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<DIV id=storyDate-Links><SPAN class=pubDate>Posted on Sat, Oct. 24, 2009</SPAN>
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<H2 id=storyTitle>Balloon hoax exemplifies perverse era</H2>
<P class=byline>By LEONARD PITTS, JR.<BR><A
href="mailto:lpitts@MiamiHerald.com">lpitts@MiamiHerald.com</A></P>
<DIV id=storyBody><SPAN class=dropcap-large>F</SPAN>or hours, the fear was that
the boy would be found smashed to jelly somewhere, so my first emotion upon
learning that 6-year-old Falcon Heene was actually safe in his family's Fort
Collins, Colo. attic, was relief.
<P>When authorities said two days later that the whole story of a boy trapped in
a balloon floating away was an elaborate hoax perpetrated by a family hoping to
land a reality TV show, I suppose my second emotion was the anger anyone feels
at having their chain yanked.</P>
<P>Hard on the heels of relief and anger, though, there comes a certain soul
fatigue at the realization that we live in an era where some people are so
besotted with the need to make themselves famous that something like the alleged
Heene hoax no longer surprises in the least.</P>
<P>``Everybody is a star.'' So wrote the philosopher Sly Stone in 1969. In so
saying, he intended no declaration more radical than that each of us is special
in her or his own way.</P>
<P>Forty years later, when it sometimes seems as if every third person has a
publicist and it is harder to get off camera than on, what Stone said has come
to feel frighteningly literal -- and prescient. </P>
<P>Stardom has undergone a perverse democratization. Where once it was the prize
awarded a lucky few who earned it through rigorous honing of natural vocal
ability, comedic timing, dramatic talent, terpsichorean prowess, it is now
regarded as something anyone can have.</P>
<P>Journalism, curiously enough, has undergone a similar process. In a
development that must grate any reporter still paying off his J-School loans, it
has increasingly become the province of so-called ``citizen journalists'' and
``iReporters.''</P>
<P>Likewise, natural talent and the honing thereof are increasingly disconnected
from stardom. These days, all it takes is the willingness to be rude, crude,
lewd -- or nude, on camera. All it takes is proximity to scandal, a bizarre
video posted on YouTube, a willingness to live some caricature of one's real
life for public consumption. All it takes is a complete lack of personal
borders, self-awareness or ability to be embarrassed.</P>
<P>Heck, Levi Johnston has a modeling gig and a TV commercial and all he did was
knock up his girlfriend. Paris Hilton has a marketing empire and all she did was
have sex on tape. Kim Kardashian has a TV show and a product line, and all she
does is exist.</P>
<P>If authorities are correct, then, the heinous Heenes are simply avatars of
the new zeitgeist. Indeed, it might be argued that in an era where everybody is
a star, the only true weirdo is the person content to live his life quietly
beyond the reach of cameras.</P>
<P>Seen in that light, one can hardly blame the Heenes if they did what
authorities say, if Richard and his wife Mayumi -- both actors -- concocted the
balloon stunt as a means of making themselves famous. They once appeared on
ABC's ``reality'' show, <I>Wife Swap</I>, and Richard has been described by at
least one associate as obsessed with bizarre ideas designed to bring the family
fame.</P>
<P>The balloon stunt might have done the trick, except, of course, that Falcon
spilled the beans during an interview on CNN, saying to his father, ``You guys
said that, um, we did this for the show.'' Now, ironically, the Heenes have all
the fame they can handle, along with, at this writing, an expectation that they
will be indicted on felony charges. </P>
<P>Meantime, the rest of us are left to contemplate that zeitgeist they
exemplify, an era wherein many of us look at a lack of personal borders,
self-awareness and ability to be embarrassed and call it stardom. An era that
makes us all unwilling voyeurs to the emptiness of others' lives. Used to be,
people had more regard for themselves than to sell their dignity for our
attention.</P>
<P>I guess that balloon is not the only thing floating
away.</P></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>