According to a story in the new issue of Time (not online yet but I’ll link it when it is), “personal paparazzi” services are springing up across the country for “private individuals who want to experience some of the trappings of fame.”

For only a few hundred dollars a day, they’ll follow you around and make a big show of taking your picture. One of them even prints up a mock tabloid cover showcasing your “news.”

The service isn’t entirely without utilitarian value: People can use it, in lieu of a traditional photographer, to document special occasions, and one customer interviewed by Time says club bouncers let him skip the line, thinking he was an actual celebrity.

Portfolio.com 1/2008

Struan Vaz and Paige Hill emerged from a performance of the Nutcracker by Ballet Austin last month and were assaulted by photographers and reporters who pursued them for several blocks, snapping shots and asking personal questions. Amid the blinding flashbulbs and rapid-fire interrogation, the pair held their composure, but the attention overwhelmed them a little. “A couple of times, Paige tried to run away,” says Tania Cowher, one of the paparazzi on the scene that night in the Texas capital, “so we ran along with her.” They chased the couple all the way to the nightclub Qua, where Vaz and Hill were met by a crowd of adoring fans. All the hoopla on the street and at the bar confused passersby, some of whom took pics of the action

with their camera phones, while others asked the couple, both 30, who they were. “We were like, ‘We’re nobody,’” Vaz says. Actually, Vaz is a high-tech entrepreneur, and Hill works on a city councilwoman’s re-election campaign, but in terms of celebrity status, even locally, they are indeed “nobody.” Vaz, as a surprise for his fiancé, had hired a personal paparazzi company, which provides personal paparazzi to private individuals who want to experience some of the trappings of fame. (Friends played the fans for free.)

Time Magazine 1/2008