Threepenny Review: "Table Talk"

What follows is the college essay I wrote in December 2014, the middle of my senior year of high school. The prompt was something like “Describe an experience that has significantly changed your identity”:

In the summer of 2013, when my father was running for mayor of new York City, he asked me to star in his first television commercial. I was initially hesitant, but I eventually agreed because I wanted to do anything possible to help my dad. The ad became a sensation. It made me an instant celebrity in New York City and helped catapult my father to the top of the polls. I was overjoyed that I was able to help his candidacy in such a noticeable way. However, the effects of being a local celebrity quickly affected people’s perception of me, my personal philosophy, and my identity.

People soon began stopping me on the street. They would sometimes look at me in disbelief, ask for a photo, or just ask me if I was really the person from the commercial. It was disturbing that my existence seemed to matter more as a symbol or image than as a person. It began to feel like I was an image, a one-dimensional person, because people always came to me with the expectation of the person from the commercial. It was as if my existence was frozen in time without hope of my personality ever changing. Even worse was feeling like I was a disappointment to people when I was different from the person they saw in the commercial.

To help me with my frustrations, my debate coach introduced me to the works of numerous philosophers who have tried to explain our society’s obsession with celebrities. The words of Jean Baudrillard on media-driven culture have especially influenced my desire to fight the idea of “the celebrity.” One quote in particular resonates with my situation: “We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.” There was an excess of shallow information about me, but nobody understood my true character.

The experience of having to deal with a specific preconceived notion of my identity has been transformative for me. I've rebelled against our society’s intoxication with people who are on screens. I now realize that we should distrust the “truth” that is given to us through the media because it will never show us the full depth of a situation or person. I understand that my personal perception of my identity matters more to me than the perception created by the commercial. I also constantly try to show people that I am much more than the person they saw in a commercial for thirty seconds.

I will always be appreciative that I was able to make a contribution to my father’s victory in the election. But I still have deep reservations about my transition from a private to a public person. Even with my reservations, however, I will always be grateful for the perspective my fame has given me on the phenomenon of celebrity, my identity, and my broader philosophy.

Honestly, I probably thought that I’d figured the whole fame thing out when I wrote that. It had been over a year since the commercial and the campaign victory, after all, so the constant attention I received had become normal. However, one experience, from just a few months after I wrote that essay, put that silly notion to rest.

In the spring of my senior year of high school, I was in my first serious relationship, with a girl named Olivia. One Sunday that spring I was walking around Washington Square Park—not with Olivia, but with a few other good friends. We all knew each other pretty well, and I was close friends with one of them, Ilana. neither of us had any romantic interest in the other, but a few times over the course of that day, I put my arm around her as part of a running joke we had with a mutual friend about what a beautiful couple we’d make. It was all good fun and I thought nothing of it. I didn’t realize that a photographer had been following me for part of that afternoon. The next morning my parents showed me a copy of the New York Daily News, and right there in print were photos of Ilana and me, embracing and looking very much like a couple.

i walked back to my room, stunned, and slowly continued preparing to go to school. I started taking a shower, but about halfway through I began shaking and crying. I was terrified about what would happen. I was in the middle of a relationship i was happy with and thankful to be in, but I realized it might be ruined by this. The thought of cheating had never crossed my mind, but the photos appeared damning. I stayed in that shower a long time, contemplating losing the most meaningful relationship I had ever experienced because of the way these photos made me look.

In the end, my girlfriend was understanding and didn’t break up with me, but that incident weighed on the relationship, and on me. That’s when I learned that when you’re in the public eye, you don’t get to make those little mistakes. Everything will be a public matter, no matter how meaningless or private it is.