American culture rides forward on stories about sudden fame and bold ascent – the singer who invents a new style of celebrity, the unknown actor rising with a quirky TV show, the kid who shapes a generation’s online habits from his dorm room. TED is a display case for such stories and, increasingly, the subject of them; the conference has grown famous for making its speakers famous, even as it claims to tread above the rough clod of celebrity.
Nathan Heller, “Listen and Learn”, The New Yorker (9&16 July 2012), 70.