Monday, April 30, 2012

Not Famous Yet

Somewhat predictably, I'm not famous yet.

This didn't come as a surprise - I was aware of this for some time. It's not totally me fault either, since Sam Boyd is a pretty common name. What was fairly fairly entertaining were the events the lead up to me discovering just how un-famous I am on the internet.

Thomas and Sarah (Sherlock) Boyd. I'm so not famous that
they even came up before me (Source: Roots.web)
This situation became pretty apparent to me on Thursday, when I was running into people all over university. I'd turn a corner and BAM up would pop up another loveable personality I was glad to have as a friend. After I'd assembled a small entourage, we were congregating outside Beadles 'cafe' when this red haired guy came walking in the vicinity of us. I felt as if I'd run into him a thousand times passing by, since I'd seen him at my club, just below my window World Theatre Festival, FAST, Vena Cava shows, and I'd most recently seen him the week before at Room 60 at a talk.

I felt like I knew EVERYONE that day, so it was good day to make friends - I glanced at him, made eye-contact, and I then I yodelled "HEY YOU, COME OVER HERE. NOW." I wonder if that was daunting, but since we're all part of the same, incestral drama family, it was probably a perfectly legitimate way of establishing contact. He came over and I screamed some more things like "WHO ARE YOU??" and "HOW DO YOU DO?!" before I found out his name was Nathan, and he said he worked on Underground, so that was probably how I knew him. I told him that I did not manage to see Underground since it was sold out, but made an alternative, long, irritating list of everywhere I'd seen him. He laughed and shook my hand. What a nice chap. Newly acquainted, I blessed him with a "Godspeed" and then we parted ways.

"The best Sam Boyd ever" - Everyone ever on the internet
(Source: UNLV)
I realised about an hour later that I didn't know his last name (over that hour I had ran into him twice again), so I looked up 'Nathan' and 'Underground' online and the illusion was finally shattered and I found his last name and I finally put a face to the name. I thought it was pretty cool (and a bit scary) that you can find so many people on Google, so I thought it might be fun to look up my own name. I tried my Dad too, and he popped up with his QUT website as the first result, and also got mentioned in book dedications and thanks before anyone remotely tried to masquerade as him (some country singer has the same name). Unlike  Dad, I haven't really done anything in life, so I knew this already wasn't going to end well since a while back Jeff alerted me there was a 'Sam Boyd' stadium in Nevada. Nevertheless, I typed my name "Samuel Boyd" into the Google machine, and braced for the worst.

Google suggested I change the term "Samuel Boyd obituary" to garner more results.

The #1 result for Samuel Boyd isn't a cracking picture of me, but instead is a rather brief and incomplete (and strangely formatted) Wikipedia entry on Samuel Leonard Boyd, an infamous Australian (!) serial killer who bashed several children and women to death in the early 80s. While that sounds like something I'm capable of, I can't say that it's something I'd ever do or that it was someone that sounded particularly like me, seeing as I wasn't alive in the 80s. The next result is Sam Boyd of the Sam Boyd Stadium/Boyd Gaming Empire. The next few were some obituaries about some boring Sam Boyds who lived in Virgina, a real estate agent, and then it got onto the names where Sam wasn't even the first name, just included for the fun of stealing my thunder (like Augusto Sam Boyd, or Jerald Samuel Boyd).

"Angry Sam Boyd Eating Watermelon in 2002"
(Source: Sam Boyd Fans). This guy actually
look like Tom Noble . . .
The best result was a blogspot called 'Sam Boyd Fans', an extensive fan site of the figure which spans back as early as 2005. It houses many novelties, such as a bunch of fun pop quizzes, such as "What is Sam Boyd's middle name?" and "What would Sam Boyd think of this photo?", in addition to various theories of what Sam Boyd would look like in various outfits or at stages of his life, and there were several thrilling sightings:
"After more than two years, I found him. He was wandering about a little used bookstore in Hyde Park looking for a book to read. I don't think he reads enough. I talked him into letting me sleep on his living room floor and then we went to breakfast the next day where we both partook of a delicious breakfast. I'm probably not supposed to reveal this, but I will anyway. Sam is being courted by an elite producer in Hollywood. I can't say his name, but let's just say it rhymes with Dom Banks. He (or she) wants to purchase the rights to Sam Boyd's life story. 95% of the film will take place in the corner of a library and Danny Boyle is set to produce." (Source: Sam Boyd Fans)
God, I wish my life was as interesting as that. Anyone have any thoughts on who the producer might be?

I finally popped up on Page 7, with a link to my World Theatre Festival blog, except it linked to a dead page when the blogs had been pulled down for being too honest, so all that was on the page was some text that said "Blog posts . . . coming soon!". Hopefully the amount of times that I've written 'Sam Boyd' on this page will help boost me to the top, but I'm doubtful. That's how famous I am; not famous yet.

ETA:

  • You can also like Sam Boyd on Facebook.
  • I actually appear on the first page of Google Images, since I wrote the music to Of Little Matter. This is me:


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