The Fleeting Impermanence of Fame

An interesting article on how famous people fall out of the collective memory. They used John Lennon as the example but the example that came to my mind was John Wayne. My youngest is a junior in college and a couple of years ago I learned she had no idea who John Wayne was!

When I thought about how this could be I realized that she didn't grow up with John Wayne re-runs on TV like I did. In fact she grew up with little TV at all. Her generation may have started with Sesame Street type shows but then transitioned to video games and then streaming TV like from Netflix. How many John Wayne movies are on Netflix? And how appealing would those movies be to her generation even if they were available?

Another example would be Al Jolson. In the 1920's he was America's most famous and highest paid entertainer. Today, if he's remembered at all, he's remembered as the guy who wore blackface. And that's certainly not the sort of non-PC thing this generation would discuss.

Fame certainly is fleeting.