Why is he famous?

[Sergio Mendacious]

I mean, I hate Clarkson and I'm not interested in cars, and also have a fun story about my uncle getting a free rod license to stop him lamping Jeremy, but he's clearly decent at presenting telly.

[deathrey]

I knew someone would say that but I disagree for the aforementioned reasons - being smug and self absorbed. He wants all the focus, presenters aren't supposed to do that.

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

52 minutes ago, Chili said:

He's a cunt, but I always point to any documentaries he's done that aren't about cars and the subject matter means he can't steer it to him and he's actually alright. Frustrating, because he really is such an arsehole especially an opinion writer in shit newspapers.

Yep the documentaries that he has a genuine or personal interest in such as the raid on St Nazaire in France is brilliant

[Chili]

19 minutes ago, deathrey said:

I knew someone would say that but I disagree for the aforementioned reasons - being smug and self absorbed. He wants all the focus, presenters aren't supposed to do that.

I think the reason he is famous then is probably because on OG Top Gear, him being smug and having something of a character to him is why he achieved anything, because that show was incredibly fucking dull unless he was on it because he genuinely stood out and was quite an easy person for impressionists and parody which probably sustained him to the public eye. In the very early 90-mid 90's (until they got Quentin Wilson on too, who was also rather smug but extremely dry so got away with it).

Now if he disappeared off TV when OG Top Gear got sacked off around 1999. Yeah, I think we'd all be fine, his second go round is what I think people really get marmite about him for.

Anyway, most examples of people I wanted to suggest in this thread mostly go to the answer nepo baby. Its hard to actually think of anyone genuinely famous and not have at least a base reason for it. I think Barney Walsh and Ronan Kemp are good examples of egregious nepotism. Abi Titmuss would be a great example back when of why are you famous when I believe it was being in a sex tape with John Leslie, it's a pretty flimsy reason, she did well from it mind. Ingrid Tarrant went into a TV presenting career because she got divorced.

Edited August 17 by Chili

[TibBo]

I don’t watch much tv, but over the past few years i’ve noticed adverts where they have to put captions up saying who the person in the advert is…

If they were famous/influential enough to sell your product, and justify you hiring them, you wouldn’t need to put their name on the screen.

Fame is a weird thing these days.

[deathrey]

I mean, there is a reason that everyone who is famous is famous. Most reality TV/influencers whilst people say are famous for nothing, do actually do something. Kim Kardashian was also famous for having a sex tape but now is famous for lots of other reasons.

I was taking this topic more as someone who is famous but is not actually good at what they are famous for 

[davertfnewman]

2 hours ago, deathrey said:

Jeremy Clarkson - likes to talk about himself a lot so not a great presenter, comes across as smug and self important and thoroughly unlikeable. Given he's a presenter, that kind of goes against the whole point of him.

I had a negative impression of him entirely until he was on an episode of Room 101 and he nominated two or three things that applied to neighbours who were annoying us a lot, so he won me over a little.

[Chili]

6 minutes ago, deathrey said:

I mean, there is a reason that everyone who is famous is famous. Most reality TV/influencers whilst people say are famous for nothing, do actually do something. Kim Kardashian was also famous for having a sex tape but now is famous for lots of other reasons.

I was taking this topic more as someone who is famous but is not actually good at what they are famous for 

Honestly my bad here deathrey, I genuinely kind of misconstrued the topic pal. 

[TibBo]

Any American comedian that is friends with Joe Rogan. 

[deathrey]

14 minutes ago, Chili said:

Honestly my bad here deathrey, I genuinely kind of misconstrued the topic pal. 

To be fair, I may have understood the topic incorrectly. I'll let @Lorne Malvo clear it up 

[davertfnewman]

30 minutes ago, TibBo said:

Any American comedian that is friends with Joe Rogan. 

Excellent suggestion. I'm guessing we're talking Bryan Callen, Brendan Schaub, Bert Kreischer, Tom Segura, Duncan Trussell, Ari Shaffir... And there's a reason why some started to back away from the "Death Squad".

[HandsomeButchIII]

12 hours ago, Lorne Malvo said:

There are a lot of celebrities that I don't like, or am completely indifferent to, but I can at least understand why they're popular - maybe they appeal to a different demographic, or they are talented but just don't appeal to me, etc. For example, I'm not a massive fan of Graham Norton but can understand that the majority of people like his show, so fair enough. Or I might hate Lewis Capaldis music but I'm obviously not his target audience.

Who are those celebrities that are so rubbish that you just don't understand how they got to the position they're in?

For me, Alan Titchmarsh is right up there.

He's just rubbish! Firstly, his gardening shows are absolutely fine if you're into that sort of thing*, but Titchmarsh is always the most boring part of them. Then somehow he inexplicably wormed his way into getting a Paul O'Grady esque ITV chatshow, but just isn't cut out for the format at all. He can't finish a sentence / question without trailing off into a dozen non sequiturs, all of his attempts at humour miss the mark and he seems half asleep most of the time.

I didn't like Parkinson or Tony Blackburn but can understand they might have a certain charm or twinkle in their eye that might appeal to the old 'uns out there. But I just find Titchmarsh utterly charmless and inadequate as a broadcaster. Utter shite.

Which celebrities level of fame do you find puzzling? 

*they have Frances Tophill on so how bad can they be?

Titchmarsh is great. He's like a Christina Trevanion, a Paul O'Grady, a Gloria Hunniford or an Angela Rippon. An inoffensive safe pair of hands for daytime TV. In a world in which he have Jeremy Kyles, Piers Morgans, Richard Thief Madeley, and Ed Balls throwing piss all over the telly I'll take a Titchmarsh all day. I'm actually hoping Jack Hargreaves is reincarnated to have a bit of feed with Titchmarsh and James Martin.

Edited August 18 by HandsomeButchIII

[DavidB6937]

Fame is different these days. Just like fame changed when Big Brother started. Simply through the nature of how media is consumed. Fame used to be a big exclusive thing when you think about true Hollywood stars and how they were treated. Same when you look at music stars around that time too.

But now there's so many different ways to get famous. We can all put ourselves out there for anyone to see or watch. Obviously there's different levels.

Personally the nepo hires do grate me a bit if they're not actually good at anything but it's all in context. Barney Walsh is good in that show with his dad but he's obviously not a good presenter or actor so the Gladiators and Casualty gigs are questionable.

Influencers are just another stage of fame based on how the newer generations consume stuff. Print advertising used to be so important but now you can get a far quicker and immediate impact via socials. Same with YouTubers in general - as much as I don't really use it myself, the bigger ones are absolute machines and all credit to them to be able to keep that rolling so fast.

Anyway my answer is James Corden. Fuck him.

[Scratch]

To this day, I can never understand how Michael Barrymore made it as big as he did. Back when there were only four channels, fame was proper fame and I like to think you really did have to be something special for one of the TV companies to put you on over someone else.

He was massively popular though, but could never see why. He wasn’t really talented, fumbled over his words quite a lot, wasn’t particularly likeable and was clearly going to be a tabloid headline in the making. As a kid, I couldn’t stand him and just couldn’t work out why he was being pushed down the throats of mainstream audiences for so long.

He’s given Astro a lot of material, mind - so he had a career that was worth it in the grand scheme of things.

[davertfnewman]

As I recall, in the first few series of Strike It Lucky Barrymore was more reserved and stuck to the game part of the show but when they realised they had something with him chatting with the guests they shifted the focus to that. That was a bit more different then than it is now.