The Price of Fame – $68

Well, maybe that should read, “the price FOR fame…”

Don’t believe everything you read, especially on the Internet.  This week Santiago Swallow became seemingly hugely popular.  Santiago, with his high cheekbones and dirty blond, collar-length hair, had 80,000 Twitter followers.  His Wikipedia biography explained him as, “a Mexican-born, American motivational speaker, consultant, educator, and author, whose speeches and publications focus on understanding modern culture in the age of social networking, globally interconnected media, user generated content and the Internet.”  I right this in past tense because, Mr. Swallow’s existence was even slighter than the bird he was named for.  Don’t worry, this isn’t about a person who died.

This is about a persona that was created by Kevin Ashton of Quartz , and based solely in social media.  See, Santiago Swallow isn’t anymore real that the blue “verified account” check mark that showed on his Twitter page.  The check mark was added to his cover image to fool people into thinking it was actually a verified account.  And his 80,000 followers were bought on the web site fiverr.com.  Santiago’s creator wrote his biography on Wikipedia, and created a website for him on WordPress.  Kevin says, in his article about Santiago , that it took about 2 hours and only $68 to create this character.

Always remember, don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.