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Anne Pogoda
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What is anonymity?

Journal Entry: Tue Apr 21, 2009, 3:28 PM





OK this is not what it looks like.
I am not talking about the internet, but I am talking about how this is going to ruin my homework assignment for tomorrow because I spent all day arguing this case with a friend.

Part of our assignment is to define what is a star and what is anonymous.

1 -My friend says that stars are anonymous of which you hear nothing in the news.

2 -But I say just because SHE doesn't see them on TV today doesn't mean that they are anonymous.

1 -She then said they stay anonymous until they do some shit which then is in the news.

2 -But wouldn't that proof that cameras have been around then?
Stars aren't regular people, they can't forbid you to take photos and write any shit about them you want. They can sue your magazine, TV station or whatever, but then the news is out and you've already made lotsa money with it, so the magazine or whatever that gets sued could care less. (This is what often happens, sueing I mean, just look at Tom Cruise's biography.)

So I say stars are anything but anonymous. Would you disagree? And why?




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:icontizrak:
*Tizrak Apr 21, 2009, 3:34:45 PM
I'd say whether a star is 'anonymous' or not depends on how likely they are to be recognized in public. For example, if you were shopping and Mel Gibson or Sigourney Weaver picked up a head of lettuce next to you, you would probably recognize them - so they can't be anonymous any time they are in public (unless they used drastic disguise methods to alter or hide their appearance).

On the other hand, odds are that the protagonist of _Breaking Bad_ (whose name, alas, I cannot remember) could probably pick up that head of lettuce and no one would look at him twice. So he can be anonymous in public as long as he doesn't run into that rare fan that *would* recognize him ... and even if that fan did recognize him and chat with him, the result would probably be an individual conversation (followed by each person going their own way) rather than a crowd of fans ruining his shopping trip.
:iconjpjohansson:
*JPJohansson Apr 21, 2009, 3:38:37 PM
This is what Wikipedia has to say:
Anonymity is derived from the Greek word ανωνυμία, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, the term typically refers to a person, and often means that the personal identity, or personally identifiable information of that person is not known.

As I interpret it it means that as long as they are not recognized, stars can be anonymous.
In every other situation, being a star is the exact opposite of anonymity.

--
Although you are still a mass, you are no longer an event in spacetime; you are a non-event mass with a quantum probability of zero.
:iconmytharcana:
~MythArcana Apr 21, 2009, 3:39:21 PM
Anyone in the public eye has notoriety in the standard form of media that we know of, not including the Internet as you state. Those extras in the Evil Dead 2? Yup, they have fans who know who they are. That little old lady in the toilet paper commercial? Yup, we might not know her name but we know her face. Just because you don't personally have an RSS feed straight to your computer doesn't mean nobody isn't watching.

Being anonymous means having no identity, no face, no name, no status. Even the grip guys on Hollywood movie sets aren't anonymous. After all, they are standing right next to Joe Famous and making him look great. That's how they got in the business to begin with - they have notoriety and reputations for doing good work. But perhaps maybe you just haven't heard of super grip guy.

--
<<-+-<[MythArcana]>-+->>
:iconfaerywitch:
~faerywitch Apr 21, 2009, 3:43:31 PM
I think that they are as anonymous as they choose to be. There are a lot of stars that carry a rather regular life and they don't make a big deal about it, they are not as to say "camera whores". I can think of many people that work in the show biz that are away from the spotlight.
Then there are those who pretend that don't want to be associated to the cameras, but they don't keep their life private. And then there are those that love to be in the tabloids and don't pretend anything.

--
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:iconjardel-karabella:
~Jardel-Karabella Apr 21, 2009, 4:13:17 PM
Anonymity != Not Famous at the time

Some stars do work uncredited, that would be doing the work anonymously if they are not easily or publicly identified in the work they're doing.

I suppose you could make an argument that Marilyn Munroe and John Wayne were "anonymous" (along with all Disneyland performers) in that they were basically under threat of eternal unemployment if they ever used to their real names. But that doesn't happen very often anymore... outside the tyranny of Disney.
:iconkencho:
*Kencho Apr 21, 2009, 4:37:58 PM
Anonymous is not the opposite of famous in my opinion. There's still a grey area between those concepts.

To me:
:bulletblue: A star is someone with a significatively high number of people that would try to imitate him/her and buy everything he/she sells.
:bulletblue: Anonymous is someone with a significatively low number of people that would know who he/she is by just listening his/her name or watching his/her photo.

Now, what is actually relative is how much (or few) "significative" is. Someone can be famous in the world of music but not in the world of academic science investigation, and viceversa ;) Also, a person may consider someone famous while other might say they're not "enough" famous.

I'm not sure to have explained my point of view correctly, but the idea is there :)
:iconsijeney:
=sijeney Apr 21, 2009, 4:46:21 PM
The way I understand "anonymous" is that it's completely opposite from famous. In other words, if no one knows your name when you walk down the street, you're anonymous. Stars can't be anonymous, not even if they immigrate to a shack in Siberia. We'll still know their names and what they look like even if we don't see them in the public eye anymore.

--
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:deviation:
:icondarkfixation:
~DarkFixation Apr 21, 2009, 5:37:15 PM
The simple fact that the figure is classified as a star indicates that they are a public figure, ie, public or common knowledge is a complete contradiction of wiki's(according to ~JPJohansson's research) and most interpretations of the word/state, in other words Anne is right,her friend is wrong:D

Hope your assignment goes well.

--
"He who becomes a beast, gets rid of the pain of being a man"- Hunter.S.Thompson
:iconhotgreentoes:
!Hotgreentoes Apr 21, 2009, 7:36:54 PM
The fact that you know their name, but they don't know your's means they are not completely anonymous. Even if they are not splattered all over the news, you are aware that they exist.
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