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span class="caption" style="width: 398px;">JPThe road to fame and fortune is a bumpy one, perhaps as rocky as the increasingly potholed boulevards of Jakarta. With a star born now every minute in the cyber world, fame can be equally short-lived, with everyone now getting 15 minutes or sometimes less in the spotlight.

Holding on to it is not easy; last year’s Sinta and Jojo YouTube phenoms are this year’s where-are-they-now curiosities.

Here goes some of the people making news in 2011, sometimes not for all the right reasons.

Syahrini

A list would not be a list without the singer, undoubtedly one of the main “cause celebrities” of the year. With her dainty, always buff-polished looks (including heaping in-your-face bling accessories and Gaga-esque eyelashes) and a gift for the gab, she was an infotainment reporter’s dream, and was here, there and everywhere. She made music with singer-songwriter Anang, the former husband of KD, a partnership which ended abruptly, fainted gracefully on Tukul Arwana’s prime-time talk show, got cushy with visiting K-Pop star Hyun Bin and bent it with Beckham when the English soccer star came to town (earning the ire of his fans in the process). Her donning of a kaftan during the fasting month led to ballooning interest in the dress, and she broke new ground with her hair-raising “equator” bun worn in honor of Beckham. Her asides – sesuatu (that’s something), “ahtittuude (spoken with attitude) and alhamdulillah (thank God) – became popular catch phrases. While she has plenty of detractors, her curiosity value is second to none. Oh, yes, did I mention that she sings?

Twitterati

Facebook has suffered a big loss of face with the rise of Twitter. Today, it’s not about earning the distinction of “sorry, this user has too many friends”, but the dazzling number of followers we can accrue as a “Tweet Celeb”. Now, we may not be the nicest person in the world, or even the brightest spark in the stratosphere, but even if we are a big twit we can pretend to be something in our timelines (bombastic Google quotes come in handy). Thankfully, the biggest Twitter star of them all in these parts, singer Sherina Munaf, with two million followers and counting, wields her Tweet power wisely with (mostly) educational tweets.

Ayu Ting Ting

With an ear-catching name like that, she was born to be a star. A young woman of the times, with a love of K-Pop that carries over into her auburn-dyed hair and whimsical fashion sense, Ayu showed she was going places with her plaintive “Salah Alamat (Wrong Address)” and its naggingly catchy refrain “kemana, kemana” (where am I going?). Actually recorded a couple of years ago, the song became a belated overnight hit, and was on everybody’s lips. While some of the aforementioned stars and starlets of 2011 may be wondering where they are headed in the very near future, Ayu seems destined to go onward and upward. Did I mention that she can actually sing? Now that is really something special.

Malinda Dee

The colorful rogue’s gallery of alleged crooks and criminals includes former legislator Muhammad Nazarruddin, a man who is doing his own “singing” right now, and Nunun Nurbaeti (how could we forget her?), as well as the always interesting 2010 poster boy for civil service crime and ill-fitting wigs Gayus Tambunan.

Most colorful and prominent of all is former bank executive Malinda Dee, who whipped up a media frenzy when details of her racy private life and penchant for plastic surgery emerged during her trial for alleged malfeasance.

While a lot of nudge-nudge-wink-wink jokes were heard about her physical appearance, at the end of the day she represents not only a different face of alleged white-collar crime, but also a woman with the financial clout to have a handsome younger trophy husband. Just like one of the boys.

Boy (and girl) Bands

The success of the pretty boys and girls of K-Pop also found its way to these parts with the debut of easy-on-the-eyes-if-not-on-the-ears young entertainers. SM*SH was the first to score a smash hit with its catchy “I Heart You (You Know Me So Well)”, quickly spawning an assembly line of similar groups. They are fashionable, cute, they can move to the rhythm and they drive their peers wild. Did I mention that they can sing?

Norman Kamaru

A YouTube video of the soldier lip synching and dancing to the song “Chaiyya Chaiyya” by Shah Rukh Khan became an Internet sensation. The military’s top brass was none too happy with this private on parade – his punishment for performing in uniform in the video was an order to give a “command performance” before his fellow soldiers – but the 26-year-old from Gorontalo won a place in the public’s heart. He then made the round of TV variety and music shows, with his tour of entertainment duty eventually leading to more problems with his commanders. Norman was dishonorably discharged by the end of the year, and is barred from wearing his uniform again. The question is whether a plainclothes Norman will be able to earn his stardom stripes, or whether, like old soldiers who never die, he will simply fade away.