WE are generation obsessed with celebrity. The idea of finding fame is now so appealing that many spend their lives dedicated to the pursuit of stardom – rather than, you know, actually working.

And with the ability to write, film and broadcast your thoughts at your fingertips via YouTube and social media, the world has been left with an abundance of people who entertain us.

However, these days, fame is short-lived. Andy Warhol said “in the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes". He was right, but now it is more like 15 seconds.

As the Sunday Herald recaps some of our favourite 15-second wonders of 2017, it is clear that going “viral”, as it is now known, is a fleeting feeling.

Wayne Shaw, Piegate,

Monday February 20.

Sutton Football Club’s reserve goalkeeper, Wayne Shaw, tucked in to a meat pie from the dugout during their match against Arsenal in February. For many punters he was deemed a “larger-than-life” character and was seen to be putting fun back in to an otherwise corporate game.

A bookkeeper had offered him 8/1 odds that he would not indulge in the stunt. The 45-year-old was later charged with intentionally influencing a football betting market, and improper conduct.

Dad interrupted,

Tuesday March 11

During a televised BBC interview on the political situation in South Korea, professor Robert E Kelly was left red-faced after he was spectacularly upstaged by his two children who burst into the room mid-interview.

His wife Jung-a Kim quickly ushered the two young intruders out and lunged to close the door as her husband attempted to continue amidst apologies and stifled laughs.

The video soon went viral and sparked a subsequent race row as many people openly assumed that the woman featured in the video was his maid, as opposed to his wife.

Fyre music festival,

Thursday April 27

The luxury music festival that was too good to be true. The start-up festival promised extravagant accommodation, gourmet food and beach yoga against the setting of a tropical Bahamian island. Bands such as Blink 182, Migos and Major Lazer featured on the bill and gig-goers paid between $450 and $250,000 to attend the event.

On arrival guests found that their luxury accommodation was actually disaster-relief tents. Their gourmet food was the world renowned cheese sandwich. Bands quickly pulled out and famous supermodels who had promoted the event, all failed to attend. Pictures of the calamity were soon trending on Twitter as guests queued to be flown off the island.

“Covfefe”, Trump tweeting error,

Tuesday May 30

The list would be incomplete should it fail to feature a reference to the world’s most viral-worthy President of all time. Trump made a tweeting error, bigly, and sparked worldwide speculation over his meaning.

In a midnight missive, Trump wrote: “Despite the negative press covfefe”.

In an apparent venture into neologisms, millions of people speculated over its meaning online. He followed it up the next day with, “Who can figure out the true meaning of Covfefe??? Enjoy!”

Lord Buckethead MP,

Thursday June 8

Outwardly, an unlikely political candidate. Dressed entirely in black with a two-foot bucket on his head the aspiring MP ran against Theresa May in Maidenhead in the snap general election this June. He pledged “Strong not entirely stable leadership” and was awarded 0.4 per cent of the vote. His Lordship went on to feature on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and introduced the band Sleaford Mods at Glastonbury.

A horror story of epic proportions,

Thursday September 5

A tale of a woman who had to be rescued by the fire brigade after attempting to retrieve her own faecal matter from a window, during a Tinder date, sounds like something from a high school rumour-mill. Alas, the story dominated the UK’s media after Liam Smith, her date, recounted the tale online looking to fundraise for a new window – it had been broken during her rescue. Smith said the toilet window opened into a narrow gap separated by another double glazed window. "It was into this twilight zone that my date had thrown her poo."

The identity of the female remains unknown, but her legend lives on.