My Plan to Get Famous From Celebrity “Climbers”
Apparently, from my perspective as a basement-dwelling, humanity-avoiding troglodyte in the suburbs of Boulder, Colorado, there are a lot of “cool things”happening in the climbing world right now. One of the biggest trends is that of celebrities getting into climbing or pal’ing around with our sport’s luminaries like Alex Honnold, Chris Sharma, and Tommy Caldwell. This is a two-way street, letting the celebrities get extreme with our sport’s top dogs, all while the climbers burnish their own brands through proximity to high-wattage stardom.
Most recently, we had the actor and hobby musician Jared Leto climbing the Empire State Building while tied into a double toprope, as documented by the climber and filmmaker Renan Ozturk. In the past, Leto’s been spotted climbing with Alex Honnold in Tuolumne, and nearly got the chop with Honnold out at Red Rock, Nevada, when he fell and his rope core shot over a sharp lip, 600 feet off the ground. (Given that this is the same area where Honnold tried to kill Magnus Midtbø on a quick “scramble” before Midtbø could unleash more YouTube navy SEAL challenges upon the world, I feel like there’s a lesson here.) I’ve always thought Jared Leto was a great actor, at least in his Jordan Catalano/My So-Called Life and Requiem for a Dream days, with major props for Dallas Buyers Club, but lately he seems to have turned into the kind of self-important, long-bearded, Jesus-maned glam-boi I’d purposely avoid at the gym lest a chalkpot get flung at my head in a fit of pique. And so, when Leto TR’ed a skyscraper, I didn’t really care.
We also, of course, have Chris Sharma and his longtime bro the actor Jason Momoa releasing their show The Climb on HBO Max, a six-episode series in which the contestants cry and hug a lot in between falling off rock climbs in exotic locales I’m too poor to visit because my wife thinks ordering plastic crap for our kids off Amazon is a competition sport. (And, yes, I did apply to be on the show—and you did, too—but I didn’t make the cut. I guess they weren’t looking for a grumpy, disheveled, antisocial “sweatpants dad” who dresses like a bike-thieving gutterpunk.) Anyway, Momoa has bona fides as a climber—he was once just a Midwestern kid dirtbagging in the parking lot at Hueco Pete’s, bouldering at the Tanks back in the day—plus he’s enormous. So I won’t be talking shit about him and neither should you.
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This all got me to thinking about how I might jump on the celebrity-climbing bandwagon and polish my own brand, which, of late, has been lackluster. (You try getting a full-time job in this economy at age 52, when the only demand for editorial work seems to be for SEO writing, whatever the fuck that is, and AI-enhanced Tik-Tokers using ChatGPT algorithms to autogenerate “fresh content.”)
Because I’ve always been a C-list climber, with the occasional foray onto the lowest rung of the B-list, I figured it would behoove me to link up with celebrities of similar status. In other words, I’m probably not going to be taking Tom Cruise toproping at Céüse and posting it on YouTube to millions of likes, because his people would never let a pissant little nobody like me past the front door. And because it’s a long, hot walk up to la falaise.
No, my plan is to link up with a disgraced former celebrity, someone who, like me, is desperate for attention. I’m thinking the likes of Michael Richards (aka “Kramer” on Seinfeld), who was canceled after his N-word-filled rant at a comedy club—and no, I’m not linking to that; gaming vlogger/YouTube luminary PewDiePie, who likes bagging on deaf people and Jews; or the comedian Kathy Griffin, who beheaded Trump in effigy and was subsequently banished from mainstream media. Just, celebrities who are at present having a bad time and are looking for a new start.
Here’s the plan: I’m going to take them “scrambling” in the Flatirons, just like Honnold did to Magnus, and we’re going to livestream the whole thing, come what may. So, basically, I’m going to take these rank beginners free soloing on exposed, lower-fifth-class slabs, tell them that it’s totally safe, and reassure them that were they to fall, they can just spread their limbs out like a cat clinging to the drapes and stop from sliding.
“No one’s ever died free soloing the Flatirons,” I’ll tell them. “Not even Jared Leto.”
Think of the likes, the pageviews, the reshares, and the ad revenue as my YouTube channel and social blow up, especially when some canceled, universally hated, narcissistic B-list “star” tumbles to their demise, all while livestreaming it on a GoPro. Shit, we can even start taking bets on who will make it and who won’t. It’s a win-win situation: I get rich and famous, and the world gets rid of its most noxious celebrities, all in one fell swoop.
Perhaps this idea sounds brilliant to you. Or perhaps it sounds too close to reality, like an episode of Black Mirror. Or perhaps it sounds deeply immoral, like I’m just killing off shitty Hollywood people for sport and pecuniary gain. All I can say is, don’t judge. In today’s hustle economy, good new ideas are few and far between—and I just had a brilliant one.
Matt Samet is a freelance writer and editor based in Boulder, Colorado. He is the author of the Climbing Dictionary and the memoir Death Grip.
Also Read
- Jared Leto Toproped the Empire State Building
- Jason Momoa and Chris Sharma on Creating Reality Competition Show ‘The Climb”
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