Big Fish in a Small Pond

The Icelandic "fame game" is an interesting subculture in itself. The dynamics in our small society are ultimately extremely intricate and moreso influenced by the very plain fact that we are geographically isolated with no more than 300,000 Icelandic people. Nepotism exists in most places of the world, one would assume, but it happens to be extremely visible here; so also are the dynamics of the "fame game" as the author likes to coin it.

As far as I"m concerned, there are two seperate kinds of fame. There is fame for one"s artistry or art, performances, long and impressive careers, and so forth. Then there is fame for being, for lack of a better word "famous". (Sometimes referred to as "being known", the son of "so and so", or daughter of or girlfriend of, connected and related to, that sort of thing.) And quite possibly, it"s the most silly thing ever in such a small and interlinked society where everyone knows someone you know and probably knows a few people you know quite well!

One visible practice in the Icelandic tabloid culture, for example, is writing about other people that work in the office of the tabloid! I don"t think it"s because there is lack of things to write about or the practice of mediocre work habits, I think it"s because people write about their friends, cousins, and co-workers and find this to be normal; it is a natural extension of the culture of relationships in this small island. We interact on a much more intense level than many other cultures do: family and friends become perhaps extremely close where strangers and outsiders are kept at a safe distance (we even go the the lengths of bashing them sometimes in fear of closeness, vulnerability and competition).

Another visible practice is branding everyone and anyone FAMOUS! Everyone is famous: the famous people who are famous for being famous, the friends of the famous people, the friends of the friends of the famous people, and so on....yet most people know these people. We all know each other here to some degree.

Larger contexts and markets are pervaded by the "Paris Hiltons and the Anna Nicoles, the Star Jones husbands and the reality TV stars that didn"t make it but sold a story", and so on. Well, Icelanders have traditionally been receptive to the trends of mass media"s pop culture here but we simply don"t have the population nor the cultural variety to make this model add up without looking a bit goofy, for lack of a better word. So instead we we have the rock star, the television personlity of the month, the girl who works in the office and has big cleavage, the owner of the local clothing store, the local make-up artist, the guy who drives the expensive car, the best friend of the local make-up artist mentioned earlier, the good friend or cousin of the editor, the kid that got alienated in school (90% of Icelanders qualify here) and well, you name it. Eveyone and anyone is famous in Iceland!

This culture of extreme fabulous fame seems a bit....silly! We take pride in being a literate and an aware people and we often speak of our Icelandic culture as being stellar and abundant with knowledgable individuals.



Personally I would rather be well known for a particular accomplishment than for being famous for absolutely nothing but being famous (getting approval for a job well done tickles us all and media visibility can certainly help market certain individuals, programs, products and so forth, but being famous for wearing a see-through top or for being the girlfriend of so-and so seems less appealing and not very Icelandic if we look at our population). We have a lot of big fish in a small pond at the moment it seems people since just about anyone qualifies for amazing and fabulous Icelandic fame!

Ragnhildur Magnúsdóttir, DJ and Radio Host in Reykjavík.