Andy Warhol said we’d all have fifteen minutes of fame. I guess that could be anything from appearing in the news for some reason, or a reality show, or whatever else that gets you relatively widespread exposure for some reason for a brief moment in time.
So have you had your fifteen minutes yet?
I don’t think I’ve had mine. I’m trying to avoid it until I can become famous for real 
I have about 14:30 credit.
When my mom was on Jeopardy! in the late 80’s, she mentioned me by name. It also happens to be my father’s name, so when she mentioned his name, I rode on the coattails of that, too. My poor brother only got one mention. Sucka!
Just before the 1988 presidential elections, I went to a Bush/Quayle rally at my college;I was 18 and it was my first time voting. It was stunning in its badness. After that horrible rally, I had a very different opinion of Dan Quayle and threw my Bush/Quayle button away in front of a reporter from the local tv news station, who asked me why I did it. I told her I thought Dan Quayle was a mud-slinging twit who can only make himself look good by saying bad things about Michael Dukakis.
That ran on the 5, 6 and 11 o’clock broadcast and I got lots of phone calls from friends and family about it. I got on my Republican parents’ shit list for it, too.
I think so. During the 2002 election cycle I was opposed to a proposed amendment to the Florida constitution. I had a website, spoke on talk radio, ran ads, wrote articles, even had a PAC. I virtually met a lot of wonderful, helpful people, learned how to deal with the opposition (some of them sent me very nasty e-mails via my website) and after the election (the amendment passed) I appeared via satellite on Phil Donahue’s show on MSNBC, opposite a proponent of the legislation for a debate.
I had an article published in the February 1995 issue of Catholic Digest. Not sure how many minutes that earns me, but shortly after the issue was published I actually managed to come across one or two people who recognized my name from the article. 
One winter I was a spokesperson for the Maryland State Highway Administration during a big snowstorm, and a few people I knew heard me give an interview on the radio.
I’ve had 2 things that I’ve written get read on the radio (one was just an e-mail to the local morning show guy), but my full name wasn’t mentioned either time so those were little private minutes of fame.
When I worked for the local Humane Society, I did a few radio and television shows, so that used up most of it. Then last night during the internet/radio broadcast of our hockey game the announcer sang “happy birthday” to me and mentioned me by name!
So I guess my 15 minutes are up.
I jumped on a “college democrats” bus with some friends in college to go to a Clinton appearance. I wasn’t even actively supporting anyone at the time. We went to this outdoor venue to set up. I did some work and the the Secret Service came to talk to me. I chatted and they left. About half an hour before Clinton arrived, students gathered and the SS said they needed a student to great him, Tipper Gore, and the Congressional Black Caucus when they arrived. Everyone cheered and raised their hand. The looked at me in the middle of the pile, pointed and waved me over. I got about ten minutes worth of choreographing, then they cleared a gigantic area in the parking lot where only I was allowed to go. I got this special badge to clear me to any part of the area.
I waited and then the motorcade started to roll in. I showed each car where to park, greeted the people inside, and then directed them where to go. News cameras where flashing everywhere. Clinton got out and I got to walk with him to a staging area. They took a photo OP with us.
After the speech was over, my badge still let me cross the barriers to get more pictures and chat just a little. It was pretty cool.
My 15 minutes has gone on for a couple of decades now:
Locally, I hosted a Sports Talk TV show in the mid-70s and was recognized for up until as late as ten years ago.
Nationally and internationally, my science fiction career has given me a modicum of fame.
IMHO Warhol was a jibbering idiot, and this is typical of the hype he was able to generate. In the first place, obviously everybody will not have 15 minutes and most people will not have any fame at all. Why this catchphrase has caught on is beyond me, other than the media seems to love it. Grumble, mutter.
Yes, when my collegiate and high school football careers ended…
No
I’m still having them. I started performing in public in 1968. Getting applause is something in the past for me, though, because I don’t play music anymore. But I work in radio, and due to the fact that our stations are heavily underwritten, you hear my voice more often than anybody’s, in this area. I’m still about as anonymous as a person could hope to be, and that’s all right. I don’t seek recognition. It’s just my job, five days a week. (No, not rocket man.)
