Mark Mayhew (FacebookEconomy.com) recently posted a brief catalyst article regarding “microcelebrities.” I was going to reply back directly, but after starting to write I realized I had quite a mouthful to say, so I figured I’d post my thoughts here.

I keep reading about “microcelebrities” (individuals who are very well known to only a few dozen/hundred people), but I can’t find any mention of an actual person who is one. -Mark Mayhew

The dynamic between all the people that have physical connections to each other remains the exact same in the virtual world. That is, a microcelebrity in real life can remain so in the virtual world. I do, however, observe a significant footnote to this abstraction; that the microcelebrity paradigm exists across only the people who know them in the same realm. If I’m famous throughout my college friends, the exact same will remain true regardless of the medium, and this will remain disjoint from those external to my network of college friends.

As Facebook evolved it created easier methods to forge new connections between people without any prior physical relation (and the Feed, I think, is perhaps the biggest instigator of this). We’re therefore all connected to two (or more) distinct networks inside of the same system: one for the virtual solidification of relationships we’ve forged physically (and multiple networks may exist therein), and one for the new, completely virtual relationships.

I’ve personally noticed a small amount of dissonance in my online communications due to this fact alone. I carry myself (as do all) with a demeanor particular to those I’m communicating with — and this is quite different between my social college life and my professional life. Yet, social networks, blogs, and every other online community are together blurring the lines between these two “roles” I take; my professional life is invariably linked to my online presence, which is simultaneously built purely out of my “social” communications and media.

Microcelebrities that have not existed in a physical sense are being created all the time because of this, defying traditional social roles. Do I know microcelebrities in a physical sense? Absolutely; I could name a number of friends around school that almost anyone I talk to knows of to some extent or another. This then creates a similar presence in the online world, which maintains some degree of their ‘celebrity’ status. Additionally, I could name a number of online folks that are very well known across a certain slice of the blogosphere, or segment of a social network. In a similar fashion, this likely creates a similar presence in a number of physical networks — though I’m sure the degree to which this is true varies quite a bit, depending on the members that constitute the virtual fanbase.

The social status from one is blurring into another, in many cases unintentionally. Is this a logical manifestation of our innate human sociology? Or are there completely revolutionary social influences at work here?

(I have no idea.)