Celebrity News:

I want to be famous so bad it makes me nauseous sometimes.

I'll be lying in bed, drifting off to sleep, thinking about missed opportunities, all the days I've wasted being wasted and then the thought of dying obscure and unheralded scuffles out from under my pillow and it'll jolt me awake like I've stepped off a curb in a dream.

Why? Apart from the obvious benefits to one's social life and bank balance - it's the experience I crave - just to know what it would be like, to join that club where people "get it", who understand social dynamics so acutely they've risen to prominence.

The bizarre thing is that as a society we've never been so fame hungry - yet we're ferociously contemptuous of people who are naked in their desire for renown; it's unseemly, you have to let fame find you.

As noted previously in this blog, the Greek philosopher Aristotle considered the drive for fame to be one of humanity's most noble aspirations, for "fame means being respected by everybody, or having some quality that is desired by all men, or by most, or by the good, or by the wise".

However, when Aristotle scratched these words out on parchment, men achieved fame by doing something better than anybody else - being an incredible athlete, marvellous orator, superb warrior or original thinker; now you can get famous by sobbing about Britney on YouTube ...

I try hard not to be too contemptuous of fame-whores reality TV contestants because I profoundly understand the impulse to want to be known.

My neighbour, Eugene "Spiro" Tan, who shoots pictures of Bondi Beach for his site Aquabumps, says he's astonished at how even the most conservative women will parade in front of his lens, hoping to squeeze their way into his daily email to 25,000 subscribers.

"Back and forth they'll walk in their bikinis - for 20 minutes at a time," he told me yesterday while I pumped him for blog post ideas.

Why? It's all about self-expression, self-actualisation, I guess, some sign that you're not hurtling through time and space unacknowledged.

I have to wonder if this is the same impulse that drives many people to video themselves having sex; any half-sentient being understands that if you record yourself rooting, it's probably going to end up being seen by more than just you and your partner.

I mean Duh - that's why you did it right? So people would talk about you or so they'd see you have a nice body or so your mates would think you're a legend. You're being duplicitous or naive if you think it's for some kind of personal keepsake.

What fascinates me is the people who we - media consumers - choose to make famous.

Take for example "The Britney Guy" Chris Crocker and Eduardo Arias.

Crocker is a 19-year-old gay American man who posted a funny but moving video on YouTube defending Britney Spears while Arias is a 51-year-old Panamanian dude who read the label on a 59 cent tube of toothpaste and noticed it contained diethylene glycol (a deadly ingredient of antifreeze).

Said The New York Times this week: "Arias reported his discovery, setting off a worldwide hunt for tainted toothpaste that turned out to be manufactured in China. Health alerts have now been issued in 34 countries [including Australia], from Vietnam to Kenya, from Tonga in the Pacific to Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean.

"Canada found 24 contaminated brands and New Zealand found 16. Japan had 20 million tubes. Officials in the United States unwittingly gave the toothpaste to prisoners, the mentally disabled and troubled youths. Hospitals gave it to the sick, while high-end hotels gave it to the wealthy.

"The toothpaste scare helped galvanise global concerns about the quality of China's exports in general, prompting the Government there to promise to reform how food, medicine and consumer products are regulated. And other countries are re-examining how well they monitor imported products."

"A little butterfly in Panama beat her wings and created a storm in China."

Now guess who's got his own TV show? (For the hardheads it's not the old brown guy, he didn't even get mentioned in the thousands of news stories about the toothpaste scare until the Times tracked him down this week).

I know which bloke I'd prefer to watch a reality TV show about - but I don't wanna give TV execs any bad ideas.

"Hey, why don't we do a Rio de Janeiro slum version of Big Brother. There'll be knife-fights and malnutrition and the loser has to sell a pint of their blood each week to pay their rent! It'll be like City of God meets Survivor."

Tell me this concept isn't far off ... what's more people would probably move from Sydney or LA for a chance to be part of the cast. The allure of fame ... don't say you're immune to it.

I had a watershed opportunity to become famous when I was 23 years old, living in New York City and I went on a date with a very well-known actress.

I had dinner with her because I was a tabloid reporter at the time, but things got amorous quickly and she made it quite clear she was interested in in taking the de Brito Taste Test.

If I had followed through, fame would have beckoned, but it would have been for the wrong reasons, plus, I did have a girlfriend who I was in love with.

(To put this in perspective, the actress went on one platonic date with another Aussie and it was front-page news across Australia. The actress and I laughed about how this guy had milked it - how she'd not even been interested in him in "that way", before she tried to kiss me and invited me upstairs to her 5th Avenue apartment. I declined.)

I reckon if you offered Eduardo Arias his own TV show, he'd jump at the chance because he doesn't sound flush for cash - he "grew up on a reservation paddling dugout canoes", now "lives in a small apartment above a food stand in Panama" and "doesn't own a car".

He also works for the Panamanian government reviewing environmental reports, so I reckon "his show" would need to be about helping people or the planet not him losing weight or singing karaoke.

While I crave fame, I want it to be for just one thing - my achievements, specifically my novels.

Being noticed in a bikini on Bondi Beach is something of an accomplishment (there's plenty of competition). Posting a video on YouTube can be kind of tricky (what's an mpeg again?). Tappin' a celeb, well, it's not that difficult to start with but as Dodi Fayed proved, it can get dicey as you progress.

All those options sound fun, they just don't strike me as fulfilling as writing a great book.

Probably quicker.