Whatever Happened to the Local Celebrity?

This week's Throwback Thursday takes us back to 1970.

We're on the steps of the Jackson County Courthouse for the Apple Festival's apple peeling contest.

And there, microphone in hand, is Marvin Himmel.

For years, Marvin served as the Apple Festival's master of ceremonies. Marty Bronson would later follow him.

Watching Marvin in that old film, I found myself thinking about both of them—and about something that really has very little to do with peeling apples.

Whatever happened to the regional celebrity?

Marvin and Marty belonged to a media world that produced personalities who became familiar across a particular place.

Marty was a St. Louis television personality and entertainer, but his audience extended well beyond St. Louis. In Southern Illinois, he was a familiar face.

And that wasn't an accident.

Regional media used to produce more regional programming. The people who appeared on it became familiar because the audience itself was organized, at least in part, around a place.

Southern Illinois was an audience.

Over time, the economics changed.

Syndicated programming could reach many markets at once. Advertisers didn't necessarily prioritize Southern Illinois eyeballs. They wanted women who did the grocery shopping. Men who watched sports.

Geography mattered less. Demographics and interests mattered more.

Then we got more media.

A lot more.

We're now registered to monthly subscriptions across what feels like sixteen different apps.

Now your eyeballs have their own profile.

Your Feed Isn't Your Community

My feed learns me.

Yours learns you.

We can live three houses apart, open the same app and see completely different worlds.

The algorithm can find someone on the other side of the planet who likes exactly what you like.

It doesn't necessarily introduce you to the person around the corner who doesn't.

And that's pretty important.

Because that's your neighbor.

Maybe that's also what happened to the regional celebrity.

We didn't stop making people famous.

We got influencers.

Someone can have millions of followers and still be completely unknown outside a particular interest.

Marty worked almost exactly the opposite way.

His audience wasn't defined only by a shared interest.

It was defined, at least in part, by a shared place.

Turn on the television in this part of the country, and people were seeing many of the same faces.

Pick up the Murphysboro American, and you encountered stories about schools, city government, high school sports, community events and people you may or may not have known.

You weren't interested in every story.

That wasn't the point.

You encountered them anyway.

Our media gave people who shared a place more things in common.

Increasingly, it gives people who share an interest more things in common.

And media isn't the only thing technology has untethered from place.

We can watch almost any performer we want from the comfort of our living room.

We don't bump into each other in the popcorn line anymore at the Showplace 8.

We don't pass eachother at the mall on Saturday night. We click a button and whatever we wanted shows up on the porch tomorrow.

We gained nearly unlimited choice and convenience.

But we stopped having to show up.

Except when September rolls around.

Everybody Goes to the Apple Festival

I mean everybody.

The people who stayed are there.

The people who left come home.

I'm one of them.

I haven't lived in Southern Illinois for years, but every September, the Apple Festival still pulls me home.

We're walking the same streets. Watching the same parade. Hearing the same bands.

Running into people we weren't looking for.

Nobody's algorithm put us there together.

The Apple Festival did.

And you don't really age out of it.

You ride the rides as a child.

March in the parade as a teenager.

Come home from college.

Bring your own children. If you’re really lucky, you bring your grandkids.

Your relationship with the Festival changes.

But the Festival remains.

Former Apple Festival chairman Chris Naegele put this into words when I interviewed him for Tell Me About YOUR Apple Festival.

Chris believes the Festival may be "even more important today" because families and our culture "aren't as close knit in many ways as we used to be."

The Festival, he said, "brings that family tie back together."

I think he's right.

For all the ways our lives have become more personalized, Murphysboro still has a common language.

We know what it means when the lawn chairs start appearing along Walnut Street.

You don't have to explain them to someone from Murphysboro.

They already know.

We may not watch the same things.

We may not follow the same people.

We may not agree on much of anything.

But, after all, we do share an interest.

This place.

And every September, we show up for it.

We see our neighbors.

We run into people we weren't looking for.

We don't have to go looking for local.

We're standing inside it.

Maybe that's why the Apple Festival matters more now than ever.

For a few days every September, it reminds us of our shared place, it gives us a shared experience and a common language.

What About the Other Eleven Months?

The challenge isn't to recreate the Apple Festival.

We can't.

And I don't want to go backward.

I don't want three television channels. I don't want fewer choices. I'm not giving up the ability to order something from my couch and have it show up tomorrow.

And without the media changes I've spent this article talking about, there's a pretty good chance you wouldn't be reading this.

Nobody assigned this article to me.

I had an idea, wrote it (obsessed about it for a week) and put it in front of you.

The same is true of Tell Me About YOUR Apple Festival.

With an iPhone, a tripod and a couple of microphones, I sat down with more than twenty people and preserved their Apple Festival stories.

I wouldn't trade that back.

More choices aren’t a problem if we remember that local is still one of them.

There are plenty of people telling Southern Illinois stories.

Murphysboro Main Street, Revitalize 62966, SI Now, Saluki Strut, Southern Illinois Most, Southernmost Illinois Tourism and Do.Soil are among the accounts that find their way into my feed.

When your heart belongs to two places, it's nice to have a window into the one you're not standing in.

They help me keep up with the place that raised me.

And I'm sure I'm missing plenty. If there's someone telling good Southern Illinois stories that I should be following, tell me.

Seek out local.

Read the local story.

Follow the person telling it.

Walk into the local business.

Go to the local event.

This place still matters.

And if we want it to keep mattering, we have to keep choosing it.

When the entire world is competing for our eyeballs, we still get to choose where to point them.

And when it's competing for our dollars, we still get to choose where to spend them.