Roy recently posted about “celebrities” in the development community.

Who are those celebrities? We consider many of them experts in their field – that’s why we read their blogs, follow them on twitter. Go to conferences to watch them talk. Take them to dinner 🙂

Scott Bellware is one of them. A loud one. And he spoke against celebrity-ism. By the way he’s not the first one. Many celebrities (even in Hollywood, believe it or not) call paparazzi to shoot them, then complain about their invasion of privacy. It’s mostly about noise. Buzz. And if you don’t get any, you make some.

I think that Roy’s point about celebrities being a driving force is a bit off the mark. Celebrities are a “force of nature” of an open community. They are the famous, the noisy, the “cool kids”. We change the definition depending on the environment, but, it’s the same thing. It’s not good or bad. It simply is. (Insert any Zen cliché here).

The existence of celebrities is not a driving force by itself. Do you want to be one of the cool kids? Do whatever it takes – work hard to become one, hang around with them, create a stronger opposing gang, or talk loudly about what our society is coming too.

And maybe someday, you’ll become one. The question is: what do you want to be famous for?