Self-made celebrities

Remember how we used to say that people like to see themselves in print? Well, it's still true. And it's true of our kids. Only now they can see their comments, photos, and self-produced and -edited songs, podcasts, and ski and skateboard videos "on the air" (in Xanga, MySpace, YouTube, etc.). And some of them are becoming self-made celebrities (because their celebrity draws traffic, spawns viral marketing, and sells videocams). Today's Washington Post gives an example: "David Lehre, a 21-year-old college student from Washington, Mich., a small town north of Detroit. Lehre and his friends edited and starred in a short film called 'MySpace: The Movie'." Of course, hundreds of thousands of teens and 20-somethings are doing that - another example is 17-year-old "Bowiechick" (her screen name), who inadvertently sold a lot of Logitech Webcams because of the overnight success of the 75-sec. video "Breakup" she uploaded to YouTube, according to CNET. As for David Lehre's MySpace video, the Post reports that it "became an instant viral video hit and spread rapidly through emails and links from other sites. It also helped push YouTube into the lexicon of Internet users, especially among the MySpace.com crowd. Lehre now says he has a talent agent, an attorney and a pending deal with Fox to create a new comedy show that will compete with NBC's "Saturday Night Live." And of course corporations are noticing there's big business, here. Fox, with the same parents as MySpace (New Corp), just announced it has acquired Newroo and kSolo, CNET reports. Newroo helps them "scour the Internet for relevant information from Web sites and blogs that can be used on their own Web sites, and kSolo "lets users sing, record and share their own karaoke recordings by using a database of songs.