Not yet.
My goofy no-tech psychedelic tape collage project Electric Mudd got plenty of play on college and indy stations fifteen or so years ago – and, in one glorious moment, a full half-hour on David Wisdom’s Nightlines, nationally on CBC FM at some godawful hour when only confused people under the influence of various pharmaceuticals were likely to hear it.
I was a [part-time] extra for a couple of years, which I kind of liked. You know, being in the background.
Then they picked me to do a commercial.
For matrasses, of all things.
I hated it.
I was way too shy and my voice wasn’t loud enough.
But the commercial was a succes, so I guess I made the 15 minutes.
I published several articles in trade magaizines; a couple were done by invitation. Does that count?
I’ve had my 15 minutes several times - because one of the courts I appear in allows interveners only 15 minutes to speak, and the hearings are broadcast on t.v.
I occasionally get phone calls from friends to tell me I’m on t.v.
I keep getting patches of local fame coming up. Interviews in newspapers to do with local history, occasional articles, stuff put in about projects I’m involved with or commissioned to do. Chasing another one down now (dratted paper delivers missed me out, and there was apparently a sighting of a picture of me up on one of our extinct volcanoes! Grr.)
'Cause it’s just local fame – here in my city – I reckon that’s why the 15 minutes is lasting longer. All relative, eh?
As a lark, my wife and I decided to try out for an open cattle call for the soon to be released movie, Lonely Hearts, that was being shot here in N.E. Florida. To our amazement, they chose the two of us in addition to our 5-year old daughter to be extras in the movie. It was quite an experience. My daughter was in one big scene and my wife and I were each in three scenes. In the first scene, my wife and I were posed behind a frosted glass window, and I was told to walk around and look animated as I pointed to my wife’s character seated before me. There was so much commotion going on that I didn’t hear the director shout, “action” and I just stood there while the film rolled. Finally they said “cut” and read me the riot act for not moving (I’m sure that I cost them a few thousand dollars on my goof up). I did better on the next take. In my next scene, I am seen walking alone out of a post office and right toward the camera, then John Travolta, James Gandolfini and Scott Caan (James Caans Grandson, I believe), walk toward and brush right by me. In my last scene, I am standing in between and a little behind Travolta and Gandolfini as they are talking to a teller in a bank. That scene took a few takes, and in between takes Travolta kept turning around to talk with me. He has a reputation for being a very nice guy, and I can vouch for that assessment. I gave Gandolfini a Saprano’s style, Badda-Bing, but he did not seem amused. Salma Hayek and Laura Dern are also in the movie, but unfortunately, I did not meet them (although Salma’s dog almost peed on my shoes). A large crowd of fans gathered around the “bank scene” set. Even though it was close to midnight and dry, they used sprinklers and lights to make it look like a mid-afternoon rainy day. They kept us extras upstairs in the building in between takes, but every time one of us passed by a window (brightly lit against the midnight darkness), the fans, thinking we were famous, I suppose, would cheer and applaud. I can see where that sort of adulation can be habit forming.
My other big celebrity encounter: I shook Richard Nixon’s hand in 1972.
I’ve got a good one!
One summer about 2-3 years ago now, I had an idea for a little nerdy project of building a fully-functional computer inside the shell of an old Nintendo. I did it and posted a tutorial online for others who wanted to do the same thing.
The idea took off like crazy and was on slashdot, engadget, hackaday, boingboing, and many other blogs. I did several magazine interviews and radio interviews, then a cable TV show called The Screen Savers called me and invited me out to appear on an episode. I flew out to California and landed my 8 minutes on national TV. It was rerun a few times to add up to 15 minutes, I guess.
A little later in the summer, I was interviewed on a local news show 1. for the NES project, and 2. a month or so later for my “quarter life crisis”. I had mentioned in the first interview that I had an excellent job that I quit to try my hand at self-employment, but it didn’t work out so I had taken a shit job to make ends meet. He told me it gave him a great idea for a story for mid-20’s people like me still trying to find their place in the world. It was quite the summer.