Fame

John went to college with a few very famous people, as we have been learning. At the other extreme, I’ve been surprised by how few of the people I went to college with are famous. Famous isn’t even the right word; I’m not talking about Jodie Foster-style famous. I’m talking about having virtually no presence on the World Wide Web whatsoever. Google them, and all you find are 20-year old bulletin board postings from the old Carnegie Mellon mail server. And I’m not talking about the mild-mannered computer science majors that the university is known for; I’m talking about the people who did things – art installations, creative writing, alternative newspaper publishing, protesting things, working on Dukakis’ campaign. The exact sort of people you would expect to have fully embraced the internet as an almost effortless way of keeping one’s name out there. Track them down, if you can, and you’ll find they are living successful, established, but unassuming lives.

I’m not sure what to make of this.