07.01.2025

Why chasing peak fame can be self-destructive

Explore the hidden costs of influence and fame. Learn why the pursuit of peak influence can lead to damaging attacks, loss of privacy, and a decline in meaningful impact.

Words: Tunku Sophia

Brad Pitt and George Clooney on the Red Carpet of Venice Film Festival 2024.

Photo credit: Getty

Ah, the siren song of internet fame – where everyone dreams of being a thought leader until they actually become one. It's rather like wanting to be a lion tamer until you meet your first angry lion. Let's explore why chasing maximum influence might not be the smartest move for your long-term sanity.

Picture this: you're sharing your brilliant insights about life, perhaps through witty Tiktok reels or thoughtful articles. At first, you're essentially shouting into the void, with only your mother and that one loyal friend consistently engaging with your content. But persist long enough, and something magical happens – people actually start paying attention.

This is where things get interesting, and by interesting, I mean potentially catastrophic. You see, influence follows a rather inconvenient curve, much like that time you tried to perfect your signature and ended up with something that looks like a seismograph reading during an earthquake.

The influence curve by Roosh Valizadeh.

The sweet spot on this curve is rather like finding the perfect temperature for your morning coffee – it exists, but push past it, and you're in for a painful experience. At this point, you have enough influence to make a difference but not enough to have powerful entities plotting your downfall over their morning croissants.

However, many ambitious men, drunk on the irresistible of growing influence and popularity, decide to push further. "More followers!" they cry, "More engagement!" This is approximately as wise as poking a sleeping bear while wearing a suit made of honey.

Past the sweet spot, each marginal gain in influence comes with an exponential increase in headaches. Suddenly, you're spending less time creating insightful content and more time explaining to angry netizens why that thing you said in 2012 about pineapple on pizza wasn't actually a declaration of war against Italy.

The truly amusing part? The peak influence you might achieve beyond the sweet spot is typically only about 20% higher, but comes with 200% more problems. It's rather like upgrading your car's horsepower by 20% but having to hire a full-time mechanic who lives in your garage.

When you find yourself googling "how to detect if my sandwich is poisoned" or "best disguises for grocery shopping," you've probably crossed the threshold. If you're taking different routes to work each day like you're in a spy novel, you've definitely gone too far.

The solution, counterintuitive as it may seem, is to deliberately limit your influence once you've reached that sweet spot. This requires the sort of self-restraint typically reserved for walking past a bakery while on a diet. It means occasionally looking at viral opportunities and saying, "No, I don't think I will cause an international incident today."

Your ego, of course, will protest this decision with the enthusiasm of a toddler denied candy. It will whisper seductively about the headlines you could make, the chaos you could cause, the spectacular riots that would surely boost your follower count. But remember: the goal is to be a thought leader, not the star of your own reality show titled "Things Gone Terribly Wrong."

The true art lies in maintaining meaningful influence while avoiding the kind of attention that requires you to hire a PR propaganda. It's about being influential enough to make a difference but not so influential that you need to study CIA evasion tactics as bedtime reading.

Will anyone take this advice? Probably not. The allure of maximum influence is like a moth to flame, if the moth were wearing a GoPro and livestreaming the whole thing for their followers. But perhaps, just perhaps, a few wise souls will recognize that sometimes, enough is simply enough.

And if you find yourself wavering, remember: the moment you need to hire bodyguards is the moment you should probably consider a nice, quiet pivot to gardening content.

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