Recently, I had a chat with a once aspiring broadcaster whose dream of being famous through his local FM radio programme fell by the wayside some time ago. I asked him how he became sure of his failure.

”I am not easily identified, wherever I go,” he countered with his near weak and stammering voice, even places where his name is specified, such as before tellers at banks.

In the modern media-driven age, everyone will enjoy a brief moment of fame, as Andy Warhol, one of the iconic figures of the 1960s countercultural scene, said.

“In the future, everybody will be world-famous for fifteen minutes,” it was a nearly prophetic saying for being in the spotlight briefly before disappearing into obscurity.

Warhol anticipated the ”influencers” on social media sites, people without readily discernable talent that somehow generate millions of followers on platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Tiktok. They tell some funny lines, show some dance moves or put on makeup while live. They may be famous perhaps for months at a time – some do break out into the mainstream – but generate income from firms that advertise to their followers. Not to be outdone, many young Ethiopians have jumped on the bandwagon, at the forefront of the digital revolution.

No doubt, it is fleeting fame. It existed befre; only the technology is different. The golden age of entertainment, and fame not for political or economic power but through entertainment, started in the late 1920s, corresponding with sound being added to films. Producers, in desperation, wanted to gain a competitive edge and released a movie called The Jazz Singer in 1927. The film launched what was then called the talkies, or just movies for us, and ended the Silent Film era. The popularity of screen actors, who were not only seen but heard from now, shot up. As the technologies of audio-visual transmission improved, new types of famous people have been created, and currently, we are in the ”influencer” age.