I do not wish them the fame of the Famke Louise family

Who the hell are all these famous people? Where did they come from suddenly? When are you really a celebrity?

I remember a conversation with Martin Brill who said we’re BNCs. The famous Dutch are in Class C. Our faces were recognized, but they didn’t know exactly who we were and what we were doing.

“Aren’t you from TV?”

Such a sentence is always shameful. Somewhere I have failed. You are not that Nobel Prize winner or beautiful member who makes every funeral an unforgettable meeting, but you are “known from television” and that’s it.

I now see celebrities who are frequently said to be Dutch, who are well known and “very influential”.

Very touching – and I don’t know them, even though I spend more than double my conditional monthly salary on subscriptions every year.

Can they sing beautifully? Can they particularly play the violin? Do they have opinions about which I take off my hat? They hardly speak Dutch, not because they come from abroad, but perhaps because of a lack of proper education, which is always close to my heart.

In reality, they couldn’t do anything. Well, nothing great. exactly the contrary. I think they’re famous for recognizable shameless stupidity. A teen sees a blogger like this and thinks: if he or she becomes famous for a fake, I can also become famous for a fake.

Femk Louise can’t do anything good. He does not sing well, does not behave well. Everything is less than a little.

I have nothing against fame. exactly the contrary. The benefits of goodwill are desirable. But over time, the cause of fame shifted 180 degrees. Don’t become like that because you can do something exceptional, instead become famous because that praise is your goal. Great writers, great actors and great transmitters of culture – they don’t know their names. Top surgeons, oncologists, virologists, and lung specialists – they just don’t have a million followers.

I do not wish them the fame of the Famke Louise family. It is unfair. They seem to have an effect. In fact, it must be so that a writer like, say, Pieter Waterdrinker, the author of the commendable book The Amsterdam RatShould it have a thousand times more impact than Mrs. Louise? But so is composer Willem Geths, flute player Lucy Horsh or guitarist Harry Saccione.

They gain millions of followers every day. And the effect.

Theodore Holman (1953) is a columnist, writer, television and radio producer. You can read his column here every day, except on Sundays. Read all of his columns in the archive.

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