Pop17 Launches

I just read over on TechCrunch that “micro celebrity” videoblogger Sarah Meyers just launched here latest project. Pop17, as its called, is a videoblog looking directly at the age of the internet micro celebrity. Her first official interview is with Jamie Wilkinson, who teaches a class called “Internet Famous” over at Parsons New School for Design. The interesting bent on his class is that his students actually get graded on how “internet famous” they can make themselves. Pretty cool.

Check out Sarah’s first Pop17 interview!

One interesting not about this current age of the “internet micro celebrity”, is that the online an offline worlds of celebrity are slowly but surely merging. It was just a few years back that you could be a huge star on the internet.. but yet have pretty much no recognition walking down the street. Now, I think we’ve entered a stage where internet micro-celebrities are fast becoming internet-macro celebrities, and at the same time becoming “on the street”.

Example? Sure. How about Jessica Rose’s “Lonelygirl15“? She started off with regular supposedly non-fictional video blog posts detailing unfolding drama of “Brie”, a 16 year old videoblogger who frequently gave shout-outs to her online friends. Beginning with those shout-outs, as well as compelling content, “Brie” quickly gained a following. And when the jig was up and people realized it was all fiction, her star power, instead of being stripped, skyrocketed. And now, you’ve got Carmen Electra spoofing her, and Jessica Rose appearing in the ABC Family Network TV show “Greek“. Posting grainy video clips to a then-fledgling site network all the way to syndication on a major TV broadcast network.

Update Update*** Sarah Meyers had a talk with Steve Chen, who confirmed that yes, there will be LIVE VIDEO on YouTube this year. ReadWriteWeb has it too. Now you can become “Internet Famous” in real-time.