Our culture is pervaded by fame. We see well-known artists, models, CEOs, inventors, and even athletes in news headlines and books for the legacy they made. These celebrities are nurtured and are promoted for money.
Society is now filled with people who dream of becoming renowned, yet a lot of them rarely stop to ponder and consider what it takes to get there or even how it works.
Do you think money brings fame, or do you believe it’s the other way around? How do people earn money from their fame? What’s the price these famous have to pay in exchange for their notoriety?
Fame may be able to bring you a tremendous amount of money, but nothing in life comes for free. Everything has some steep costs. So, let me ask you a question: What are the things you are willing to make it to the spotlight?
This write-up was for you to grasp how the economics of fame work. Once you finish this article, you will grasp how fame gets monetized and the disadvantages of being a well-known public figure.
In this period where just anyone in the world can rise to fame overnight, you need to question yourself— “Is it worth it?”
The Birth of Influencers’ Era
Fame possesses the power to be leveraged. However, fame on its own cannot do much for you. You must know how to place that “fame” to your advantage to line your bank account.
To understand how influence and fame can be leveraged, it is necessary to take a look at the commencement of brand ambassadors and influencers.
There are debates on where it all began, but many believe that it started in the late 1800s during the rise of major brands like Wigley’s, Cadbury, and Coca-Cola. This story is an old one, a history that is much older than you might think.
According to tell tales, major brands back then sent products to famous individuals so they could spread the word. The main idea behind this move is: If someone important was pleased with the product, the mass would follow sooner or later. And the logic behind this reasoning goes even further back in time.
Back in the medieval period, the kings would pay blacksmiths to create weapons for their empire, and because of the kings’ influence, other people would want to work with those blacksmiths too. At the end of the day, if a king desires a sword from them, they must be really excellent in their craft!
We have the tendency to gravitate towards people whom we perceive as successful or influential because we desire fame and popularity. This wishful desire makes us want to live their lives, so we subconsciously follow what they do and buy, thinking that it will take us a little closer to where they are.
Kings and rulers were a measure of success from time immemorial. But for a while, major brands have been making use of influential people for their benefit.
In 1760, Josiah Wedgwood made a tea set for Queen Charlotte, and he was clever about it. He marketed himself as the potter of her majesty and asserted that his tea set carried a royal approval. By leveraging the opportunity, Wedgwood Pottery came to be a luxury brand considered fit for a king or queen.
Then in the 1900s, brands go off into overdrive, creating fake characters to serve as ambassadors. Just think of the modern depiction of Santa Claus as a jolly old dude created by Coca-Cola.
There’s also Marlboro Man or Ronal McDonald. There are even talks of gladiators endorsing products back in ancient Rome! Brands are monetizing others’ influence and fame whenever and wherever they have the chance.
Soon enough, we turned into Hollywood actors, then singers and athletes with brand deals and sponsorships. And finally, the internet came into the scene, and the economics of fame changed forever.
Social media made us all more connected than ever and helped us amplify our voices. But this also made us more vulnerable to gravitate toward particular people like Tanya, Zoella, PewDiePie, or Burr. The only difference is that these people were not influential nor rich to begin with. They started us merely by sharing their lives and thoughts and luckily ended up growing massively.
Even ordinary people gained a tool to leverage their popularity into big bucks through social media. But how did they turn their subscribers and viral videos into money?
Generating Revenue Through The Spotlight
Let’s say you have an Instagram account or a YouTube channel. You make insanely funny videos and vlogs, or perhaps, you post something about yourself like the things you like, food that tastes good, or even some tips to make life better. Slowly, your content attracted traction, and then one day, you have seen thousands of people coming for your content.
What do you think would happen if you ask these people to support you, even just with a dollar every month. After all, giving a dollar to support someone with entertaining content isn’t a bad margin.
Influencers have many options on how they can leverage their fame to make money. There could ask for donations, tips, subscriptions, and a lot more. Platforms like Buy Me a Coffee and Patreon also allows content creators to monetize their fan bases directly.
Of course, even if you ask for donations, not everyone would willingly give you money. If you have about 10,000 followers on Instagram, you are considered someone in between nano- and micro-influencer.
Even with just 5% of your fan base giving you $5 a month, you’ll be able to make five grand every month. That’s $60,000 every year! The amount is not too bad, considering that that’s merely just the tip of the iceberg.
Brands are turning into famous online influencers to drive sales of their products, so when your subscribers hit a good enough number, they will come after you too! If you’ve been a YouTube loafer, you probably heard of this line, “This video was brought to you by…”
Influencers are getting good pay for advertising someone else’s products, and there isn’t an exact number for how much you can get from these types of posts. But in general, the more followers and subscribers you have, the more you are likely to get paid.
Some have applied a baseline rule of charging a 1% count of their follower. So, if you have about $20,000 followers, you would be getting a bare minimum of $100 per post.
If you become a full brand ambassador, you’ll be asked to post a particular brand for a certain period of time and have an hourly salary for your work. You could also earn commissions through affiliate marketing.
The median salary of a brand ambassador is about $24,000 and can go up to $115,000 per year. Not to mention that is also just an extra from all the income opportunities they have.
A massive amount of wealth can be accumulated from fame. However, being in the spotlight isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.
When you’re in the spotlight, you’ll be at the center of attraction, and that only means you will not have the luxury of having privacy anymore. The world will watch every move you make, and the media can also twist every word you say.
And so, we’re left with the soliloquy given by Prince Hamlet— To Be or Not to Be— Famous?
It’s pretty easy to desire someone else’s life, especially if you’re not in their shoes. But living such life actually comes with a lot of work and pressure. If you can handle it, then that’s good! Do everything to be in the spotlight, but if you can’t, better think twice.
A lot of perks go together with fame, but everything will be rendered pointless if you cannot bear the downsides. Do not forget that fame is similar to a transaction that always comes at a personal cost.
