money, etc. But one thing I had a unique plan for, was celebrities. Fame.


The novel was supposed to take place underground. My (sort-of) premise was that by that point in time, the sun got too close to us/too hot for us and we had to all build these huge underground places. Multiple all around the world, but every country is responsible for designing their own. Mine just focus on how the United States handles them. So I knew fame wasn't a realistic possibility. Even though these underground units could hold 20,000 people (at least) per unit, that still wasn't enough people to let fame happen. I mean fame wouldn't mean anything. Celebrities, they would be seen all the time, because they would be sharing the same space with "regular people" all the time. So they would sort of lose their status. I mean think about it. If modern day New York City...if you took out ALL tourists (people that don't normally spend more than 3-4 days in the city a week), and just left the residents there, you'd have the size of one of these units. Well, quite a few celebrities live in NYC. After a couple months, years, the in town residents (keep in mind they would be the same people, no new incomers or outgoers) would frequently run into those celebrities, and it would become to not be such a big deal anymore.

The reason why people go nuts over celebrities in NYC today, is mainly because of tourists. People travel to get to the city and are dying to see anyone remotely famous. The minute they see someone, its like a massive swarm (and sometimes dangerous) army of tourists & paparazzi (sp?).


So thats why fame wouldn't work. So I had to re-think it, and I came up with the idea that celebrities wouldn't be real. No humans. All animations. Except there would be actual celebrity animations. It wouldn't be just a one time thing, like today an animated movie comes out and has its own new characters. No. There would be an animated "Judy McJudyson" (I just made that up lol) and she would have her own personality that was consistent in all her movies, but she would play different parts in all her movies.  Get it? Sort of?

Well, that was all good and well, but the idea didn't reoccur until I saw a preview for one of the new animation films coming out, and It came quickly on the screen, but It was an animated character and at first I thought it was a real boy (and my eyesight is not that bad, I promise). Its just scary how real they are making the animations look now....imagine what they will be doing in 100 + years?

They can probably find ways to recreate celebrities from the past that have died or aged, and make realistic animations of them and have them be on screen again....that would be scary!

I mean, think of the advantages....the film industry wouldn't have to pay celebrities anymore. A lot more films could be made. We wouldn't have to idolize celebrities, some that make us feel awful about ourselves. The economy wouldn't be as skewed, with some celebrities spending thousands on purses when others in the same city are spending $10 to feed their entire family. We wouldn't have to have stunt men. We could demonstrate crazy stunt effects and not put anyone in danger, and make  it look real.

But a disadvantage would also be the same fact that we wouldn't have celebrities to idolize. Someone REAL to look up too, to fantasize about....if they could do it, I could do it. They are  human too.We wouldn't have that.



Think about it. You may think its too unrealistic and will never happen, but think about it. Even just from Toy Story to Tangled, the animations are becoming scarishly real. And as demonstrated in "Enchanted", we can even put animations in real backgrounds. So, the possibilities are endless. Give it 100 years....we'll see what they come up with!


~WNB