Stephen Merchant breaks down how technology has changed what it means to be famous

This article has been published to coincide with Episode Three of Mashable’s new podcast, Fiction Predictions. Listen here.

Back in the days when the internet was nothing more than a wild sci-fi concept, Hollywood stars had some semblance of privacy.

Obviously they still had recognisable faces, but they also had the security of knowing their day-to-day encounters wouldn’t go viral on Twitter.

Things are different now. In the age of camera phones and social media, there’s nowhere to hide.

On an episode of Mashable’s new podcast, Fiction Predictions, our guest Stephen Merchant spoke about the phenomena — and about how what it means to be famous has changed over time.

“If you look back in the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, Hollywood stars were very inaccessible; you saw them in movies and you saw them in magazines and that was it,” said Merchant.

Prior to televised talk shows, he explained, stars like Errol Flynn and Gary Cooper could only really be seen outside movies in the occasional pictorial.

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“It would be them in their Hollywood mansion, and it would be them diving in the pool, and them having a cocktail,” Merchant said. “But it was all very staged and very manufactured, and their true lives — and their decadent behaviour or their sexuality, and all that stuff — was kept from the public.”

Over time, however, celebrities have become more and more accessible. In the ’80s they were being hounded by paparazzi, and now — in the age of social media — Merchant believes we’ve almost come full circle.

“They’re curating their version of themselves just like those old ’50s stars did.”

“The audience demands access to their favourite stars, and so they have to be on social media or seen to be connecting and being honest and being themselves, and breaking down the walls between them and us,” he said. “But actually, they’re curating their version of themselves just like those old ’50s stars did. They’re not really presenting themselves because who wants to do that?”

And it doesn’t just stop with social media, either.

“Now, obviously, everyone has a camera, and everyone is a paparazzi to some degree, and anyone who is in the public eye is conscious that they never quite know when they’re being filmed,” explained Merchant, who went on to say he’s experienced people trying to take pictures of him on the tube without him noticing, and he’s known friends who have been filmed or photographed while they’ve slept on planes.

“So, of course, you have to be very aware of that,” he said. “You can’t be yourself because you want to be able to control what people know of you.”

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