I’m in a weird situation. I’m not what I’d call famous, certainly. But if you type my full name into a search engine you get a lot of hits (mainly because of two books). Most of those will actually be about me, and not the guy with my name who died a couple of years ago, or the other guy with my name who’s published computer books. I’ve been on TV a couple of times, and have a hefty publication list.
On the other hand, if you don’t type in my full name, you don’t get a lot of those hits. Search engines only turn up a tiny fraction of my publications (even my technical publications, which you’d think would be fully listed in databases). People who know me end up being surprised when my face shows up on their cable channel. How the hell famous could I be? Not very, obviously.
And it hasn’t translated into money, sad to say.
I’ve been a teacher since 1985. Thousands of kids were my students over the years and a surprising percentage of them have pleasant memories of me and happily greet me if they see me. So, in that extremely narrow sense, I am slightly famous. Outside of that, I am nobody in particular.
I put myself into the teeming millions category. For a while I was moderately famous for writing porn (or erotica - your choice), but haven’t published in a bit. I did once win an award from the adult entertainment industry.
Dang, I almost forgot. I was fairly well known at one point in government healthcare circles as an expert and have a lot of citations and quotes to my name in fairly well-known publications. It’s been a long time (about 3 years), though. If you were to type my real name or my pen name into a search engine, you’d probably get a fair amount of hits.
Funny I’d remember the porn more - I guess it falls into the notorious category. Government healthcare isn’t exactly as scintillating.
I used to be fairly famous amongst my fellow employees at a Fortune 500-sized company. The company is gone and the former employees well-dispersed. Not famous any more.
As to the general public …
Googling my somewhat unusual name turns up an academic famous in his field. Then a bunch of generic business schlubs of varying degrees of on-line prominence, none of whom seem to have any real world prominence.
I’ve gone many, many pages back in Google search and never found a reference to the actual me. 10-ish years ago I did have some vids posted on technically-oriented websites, but apparently they’ve aged off into oblivion.
Well, not bad in the sense of infamous. In the entertainment field.
I have a niece and a father-in-law who have their own Wikipedia bio pages, which I guess makes them more famous than I ever was, or at least famous over a wider circle.
I’m known worldwide throughout my company. Many people know me by the sound of my voice on the phone and more than 50% of them know me by sight. I interact with people from Japan, China, Korea, Indonesia, Australia, the UK, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, Canada and the USA. I regularly run across colleagues in airports, rental car facilities and subways. I interact with internal corporate VP’s, directors and with automotive executives in charge of making multi-million dollar decisions. I’ve told owners of companies that their prices or quality levels are not acceptable and taken away business from them.
Out side of work, women want to be with me, men want to be like me. My kids respect and listen to me, they seek me out for advice. My girlfriend listens to everything I say like I’m Moses handing down the Ten Commandments and fulfills my every desire.
One of the two paragraphs above is true. Bet you can guess which one.
The problem with this kind of poll is that the type of celebrity who would post on the Dope, I imagine, is the sort who would downplay his fame because “I’m just this guy, y’know?” If Neil Gaiman, to pick a name purely at random, that in no way represents a fanboy fantasy that would have me squeeing like a schoolgirl, were to post here, his response would probably be something like, “Me? Nah, I’m not that famous. Couple of comic nerds know my name. Now Terry Pratchett, on the other hand - that dude is FAMOUS!”
The OP’s poll divisions don’t really apply to many of us.
E.g., I am quite well known (by name) in my field. There’s even a Wikipedia article with my name attached for one of my research results. Huge number of Google hits.
But millions? I don’t think so, yet a really good size number. OTOH, internationally? Definitely yes.
I am known to a few dozen people on the interwebs, since I have a Deviant Art website (as Gytalf2000) where I occasionally inset photos of myself. In the world of my fetish, “Superheroines in KO-Peril”, my status could just possibly be likened to that of a rock-star. I draw pics of myself as the “Dastardly Disruptor”, the short, fat, longhaired and bearded fiend who goes around knocking out scantily-clad superheroines with his enormously-elongated pinky fingernails. There are even some Poser pics of this character, the old wizard, Donald Aldous Whateley, the Dastardly Disruptor, done by some artist friends of mine.
Besides that – nope, pretty much a nuthin’, just blendin’ in with the regular folks, out there with the teeming millions…
Awe yes, yes, that sounds oddly unfamiliar but I am sure millions of people love it with all these superhero movies gracing the cinemas these days and whatnot. I will be sure to peruse your gallery with an intense eye if the opportunity ever presents itself. Have a glorious day and congratulations on your very influential work fine sir.
I’ve had a articles written about me, a few mentions online, and I’m on a Wikipedia list of something or other, but if you Google my name you’ll get a spelling suggestion and very few results actually relating to me(Strangely, the top 4 pictures are of me), so clearly I am worthless to society.
