Rick Chillot - How to Make Your Baby an Internet Celebrity: Guiding Your Child to Success and Fulfillment

Congratulations on your new baby! Welcome to the world of midnight feedings, sunrise wake-up calls, doctors visits, routine vaccinations, infant CPR lessons, American Sign Language flash cards, art appreciation classes, stroller maintenance workshops, and other exciting responsibilities.

But as a loving and responsible parent, you have one obligation thats far more important than any of those others: making your baby an Internet celebrity.

Most readers will find the reasons for doing this to be obvious, perhaps insultingly so, and can skip ahead to Chapter 1. But for those of you with even the slightest bit of skepticism or concern, lets connect a few dots. Raising children in the twenty-first century is unlike anything your parents or grandparents experienced, and the stakes could not be higher. Consider the world your child is going to inherit: scarce jobs, fierce competition, dwindling opportunities. Experts tell us that the global economy will worsen while household appliances will get smarter. By the time your child is twenty-one years old and ready to enter the workforce, all of her job interviews will be conducted by Roombas. If shes lucky, shell be one of thousands of equally qualified candidates vying for a slice of the vocational pie. More likely, shell have to compete with millions of rivals from foreign nations who learned to read at the age of two and learned to speak while still in the womb.

As you can see, your baby was born behind the eight ball, and youd better hurry before the pool cue of fate lines up a bank shot into the corner pocket of oblivion. For your grandparents and great-grandparents, success was a reward for working hard and keeping their noses to the grindstone, but those days are over. In the new global economy, there are simply too many nosesroughly 6.3 noses for every grindstone, with more emerging every day. Besides, do you even know what a grindstone is? Does it sound like something youd want your childs nose pressed against? You know its probably covered in germs.

So what are you and your new baby going to do? In these crucial early months, too many parents waste time loafing around, waiting for the baby to congeal into something of substance like a Jell-O mold in a cluttered refrigerator. But if your child waits until preschool or kindergarten (or, worse, elementary school) to discover his talents and passions, hell be too late. The time to establish your childs platform and brand identity is now , while all the other babies are napping twelve to sixteen hours a day. And the easiest way to establish your childs future personato put him so far in front of his age cohort that hell be driving a Bugatti to accept his Nobel Prize on the moon while his peers are picking their noses in line at the DMVis to turn your baby into an Internet celebrity.

Now, Ive heard all the standard concerns and reservations, like Wont becoming famous turn my sweet Thumbelina into a narcissistic sociopathic jerk? And its true, that is a common consequence of traditional fame. However, you need to remember that we are talking about Internet fame, a much safer and healthier alternative. Consider:

Of course youll want to think long and hard about whether this is the right course of action for your baby. But you must ignore that instinct, because theres no time to waste! Your babys most valuable assetcutenessis diminishing by the day. So forget about five-year plans, acting classes, or a musical-based secondary school like they have on Glee . If you really want to finance the best life possible for your little one, youve got to act now , while little Blair or Gregg is well worth looking at. In fact, the most responsible parents will begin shaping their childs Web persona at conception.

-9 to 0 months:

Start sending press releases; post short clips to create buzz.

0 to 3 months: