Why I’ll never be famous
Watching Ben Affleck painfully mug his way through Jersey Girl (Kevin Smith fans, save your money), I figured out why I’ll never be a celebrity: I don’t want to work that hard.
Seriously, you’ve got to work hard to be famous — because generally you have to earn the spotlight by being good at something. Or, in Affleck’s case, you have to act studly and hang out with Matt Damon (and even that sounds like more trouble than it’s worth).
This isn’t to say that I don’t work hard occasionally. But the things I work at just aren’t spotlight material. You won’t hear, for example, people exclaiming, “Boy, that Eric Ulken sure is talented… He can code HTML and catch dangling participles with the best of them!”
If you’re lucky, you might land a break — like American Idol reject William Hung did. I’ve never watched a single episode of Idol, but even I have heard his hilariously bad rendition of Ricky Martin‘s already lousy song. (And all you people who laughed: Really, could you do any better?)
Thing is, even accidental stars have to make some effort to get noticed. I don’t really see myself performing bad pop songs in front of television cameras just so the passive masses can get a quick chuckle at my expense.
So, Hollywood, I won’t burden you with my aspirations of stardom. I see now that fame calls for far more toil and sacrifice than I can muster, and I salute your people for carrying that heavy load. You’re off the hook, at least until headline-writing becomes a celebrity occupation.
But in the meantime, can you get me a date with Jennifer Garner?