Narcissism, Marketing, and Entrepreneurship
Leonardo
It is high time that we update the old saying attributed to Andy Warhol: “Everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” We have created a world where “Everyone has to be famous for fifteen minutes.”
Why you ask? Because the world we’ve created is a look-at-me world. It’s a world where obscurity guarantees failure. To many who have grown up with MySpace and Facebook and now Twitter, this will actually be more than obvious, it will be a tautology. “How could it be otherwise?” Isn’t popularity what we mean by success? Well, it is now. But it hasn’t alway been this way.
Let’s look at a well-known example: Leonardo da Vinci. He compiled one of the most impressive collections of drawings and ideas. Not only did he not feel compelled to shout “look at my stuff” from the palazzo rooftops, but he went to great lengths to obscure his work. Yes, I know about the need he may have felt to protect himself from the authorities (especially the Church). But that’s not enough to explain his mindset. To a Leonardo, the work itself spelled success, not his ability to shine in public.
What does all this have to do with the title of this article? I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader for now.
