You Think You Want 100,000s of Followers. What You Actually Want Is Subtle Fame.
Let me show you why.
Photo by Daniel Xavier on Pexels
My girlfriend and I were dining in New York when something caught her eye. She leaned across the table.
“Don’t turn around, but I know the couple over there!”
Of course, I peeked over my shoulder. The couple in question were intimate, and no one had gone over to say hi, but my girlfriend’s legs were jangling.
“They’re a big deal!”
She told me that the young couple write books together, and they have a small following on Instagram. My girlfriend is one of them. She wanted to say hello, but she also didn’t want to disturb them.
It was at this moment she coined “Subtle Fame”.
Subtle Fame is when the occasional person might come up to you in the street to thank you for your work, but you’re not bombarded every time you step outside.
It sounds pretty dreamy to me.
“I don’t want to be well known. I want to be known well.”
— Shaan Puri
And as I’ve dug deeper, I realise I’m not the only one. People around the world — even well-known celebrities — are longing for Subtle Fame.
But why is Subtle Fame better than “Actual Fame”?
Let me introduce you to a man who knows all about this.
Someone who lives with “Actual Fame”
Tim Ferriss is the author of the uber-successful, best-selling business book, The 4-Hour Workweek.
It was published in 2007, and it stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for four years and four months. It was quickly translated into approximately 40 languages.
“Sh*t went bonkers. Everything changed.
“I was 29.”
Fame is something he’d craved for years. However, he was soon “engulfed in a hailstorm of both great and terrible things”, and he felt “utterly unprepared for any of it.”
So in 2020, “13 years, 5 books, 1,000+ blog posts, and nearly 500M podcast downloads later”, he penned his thoughts on the “promises and perils of seeking fame”.
“And I say “seeking fame” deliberately, because — let’s be honest — I’m not really famous. Beyoncé and Brad Pitt are truly famous. They cannot walk around in public anywhere in the world. I am a micro-public figure with a monthly audience in the millions or tens of millions. There are legions of people on Instagram alone with audiences of this size.”
— Tim Ferriss
The perks of being famous
Before we get to the perils, let’s look at the good stuff.
The national exposure of The 4-Hour Work Week is how Tim met many of his good friends. He’s also been able to invest in many early-stage tech deals.
It’s safe to see he’s made millions of dollars from these investments.
“And then there are the occasional fringe benefits, like getting tables at busy restaurants, getting free samples of products […] and so on.
“Many of the things I’m proudest of in life would have been difficult or impossible to accomplish without a large audience. For that, I owe every one of my readers and listeners a huge debt of gratitude.”
His words echo the great Bill Murray:
“The only good thing about fame is that I’ve gotten out of a couple of speeding tickets. I’ve gotten into a restaurant when I didn’t have a suit and tie on. That’s really about it.”
So what about the downsides?
Tim received a death threat from a random blogger.
What did he do or say that caused this? Was it in response to a how-to article on clubbing baby seals?
“Not quite. It was in response to my blog post highlighting the non-profit DonorsChoose.org, which I’ve advised for 10+ years […] In the introduction, I happened to mention that the founder and CEO of DonorsChoose was my wrestling partner in high school. That’s it.”
Tim shared this death threat story with a female career blogger. She laughed and said soberly, “Welcome to the party.” She got an average of one death threat and one sex request/threat per week.
Unfortunately, this comes with the territory. Tim concludes you don’t need to do anything wrong to get death threats, rape threats, etc. You just need a big enough audience.
“The averages will dictate that you get a certain number of crazies, con artists, extortionists, possible (or actual) murderers, and so on. In fairness, we should also include a certain number of geniuses, a certain number of good Samaritans, and so on.
“Sure, your subject matter and content matter, but they don’t matter as much as you’d like to think.”
Besides death threats
Tim goes on to explain the other common downsides of exposure, including stalkers, random messages, harassment, dating woes, extortion attempts, pleas for help, kidnapping, identity theft, clickbait media, and invasion of privacy.
You also have to watch out for “friends” with ulterior motives:
“Once you have a decent-sized audience, the majority of people who want to grab coffee, ask mutual friends for an intro, or — especially — offer you unsolicited favours will have ulterior motives. It took me a long time to accept this, and I paid a hefty tax for being Pollyannaish.
“To be clear: I don’t mind pitches, as long as they come upfront. What I can’t stand is fakery to get in someone’s good graces over months, followed with a surprise of “Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you about my new book coming out in a few weeks” and similar shenanigans. This has happened to me more times than I can count, and it feels dirty and gross.”
It’s not just Tim
Other celebrities have dealt with the perils of fame.
Last year, Chloë Grace Moretz spoke out about becoming a meme, as well as dealing with body dysmorphia and the paparazzi. She now leads a more low-profile life.
So, too, does Daniel Radcliffe. After experiencing arguably the most fame one can ever experience as a young child when he was cast as Harry Potter, he coped with losing his anonymity by drinking. (He’s now sober.)
Young and old are affected by fame. There will be countless other well-known faces struggling behind closed doors.
Which brings us to Subtle Fame
The word “influencer” wasn’t added to some dictionaries until 2019, and yet today, one in four Gen Zers say they plan to become social media influencers.
With so many people — not just Gen Zers — now seeking money and fame through filming themselves, more and more people will get a taste of actual fame.
“Some previous unknowns on TikTok, for example, have attracted millions of followers in a matter of weeks.
“If you suddenly had 100,000 or 1,000,000 or 10,000,000 more followers, what might happen?”
While they may like fame in the beginning, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. There are many pitfalls.
Just ask Tim, Chloë, and Daniel.
And although there are undoubted benefits to having 100,000s of followers, are they worth sacrificing privacy, extortion attempts, and any resemblance to a normal life?
That’s for you to decide.
I just know that I’d rather a fan quietly approach me in a fancy restaurant while I’m having dinner with my girlfriend.
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