One recent Thursday afternoon, I was working in a cafe on my work at “home” day. This place has free wireless, so there were quite a few folks with computers scattered about with both Macs and PCs. (I use a Mac.)

Then this guy came in to say that they were filming a story for channel 2 news about the Apple battery recall. He went around to each person individually and explained that they were going to take some background shots for the story and asked if it would be okay to be included. I was fine with it. For the next hour, the cameraman did as he explained. I also saw the reporter talking with someone, presumably about the story.

The next day at work, a coworker came up to me and said that he saw me on the TV news the previous night. It was just for a few seconds, but he says he pointed at the screen and said “I know that guy!” (I didn’t have the heart to mention that I was there during office hours.)

This is the second time I’ve been on TV news this year. In May, a coworker told me that she saw me on TV waiting at the starting line in the Bay to Breakers. So far, I’m handling the paparazzi with cool indifference.

The purpose of this entry really is twofold. The first is to brag about how I’ve been on TV. The second is to wonder out loud why people brag about being on TV even in such incidental instances such as this. It was really just a matter of being in the right place at the right time; I didn’t really “deserve” it.

Okay, sure I wasn’t home, which increases my broadcast odds (not a lot of filming goes on inside my apartment) — and I guess both times I was at a place or event which the media considers a place “to see and be seen” (a concept I find abhorrent). But the pride one feels and the recognition one gets seems all out of proportion to the actual significance. It’s as though fame (lame as it is in this circumstance) is an intrinsic currency to humanity that is universally understood and ingrained over years of social evolution. That is, people have evolved to value fame even if it’s just for fame’s sake.

The relatively recent invention of television (relative to how long people have been around) increases this fame exposure by an order of magnitude. I’m not sure social evolution has been able to catch up. People exaggerate the significance of being on television. Except since everyone does it, it’s not really an exaggeration. C’mon, when I say “Hey I was on TV”, don’t you just for a moment sit up and think, “Oh wow, pretty cool.”

Please everyone, welcome me to world of attention whore-dom.