Instant Celebrity

A bisexual dating show featuring a woman who gained fame on MySpace is in the works for MTV. "A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila," in which 16 men and 16 women will compete for Tequila's affections, is set to debut Oct. 9. But who is Tila Tequila? I only know of her because someone sent me a link to look at some Tila videos on youtube.
Tila Nguyen is an import model, Playboy cyberbabe, and singer. She was born Tila Nguyen on October 24th, 1981, in Singapore while her parents were escaping poverty in Vietnam. She moved to Houston, Texas as a toddler. Tila has made a name for herself, not by talent displayed in the traditional incremental way at traditional sites, but rather by doing things her way for the legions of fans online, both men and women.
She has no particular talent. I could see immediately that she sings a little, is attractive, and dances badly as so many performers do on their videos. Yet she is an instant celebrity...all because of MySpace and youtube videos of her performing and showing the bets of her body. Tila's MySpace page includes racy photos, her music and a Time magazine description of the singer-model-actress-blogger as an Internet sensation and "the Madonna of MySpace."
Ugh! As if the other Madonna hasn't already worn thin. Anyway, I write about this to illustrate how instant celebrity is now possible, even without talent (though Tila seems savvy in promoting herself). Most of the attention Ms. Tila has gotten is because of her vulgar and brazen lifestyle that she has chosen to display for anyone willing to watch. Let's face it. One can do whatever she wishes on her own site, and Tila does it all. I noticed (ok, I did "research" on Tila because I wanted to see her sexy pictures) she has endless google hits that flow to here and that MTV is doing a TV show called 'A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila,' in which 16 men and 16 women will compete for Tequila's affections. It's a bisexual dating show. (Bisexuals must be the luckiest people? They have twice as much chance of getting a date on Saturday night...) Apparently Tila likes both sexes as much as both like her.
Anyway, enough of her. My point is that our cultures has gone from the mindless Survivor and reality shows that create mini celebrities who have their five minutes of fame, to the pathetic American Idol "talent contests" that produce a few real talents (who would have been discovered the normal way if they had allowed to have been) and thousands of cartoon characters. Now we have the internet creating even more quickly, mega "stars" like Tila.
What does this say about us? Maybe it is the instant gratification mode that we are more and more attracted to,. Instead of the performer displaying talent the traditional way- through hard work and constant proof of their skill, we have wannabes who manipulate the gullible faster than they realize they have been horns waggled into believing their latest "Tila" is worthy of their adulation. After looking at Tila I think she would never have made it to celebrity any other way.. For her, it is good. For the people who are enamored by her it is just another fall into the deep abyss of the titillation of the moment, all style and no substance.