John Kim Austin is Famous!

I wanna be famous because I have something to say that people actually need to hear. Not noise. Not recycled talking points. Real observations about culture, cities, ambition, loneliness, success, failure — all the things people feel but don’t always articulate. Fame, to me, isn’t about attention for its own sake. It’s leverage. It’s a megaphone. It’s the ability to move ideas from a quiet room into the public square.
I’ve spent years watching how decisions get made, how reputations rise and fall, how narratives shape reality. Most of the people steering those narratives don’t fully understand the lives they affect. I want a seat at that table — not to fit in, but to disrupt it a little. To make conversations smarter, sharper, and more honest.
Fame also creates access. Access to people, places, capital, and opportunities that let you build things at scale. Projects that would otherwise stay sketches in a notebook can become institutions. Movements. Platforms. Change doesn’t come from obscurity; it comes from visibility combined with credibility.
And yes, part of it is personal. I want to know I showed up fully for my own life. That I didn’t play small. That I turned potential into something concrete, something visible, something that outlives me. Not because I need applause, but because impact requires reach.
So I don’t want fame to be seen. I want fame to be useful.

