How hard is it to become a superstar these days? Two experts consider Glen Powell

By Leah Asmelash, CNN

(CNN) — The ladder to fame, Lindsey Weber and Bobby Finger declare, is broken. For a decade, the two have been picking apart the gradations of fame on their podcast, “Who? Weekly,” watching as the old monoculture fades into a blur of indistinct stardoms and not-really-stardoms.

“If A-listers are calling the paparazzi, and people whose names we’d never seen before can fill stadiums, it’s truly impossible to tell the difference between a B- or C-list celebrity anymore,” they write in their new book, “I Want to Be Famous: When Everybody and Nobody Is a Celebrity.”

Instead, Weber and Finger divide the famous into Whos and Thems. Whos are people presented as famous without being famous, really: lesser-known actors, reality TV stars, podcasters and influencers. They stand below and apart from Thems, the genuine household names like Beyoncé, Denzel Washington or Tom Hanks.

It’s still possible to reach the heights of fame, but it’s far from straightforward. To explain the dynamics involved in trying to rise to the big time, Weber and Finger considered the not-quite ascent of actor Glen Powell, whose quick rise and plateau shows just how easy it is to become a Who and how hard it is to become a Them.

Note: “Twisters” was distributed internationally by Warner Bros., which is part of Warner Bros. Discovery along with CNN. “Everybody Wants Some!!,” “Top Gun: Maverick” and “The Running Man” were produced by Paramount, which has an agreement to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery.

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Additional production by CNN’s Eleanor Stubbs.