Andy Warhol said, in the future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes.

I’m living in the future and fame is weirder than that.

Instead of 15 minutes worth of concentrated fame we’re getting the same amount of fame, but spread over a much longer time period. In the right light, from the right angle, some of us even look “famous.”

Momus said, on the internet everyone will be famous to fifteen people.

Some of us are famous to 15 people, or 1,500, or 15,000. None of those numbers is real fame, but because we still have these old notions of fame — that if we’ve heard of someone, they must be famous — we see fame where it isn’t.

It’s one of the fun-house mirror distortions of the internet, the ability to appear more well known than we are. Some people just have enough Twitter followers or Facebook likes to look like somebody that “everybody” knows. This distortion is a tool that artists use to leverage ourselves up into real fame.

Because fame is a very powerful tool.

Fame magnifies opportunity, it opens doors, offers help, fixes things. Fame is the most potent form of social capital. Sure, fame has drawbacks. I don’t want to be stalked by crazed fans or followed by paparazzi, but for those of us trying to get anything done in the world fame sure does look nice from the outside.

‘Fake it til you make it,’ is a tried and true tactic. Very talented and hardworking people have faked their fame until it became real. David Bowie was presented as a star for years before he ever sold any albums. One day the faking became the making.

It used to take large amounts of money to appear more famous than you were, these days all you need is the internet.

At time of writing I have 5,222 Twitter followers, more than many people have, far less than others. I don’t see it as a big number, but some people do. It’s certainly not an amount that makes me actually famous, people still read success into my follower count.

I use what fame or social capital I have to do the things I do. My art is made possible by the good will of my fans who help me beyond just buying my music or tickets to my shows. I get rides from airports, street-teams putting up posters, fans doing local PR, places to stay, and sometimes even food to eat. All of these things are vital, they are what keeps the engine running in my Impossible Career. And these things are not unique to me, musicians have a long tradition of getting this kind of help from fans. I may not have a lot of money, but my life is still rich because I receive gifts of time and space that would have a high price tag if I had to pay for them all.

These things are given to me because of my social capital, because the people giving me these things have time or money and want to help me create. My art has inspired them, and my talent is at least partly responsible, but I know that sometimes it’s the perception of my fame that makes people want to help me.

Artists use whatever amount of fame they have to build their careers.

As much as the fame distortion can help us, it can also hurt us. Because of that old fashioned notion of fame: that if you have heard someone’s name then they are famous, and if they are famous they are successful, and if they are successful they make more money than you. And if they make more money than you, they don’t need any more.

It becomes easy to justify taking digital artworks you want without paying because a) it’s not a physical thing b) it’s not hurting anyone physically c) the artist is famous and therefore probably financially well off and doesn’t need your few dollars.

The problem becomes even worse when we add the ‘transparency’ of budgets and crowdfunding goals. Talking about art and money is hard because people latch on to the big dollar amounts. Intelligent, well educated, thoughtful people can so easily forget that a budget represents money spent, not money earned. But a perceived financial success is distorted by distance, by the internet, and by fame.

To be fair, we artists are partly to blame for the sharpness of this particular double-edged sword. By “faking it til we make it” we might never make it because the fake was so convincing people feel justified in not supporting us.

We find it useful when people see us in the right light, the one that makes us look more successful than we are. Even when that means being asked for favors we can’t actually provide, or for money we don’t actually have. Even if it means some people will feel justified taking our work without paying the asking price because we are perceived to be financially successful enough to not need the money for that one download.

Those of us benefitting from the fame distortion are also those exacerbating the situation.

We want to eat our fame cake and have it, too.

And maybe we can, because if you spread it thin enough, and stand just so, in the right light, a little can go a long way.