By celebrity, I’m referring to a real, living person in that society who lots of people would recognize and know about, and probably form opinions of, despite never having met them.
Our modern society takes great interest in the goings on of our famous people. I’m curious if this has always been the case.
In thinking about it, I’m presuming that the earliest celebrities were the kings and queens who ruled - but how much did the typical person know what the ruler looked like (I imagine money would be the only practical way of seeing the ruler’s face), or was doing, or was it just expected that they would recognize their name?
What of non-regal celebrities? I recall learning that ancient gladiators were pictured on billboards. Did people know of them, root for them, maybe even idolize them? Would a kid have been in awe of meeting his favorite gladiator? Would his dad have been trying to play it cool?
And are there other examples? Were there famous people in Ancient Egypt? Among the Spartans or Athenians? How were their exploits shared, and how were they treated?
And when did acting/singing/performing becoming the most obvious and direct route to fame?
Famous people go way beyond civilizations / complex societies. Even hunter-gatherer societies had famous warriors, hunters, visionary seers and leaders who were widely known, admired, and told stories about.
There never were human societies so small everyone knew each other, due to, at its most basic, avoidance of inbreeding. Even hunter-gatherers in marginal environments, who lived most of the time in small, c. 10 - 30 people strong communities, had seasonal gatherings where people over vast areas met to catch up on news, maintain bonds and alliances, trade and find mates. That was the society as a whole.
Before the invention of movie theatres, radios and then televisions, there was much less opportunities for regular people to become aware of so called celebrities.
That does not means only actors and other performers, but also others peoples, politicians and what not, that were mentioned in news reels shown in theatres and the news on radio and TV.
But even if you only met those other people once a year at the festival, they’d still be people you had met, which makes them too familiar to meet the OP’s definition.
John Wilkes Booth, who shot and killed Abraham Lincoln, came from a famous acting family (he was like the Billy Baldwin of his day), and this was before you had movies, radio, or TV.
How far back can we go, though? Was Mozart or Beethoven a household name at the end of the 18th century?
With all due respect to those religions, aren’t most of the people they met fictional, or at the very least were said to exist long before the people who would read about them? I’m curious about the existence of contemporary celebrities who actually existed within a given society.
I don’t mean to suggest that a celebrity can’t be somebody you met, but I am asking about people who are more well known than just among those who have met them.
Meaning, if there was a ritual gathering, but everyone who went there knew of “Grog the Resplendent”, and people were eagerly hoping to see him, and knew of his exploits, and had a bit of a fan moment if they got to talk to him, then I would think that wound count as a celebrity.
Traveling storytellers and musicians might have had that kind of celebrity back in the day, even by people who only knew of them second or third hand by people repeating those stories and songs.
The “never having met them” angle of the OP is troublesome. Celebrities are widely known by face and name, and seeked out by the common folk. They aren’t an immaterial entity.
I have “met” many bonafide celebrities on festivals. Meaning I have stood close to them, had brief eye contact and maybe changed a word or two, however one-sidedly. Just like it would have gone in a Prehistoric seasonal gathering with the story-worthy person(s) there, too.
The breeding population of even Arctic Indigenous peoples hovered around 1 000 individuals. I guess some people can claim / feel they “know” that many people, but I’m not buying it.
Seems to me this question is affected by the meaning of certain key terms: “human,” “society,” “awareness” among them. At a certain primitive point, when we lacked a term for “famous,” for example, would we have made of the leader of a competing tribe who abducted or killed members of our tribe but whom you or I had never seen personally? Would that have been one type of celebrity, even if we lacked the words for it?
True, but in the modern day, for any given celebrity, the vast majority of their fans will never meet them. That level of remove from one’s fans would have been impossible in the early days of humanity.
Folks whose fans meet them only rarely, and usually only as part of a crowd, though? Yeah, I can believe that those go back as far as language.
OP here. I was trying to get to the modern concept of celebrity - somebody who is “famous”, in that they are known far and wide, well beyond those who have met them.
I find it interesting how much we, in our modern society, are fascinated by the lives of famous people, such that they are the subject of gossip and discussion, and stories of their exploits are part of the culture.
I was wondering how far back that goes. I mentioned upthread how Lincoln’s assassin, John Booth, was a well known actor. His brother Edwin was even more famous. And this was when acting was done by live action plays, not recorded performances.
It’s my understanding that we can go back even further - Mozart was famous in Europe, for example.
I’m just curious if it’s endemic to human nature to put certain people on a metaphorical pedestal and exalt them. And how far back that goes. And how it would have worked, in practice (somebody mentioned that there might have been statutes of leaders; if I have my likeness carved and then I place that representation throughout the land, I imagine that’s a good route to fame).
The symbol or sigil of their houses carried by various warriors such as knights and samurai might count, since if you were carrying it and weren’t the real deal, you’d be in trouble. Easy way for everyone to recognize you and get famous.
I’ve wondered this too. I used to live in the South West and went to many First People’s gatherings. Lots of chanting/singing. When I heard this song: Enigma - Return To Innocence (Official Video) - YouTube (1:30)
I wondered if there were any “Elvis” pre-Columbian sings.
In the Greco-Roman world, the means of promoting stardom was extremely limited. Access to the most effective mechanisms was limited to the political class, to kings and above all to emperors. As the visible and outward expression of the pursuit of honour, it largely remained the prerogative of elite males. Relatively few would have been recognizable to the public at large.
However the author does offer some examples:
From the fourth century BC, show-business began to offer star status to a handful of gifted actors who amassed large fortunes and were painted by leading artists. One allegedly earned a talent–a vast sum by the standards of the day–for a single performance in a competition. Like Hollywood stars, they tended to become typecast. Timotheus of Zacynthus was particularly celebrated for his rendition of the suicide of Ajax from Sophocles’ play of that name. It became, so to speak, his signature tune and was no doubt requested at all performances.
In 356 BC the otherwise wholly insignificant Herostratus set fire to the great temple of Artemis at Ephesus–one of the seven wonders of the ancient world–allegedly for no better reason than to win notoriety. The Ephesians retaliated by making it a crime to mention his name, though they were not able to expunge his memory from the historical record.
I have read of the most successful and famed chariot racers earning enormous sums. But it’s unlikely that typical Romans would recognise them in the street, especially outside of Rome.