My Life As a Small-time Celebrity

All of us have wondered what it's like to be famous at one point in our life. I'm here to tell you my (short-term) experience with it in a brief expose.

Place: Spirit West Coast Christian Music Festival, May 2012
Goal: Become a local celebrity at the festival.
ACHIEVEMENT REACHED!

I decided to dress up as Waldo just for fun. As Nate, I was a friendly, somewhat crazy guy. As Waldo, I was a fun, somewhat crazy guy who everyone knew! Everyone talked about me in low voices as I passed. People stopped me and gave me hugs. I heard the joyful exclamation, "I found you!" countless times, and took more pictures with people than I can count! I ended up in the middle of a Family Force 5 mosh pit, and was apparently all over the screens. It was a blast, and I was a celebrity for a day. I couldn't go anywhere without being noticed!

Let me let you in real quick on my motivation for doing this. I do crazy and strange stuff sometimes just to make people smile. Humans laugh and smile at things that are out of the ordinary, so I do things that are unexpected, things that no one does. I have no issue whatsoever with being the center of attention, to be honest, I love it. But I mostly do these things just to make people's lives that much more joyful.

Lessons were learned though. Fame is fun for a day, but by the end of the day, it gets tiring. You can only hear your name whispered behind your back so many times before you want to change your name. (Maybe that explains Meta World Peace? Nah...) Waldo was the perfect way to learn the price of fame. I can be famous or not simply by putting on or taking off a costume. It was great, I could choose when to be me and when to be Waldo. But consider before you get famous...do you really want to have all that pressure all the time? Could you handle it?