"I'm famous on the Internet"

So I've been fussing with this math for several days.  I finally figured it out: I was making it entirely more complicated than it needed to be.  Figures, eh?  Just like me.

I've been pondering the concept of Internet fame.  I follow Wil Wheaton's and Neil Gaiman's Twitters, along with several others (Fred Gallagher, Dave Kellett, Zoë Keating), and am constantly amused by them, and I feel connected to them.  Yes, I know, it's a standard celebrity thing, but it's cool to have a different sort of look into their lives: a personal one, rather than a media-official one - which is why I like reading Wil Wheaton's blog so much.  Not only because he's a writer who knows how to write well, but because it's way more down-to-earth and approachable than, say, reading an interview.  (I'd read Neil Gaiman's blog too, but with the amount of feeds in my Google Reader, that might be a few months away.  I think I would like to read into the archives of his blog, so I'd like to have a day where I don't feel bad about neglecting other things to do so.  ^^; )

I've been considering why it is these people (and many, many others whom I could list) have hit it big on the Internet - and wondering if they would be so successful, say, thirty or forty years ago.  I don't think so.  The general populace of today is a strangely different beast (but then, any generation could say that), with our instant-access addiction (it's so true!) and off-kilter etiquette.  I only wish the Netiquette that seems to be prevailing in civilized corners of cyberspace would spread to the real world - but that's a rant for another time.

In pondering why these people are big names on the 'Net (I recently heard it put that one of the first things anyone does when they get a Twitter account is follow @wilw, which made me giggle), I wondered just what it takes to become an Internet phenomenon.  Do you have to make a fool of yourself?  (Looking back at the past four years of posts, that shouldn't be hard.  XD)  Do you have to be brilliant at what you do?  (This one seems more likely, with the people I follow actively at least, but then it's not a rule: there are many people who are phenomena for not being brilliant ... but are they more gawked at, or listened to?)

Oh, and in other news, 4+x (my boyfriend, if you didn't know already) has hooked me onto classical techno remix.  It's honestly addictive.  I'm listening to a remix of the Bagatelle in a-Moll für Elise (yes, it's more commonly known as just Für Elise, I'm just being my music-geek self: the actual names are often much more interesting than the common names), and I want to dance.  Or rather, groove.  ... No, I suppose one could choreograph this.  Ballet to techno!  I'd so watch that.  Now it's changed to the Toccata und Fuge in d-Moll.  *headbang*

Connecting to dancing, and also to 4+x: I took an hour-long introduction to ballroom dancing Monday morning (meringue and jive), and was astonished at how simple it is in principle.  Even better, 4+x agreed to learn with me!  I'm quite excited about this now, as I've wanted to dance since I was little, even though I'm not suited for professional ballet (which is what I took briefly) - gotta be triple threat in this world, eh?

I'm going to have to find a way to keep these from becoming blurbs of random musings, and actually giving them subjects.  (Might take a while.)