2010: The Year I Stopped Knowing
Rather abruptly, it seems I’ve stopped knowing who all of the people are on the covers of magazines. I used to know. And if I didn’t know, I wouldn’t feel bad. I’d simply assume the person’s fame would grow to the point I’d recognize it.
But recently I’ve noticed that if I don’t know who someone is on the cover of a magazine, I feel a little bit out-of-touch. Take, for example, the Vanity Fair cover above. Time was, I would recognize by name and face every single nymph to grace such a trifurcated cover. Now I’m 6 for 9. And it upsets me because I feel it’s my deficiency, not theirs.
The big question: Is this a function of my age? Have I crammed every last celebrity, character and title into my brain over the years, leaving room for no more? Or is the relative value of celebrity diminishing to the point where we’re not expected to recognize them all, even as they’re marketed as though we are?
Is the culture changing? Or am I?
