Wale Quotes

I think 20th century media were about tricking people - and the beauty of the Internet is you can't lie anymore.

Celebrity culture, it's everywhere, isn't it? It's reality TV, Big Brother. I didn't become a footballer to be famous, I became a footballer to be successful. I didn't want to be famous. Now people want to be famous. Why? Why would you want people following you about all day?

The Egyptian Revolution makes it clear, if anybody was in doubt, that digital technologies are going to play a powerful role in the future of global politics.

Everybody think they're famous when they get 100,000 followers on Instagram and 5,000 on Twitter.

The advantage of the internet is that it has taken away the charade of politics. China has heard of democracy and people know about certain concepts they wouldn't have previously.

With a 100-year perspective, the real value of the personal computer is not spreadsheets, word processors or even desktop publishing. It's the Web.

Pop culture's gotten much more disposable.

If you don't fit into this kind of like gossipy, trendy, Web-hit thingy, you're relegated to sort of second-class celebrity status.

I think there ought to be some serious discussion by smart people, really smart people, about whether or not proliferation of things like The Smoking Gun and TMZ and YouTube and the whole celebrity culture is healthy.

The world is really run by the Web. There's so much information out there that you can click and keep going down the rabbit hole finding stuff.

Because of Twitter, I think people know most every single thing about me. I don't know if there's anything that would surprise people about me.

I think social media, it in a way forces companies to be more authentic or more transparent because it gives a voice to the consumer and a reach to the consumer that they didn't have before.

A lot of journalists like to suck up to celebrities, and then as soon as they're a safe distance away at their computers, they take shots. But that's the way society has become, especially in pop culture.

You can say something from a public toilet and the whole world will know because the media will be there.

A lot of the earliest 'Instagram' celebrities took really beautiful photos. But you're starting to see a change where it's not about beauty; it's about the story that you tell.

A lot of my honesty, and wanting to be as authentic as possible, came from coming out of bands like S Club 7 - things that felt glossy, you know? And with the rise of social media, there was an initial backlash against that glossiness, too. And then, I don't know, somehow it managed to get lost again.

The Kardashians can be famous for being famous. What do they do? I can't figure it out.

There is a feedback loop between Trump and TV that is both good and bad.

Privacy is dead. We live in a world of instantaneous, globalised gossip. The idea that there is a 'private' sphere and a 'public' sphere for world leaders, politicians or anyone in the public eye is slowly disintegrating. The death of privacy will have a profound effect on who our leaders will be in the future.

It's a different world because of the Internet and bloggers. Now, every editor is concerned about speed because every minute counts. Speed is more important than content. Whoever gets a review out first becomes the authority.

One of the many things I hate about Donald Trump is that he embodies a kind of very popular popular culture that, as near as I'm able to perceive and stomach, is of no quality whatsoever.

Those who the gods would make rich and famous on TV, they first drive mad.

In the realm of pop celebrity, the bar has been lowered so far that there is no bar. People can be famous for being famous, famous for being infamous, famous for having once been famous and, thanks largely to the Internet, famous for not being famous at all.

I mean come on. Do you know how easy it is to be famous these days? Do you have any idea? The web has made it plausible to have your very own platform to stand and spew nonsense from on an hourly basis. There's an old saying: when everyone is special, no one will be. These days, everybody thinks they're special, so no one really does anything to be special anymore.

Power will be maintained by the groovy guy or gal who gets the most media coverage for his sleaze. Naturally, his friends in various businesses will do okay, too.