Online Celebrity

"On the Internet, however, it’s not one single subjectivity but a popular hive-mind that decides. The “big break” arrives when, with lightning speed and often to one’s own surprise, the inscrutable pack decides to start forwarding one’s content around."

I particularly like the "hive-mind" tag. In a role I played on the NBC show, Dark Skies I led Jerri Lee Ryan and Eric Close back to the hive; an alien pod. That's what so-called online success is based on: getting groups of friends to declare you the winner of whatever the online contest is. Real success though is even more scarce here than the traditional merit-based route, be it publishing fiction, talking about it, or journalism. On the contrary, it almost never happens at all, save in the minds of the entrants. Shoot for the real thing. It's still real after all these years.