A strange and relatively new phenomenon in which ordinary people like you and I may become famous simply by doing something "cool" on-line.
The first time I noticed it was about 5 years ago
with IRCops on EFnet (IRC) and then with "MaDCreW" and #Exceed. IRCops and People from this group were suddenly "better" than everyone else for some odd reason. People started kissing their asses and brown-nosing the ever-living shit out of them in hopes of befriending them and making themselves look cool too so that people would suck their ass as well. The vicious circle continues. Now the MaDCreW members are all IRCops, and their place was taken by even worse kiddies and vanity whores.
Other examples of internet stardom are Mahir Cagri, who made a cheesy web page in horrid English in an effort to find a date on line. Since then he has quite nobly voiced his opinions on war, hunger and loving one another. He has been interviewed by everyone and their mother - he is now on a world tour. Way to use the spotlight Mahir (even if it only is a ploy to get laid).
dem bones and nate could, within the scope of here and slashdot, be considered Internet Celebs (if that isn't already obvious), as could CmdrTaco. If a person could write a node here that said nothing but the word "poop" in it, and it was the only node that they had written all week, and it had a vote of +28, they are probably at least partially Internet famous and certainly e2 famous (just an observation).
Other people that are Internet famous include Kevin Mitnick and quite a few other hackers,
anyone from l0pht or CDC (a few of which got corporate backing recently and went legit; check out: www.atstake.com).
I have also heard of certain porn stars who have only done web porn without doing movies or magazines and attained a cult following.
And of course, the business people, like the guys that started Yahoo! and eBaY for instance; they have received their share of the spotlight.
In the future I am sure that these people will be highlighted on web sites and grab even more media attention by having publications centered around them like movie stars do now. Scary Scary. Get that postcard signed by bones now before its worth money.