What will posthumous fame look like in the internet era?

Will the Van Goghs of today have an even better chance, or will they be lost in our internet ocean?

The internet’s memory is eternal.

In all respects, the web resurrects all ideas.

Unless it’s lost to history (sorry, Aristotle’s second book on poetics), the ideas live on.

Everything from the Gnostic religion of Manichaeism to the political order of Feudalism finds itself living anew with devotees in our contemporary society.

The fracturing of our society along so many lines is a field day for a social scientist, but the question, really, is about the individuals.

Artists from Van Gogh to Monet to Vermeer to El Greco died in obscurity or penniless.

There but for the grace of God go I (I say with great hubris as though I know I won’t die in obscurity and poverty).

It reminds me of the greatest movie never made —- the description of which I found in the bowels of IMDB.

“Bobism,” written by Ben Wexler: “A shy college kid learns that his blog will be the basis for a Utopian society in 1,000 years. He also finds out that aliens from the future want to kill him and prevent that utopia from happening.”

Fascinating.

It makes you wonder about our internet destinies.

If you don’t make it in the creator economy, where do you end up? Is there a chance for a spotlight after your time?

Or are we all guaranteed our Warholian 15 minutes of fame during the living years?

In all truth, consistency, I do believe, is the key to success, and making it as a creator is not outside your reach.

I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

Can you fall through the cracks?

We live in a sea of content.

And the universal authorship of the digital age creates an oversaturated —- no, inundated —-marketplace of ideas.

We do have faith, though, that the good rises above the meh.

And if the laws of nature (insofar as they apply to the nebulous world of the creator economy) hold out, this should remain true.

Let’s face it — the “creator economy” is a term for a vast array of internet market dynamics that will likely be split up into numerous, more precise sectors once things get more settled.

The internet historians have a lot of work ahead of them; so do the internet intellectual historians and the internet art historians.

I can’t wait until those areas get their own departments in our universities, honestly.

And just remember, you may die penniless.

But perhaps, even if its centuries later (and we do not recede into an internetless dark age), you will be famous.

As Red Green would say, keep your stick on the ice.

-Clayton