Hype

Steve Aronson’s Hype is both a physical book and the occasion for a sequence of encounters about access, publicity, and who gets attention. The narrator buys a copy, seeks Aronson’s autograph, and is later recruited into a photo shoot connected to the book’s promotion; when Aronson appears on television, the narrator’s famous line about fifteen minutes of fame is quoted in the same promotional context.

Buying and signing the book

On May 4, 1983, the narrator buys Hype for $15.95 after purchasing the New York Native, which carries a review of the narrator’s Endangered Species (Andy Warhol art series) exhibition. That evening, the narrator takes the book to a crowded party at Kathy Johnson’s house and asks Steve Aronson to autograph it. The gathering includes Lily Auchincloss, Tom Wolfe, Farley Granger, Jean Vanderbilt, Terry Southern, members of the Hearst family, and Dorothy Schiff, among others. The narrator’s irritation is specific: Baird Jones says he had read his father’s copy two weeks earlier, while the narrator has had to buy one. Aronson looks somewhat scared as the narrator gets angry and wonders why no free copy was sent.

A photo shoot built around publicity

On May 10, Aronson arrives with Evgenia, a Guinness and Robert Lowell’s stepdaughter, who is trying to become a model. The three go to Worth Street to be photographed for the English magazine Ritz. At first, the narrator cannot tell what the shoot is meant to accomplish. The explanation emerges afterward: Evgenia wants pictures for her modeling portfolio, while Ritz wants pictures of the narrator. The narrator concludes that Evgenia used Aronson’s connection to secure the narrator’s participation, telling him they needed a representative of “hype” for an interview about his book.

Aronson says in the cab that the photograph of the three of them will be on the cover. The narrator doubts that claim, reasoning that a cover image could simply crop Aronson out and present the narrator as “Mr. Hype.” In the narrator’s account, the shoot has therefore served Evgenia’s portfolio ambitions, while the promised shared cover remains uncertain. The episode makes the book’s title an apt description of publicity that different participants hope to use for different ends.

The book’s television afterlife

On June 2, the narrator reports that Aronson has appeared on the Today Show to promote Hype. During the broadcast, the program quotes the narrator’s line, “In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” The narrator criticizes Aronson’s book for being too mean, arguing that his intelligence and humor have not prevented him from misjudging how meanness can backfire. The book thus reaches beyond its printed pages: its promotion carries the narrator’s words onto television, even as the narrator distinguishes the line’s public appeal from the book’s abrasive approach.