I read this story on CNN and I think I’m about to pack it in, 3.5 readers.
The desire for fame apparently knows no bounds.
If you didn’t click the link, I’ll try to summarize. There’s an Atlanta surgeon and she had a YouTube channel where she sings, dances, and raps while cutting into patients, even having assistants join in. You can see clips in the CNN story. The vids have been taken down from her YouTube channel but you can still find some about the Internet. I can’t be sure, but, to me anyway, it looks like she moved the scalpel to the beat in one video. Again, I’m no expert so I don’t want to say that for sure. I could be wrong but…well, I hope I’m wrong. Scalpels should be moved, you know, according to medical rules and not to a funky beat.
If she’d done this on her own time…maybe out of the hospital, made a fun video where she raps and dances over a fake patient, it would be ok. A fun self promo.
But…I mean, even if the patients can’t be identified…you just see stomachs and so on…if you go to a doctor to get surgery, you didn’t sign up to have your body parts shown online and how she didn’t realize the world is small and that wouldn’t eventually get back to someone who would complain.
I don’t know. Social media has brought out our worst instincts. Sometimes I’m a champion for social media. It gives a voice to people who were previously voiceless.
But then I just wonder if the old way was better. Become famous by, you know, actually doing something. Otherwise, it’s just acting a fool for the camera.
I worry about that with this blog. I have been thinking about shutting it all down lately. I have beaten myself up for years for not becoming super rich and famous and successful, as if it were somehow easy and I didn’t pull that off a tree as if fame is low hanging fruit easily within reach. But maybe I just did my best within the limits I have and the cards I was dealt and maybe my free time would be better spent walking in the park, or working on my health, taking a bike ride, getting a new hobby…
I have no idea. I like to think my writing is somehow constructive…but I feel like a jackass, waving my hands along the information superhighway. “Look at me! Notice me! Pay attention to me!”
I mean, it’s not as bad as this woman but perhaps this blog is just a form of doing jumping jacks to get noticed.
Stuff like this just leaves me depressed. This woman is a doctor. Probably paid well. Obtained knowledge and a skill few can handle. Probably could have written and/or made serious content about doctoring and just….no. I’m sorry. You shouldn’t go in for surgery and end up with your naked stomach on YouTube.
We need to invent time travel and get young Mark Zuckerberg laid so he never kicks off this social media mess. Everyone was better off where they said, “Fuck it, I didn’t find fame by 25, so time to get serious about regular life.”
Ugh. Seriously. This depresses me.
Bookshelf Battle 
Everyone wants to be famous. You’re level of fame, however, is about as big as the circle of people who come to your funeral.
I’d like you to keep writing, but it’s your site. 🙂
Ugh. I just…when you look at the vids…it’s so obvious all this do it yourself media is a problem. Without it, this woman probably would have lived to a ripe old age as a prominent surgeon. Perhaps my writing just makes me look like a fool like this woman looks.
Only if you have a similar YouTube channel. 🙂
Confidence isn’t a bad thing, and that’s really all I get from your posts.
I fear fame ruins people, a careful of what you wish for situation. This woman probably thought she’d end up as the wacky doctor dancing on Ellen and didn’t realize she was basically handing multiple patients a slam dunk malpractice case. Not sure how she didn’t realize that but still.
I also think about Jim Carrey lately. As a kid, he was my hero. Seemed like a nerd, unlikely to make it, found big success, now he’s old and always with the big bushy beard, complaining about how he’s sad and his life sucks and his fame didn’t cure his problems and so on.
There’s a Native American poem about how man has a hole in his heart that can be never satisfied. Sigh. This dancing doctor lady has made me morose.
Aw. 😦 Cheer up, BQB.