On Breathing the Same Air as B.J. Novak

What's your name?
What's your name?
What's your name?
--David Bowie, "Fame"

B.J. Novak, whose claim to fame is playing the temp on the TV show The Office, epitomizes the B-list celebrity. (That is a generous assessment.) One might recognize his now older face, but what's his name? 

Best known for a supporting role in a TV series that went off the air in 2013,  Novak was the star speaker at a conference I attended last week. After waiting two days and fighting crowds to get a good seat to hear his closing address, I soon realized he had nothing to say about the conference’s express topic. He did not even try to be relevant but dined out on old stories of college pranks and episodes of The Office.

None of this stopped the audience, who came from as far as Iowa and Arizona, from applauding thunderously at the end of his address or laughing enthusiastically at what barely qualified as jokes. These were serious businesspeople willing to forgive the conference’s organizers for the programmatic lapse because they had provided something more valuable than business acumen: proximity to celebrity.

I recognize self-congratulatory applause when I hear it -- it is the sound made when an audience robotically approves of its own surpassing taste and good fortune for breathing the same air as a famous person. Many are desperate to be proximal to fame. Fame warps and contorts. It makes sane people do embarrassing things, like chasing after Liza Minnelli.

Except that B.J. Novak is not really all that famous. He is only an occasional actor who sees himself foremost as a writer.

I don’t have much against B.J. Novak. He seemed like a decent enough guy, albeit a bit of a sell-out, for accepting what must be a handsome fee for appearing at a conference to which he added little. He did not even prepare a keynote; rather, he sat in conversation and fielded flattering softball questions lobbed by a sycophantic interviewer. Nice work if you can get it. I suppose I would sit and talk to someone for an hour for (I am guessing) 10 grand or more plus travel expenses.

These days, I am a little less likely to make a fool of myself just to see a famous person whose name I barely know. But there is no guarantee I won’t.

We want to be near famous people because we think celebrity adjacency will somehow transport us to a higher place or that the cultural currency we receive will be something we can share with friends and family -- or raise our stock on social media.

I have been down this road many times, but today, I require someone more resonant than the guy who played the temp on The Office to get excited.