Celebrity message sites are booming and they make for fascinating, but rather depressing browsing
How can a Robert De Niro impersonator be charging eight times more than the real-life Lily Allen? What is Matthew “Chandler from Friends” Perry, who famously earned $1m per episode, doing here? Has James Buckley– Jay from The Inbetweeners– really made £80,000 in lockdown recording personalised videos for fans?
A pandemic Christmas has meant a boom time for Cameo and CelebVM. The platforms allow celebrities to hawk themselves to those wanting to buy a piece of them – sorry, a message from them – as a novelty gift for friends and family. This time last year, Cameo had 20,000 celebrities (a definition stretched to its loosest sense) signed up: reality show stars, Snoop Dogg, bit-part comedians, famous faces you recognised and lots more you didn’t. But times are hard and there are now more than 30,000 to choose from. It turns out everyone has a price. For £45.65, you can get Anthony Scaramucci– aka the Mooch, White House communications director for all of 10 days in 2017 – to wish your friend Stacey a happy 44th birthday. For £249, Boy George will sing for you, putting his face behind so many Snapchat filters that he resembles an android version of himself. If you’re inclined to pay £2,075 for the pleasure, Caitlin Jenner will record you a Christmas message while telling you to “remember your roots and remember where you came from”.
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