Internet Celebrities: Do They Really Exist?

After watching tonight's first ever 'YouTube Live' "thing" & hearing them call themselves/each other 'Internet Celebrities' it made me think: Do they really exist?

At first, I thought "Hell no, they're not celebrities." But then one has to think - What actually is a celebrity?

When one thinks of a celebrity they would usually think of some big actor/actress/musical act/etc from Hollywood, or some other big city, or whatever. People the likes of Beyonce, Marlon Brando, Will Smith, Jim Carey, & Britney Spears are often thought about as some of today's celebrities. All of these so called 'Internet Celebrities' were nothing before YouTube, or whatever other website made them famous. 'Real Celebrities' spent years learning their art, mastering their craft, to become as good as they can be whereas the majority of these Internet Videos/'Internet Celebrities' spend no-where near as long in production/learning their art.

As another point, I know not all celebrities live in the big cities but the majority of them do. Whereas, when was the last time any of these 'Internet Celebrities' were in a big "Celebrity City" like Hollywood, New York, Miami, London, or Paris. Also, celebrities are oftenly featured in tabloids, magazines & other forms of the media, but are these 'Internet Celebrities'? No. Are they anywhere except on the Internet? Not really. But then, does just being well known on the Internet warrant enough to be called a 'Celebrity'?

Princeton defines a celebrity as:

"Noun

S: (n) celebrity, famous person (a widely known person) "he was a baseball celebrity"
S: (n) fame, celebrity, renown (the state or quality of being widely honored and acclaimed)"

Wikipedia defines a celebrity as:

"A celebrity is a widely-recognized or famous person who commands a high degree of public and media attention."

So, according to those definitions it would appear so, that just because their "well known" on the internet means they are 'celebrities'. Granted now, there has been some people who have come from sites such as YouTube & gone on to gain global recognition, eg Solja Boy, but you could count those people on one hand. Which kinda brings me onto a point I've been meaning to make for a while. In this day & age it appears anyone can become a 'Celebrity'. If you have enough money, live in the right places, do the right things, etc anybody can become one - Look at the Kardashians. But should this really be case? I mean, should celebrities really only be the crème de' le' crème of society/media? The actors, actresses, musicians, etc. Or should we allow anybody & everybody to become a celebrity?

An example I want to use is Paris Hilton. She had done virtually nothing, as far as I know, before The Simple Life. But since then she has become a mega-celebrity but still has done virtually nothing. Sure there was that sex tape that just so "happened" to be "coincidentally" leaked around the time of The Simple Life's premiere, & she's gone on to do other TV appearances, start perfume chains or whatever, & all of that stuff. And sure, her dad is one of the richest people in the world, owning the Hilton chain of hotels, but do people like this, people who have done virtually nothing, deserve to be 'celebrities'?

Sure everybody wants their 15 Minutes of Fame, & everybody thinks that they could be next big thing (but really only Brock Lesnar is ;)) hence why there are thousands of auditions each & every year for shows like American Idol, X Factor, & other talent competitions. But everybody does not, atleast in my opinion, deserve to become a 'celebrity'. And heck, if we were all to become a 'celebrity', who would be the real celebrities? What the "elite" be called?

In my opinion there needs to be that huge gap between a 'celebrity' & 'non-celebrity'. Bringing it all back to my original question, in my opinion just because these so called 'Internet Celebrities' have got X Million amount of views on YouTube or some other internet website, they're not celebrities. Nor should they be considered celebrities. With these YouTube Live "things", & probably other ones that're gonna pop up, it probably going to be the case that more & more nobodies are becoming celebrities just because they're video had crap loads of views. But then, thinking about this, this could be considered to just be the same as when there was no internet & thousands, or millions, of people would flock to the theater to go watch the newest movie, except now people can do it in the pleasure of their home, & make their own too. Is this just the way that technology is forcing society to change?