But for the most part, internet celebrity was met by those I talked to with ambivalence at best and contemptuousness at worst. Glenda Bautista told me that she was struck by the people "fetishizing geekdom" when she moved to the Bay Area in 2003. "Why are all the nerds like your rock stars?" she asked. Twitter founder Ev Williams's response to someone "young and capable" attempting to achieve internet fame was "A) that's probably not going to work, and B) what a waste of time." When asked about internet celebrity, Annalee Newitz, editor of the Gawker science fiction blog io9, thought it was "completely repulsive." Newitz perceives people who become famous for something they've done—she referred to popular blogs I Can Has Cheezburger and Cute Overload—as deserving of their visibility: "You know, sometimes people become popular just because they're doing something cool. And, you know, that's not really their fault." Meanwhile, she perceived people "who pursue [fame] purely just to manipulate the network and manipulate people's responses" as "deeply scary."

Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, loc. 337