"Once upon 'the day,' before recorded music and LONG before TV or
video technologies, there were many more tiers of celebrity, from the
couple of guys at the hardware store who had a decent string quartet, up
to the regionally famous songwriters or vaudvillians, up to the Mega-stars
of the day (who were generally only known by those rich enough to afford
to go see shows that had to pay to cart these people around). After the
advent of those technologies, though, the big stars got bigger and the
lower tiers all but disappeared. Now, with the advent of the internet and
globalization technologies, we really are seeing a growth in those lower
tier celebs again, but it's not bounded geographically anymore." --
mishamish,
2006-01-25