I have never understood the appeal of name dropping. Honestly, I have tried it a few times, and it feels so pretentious. I also hate using name dropping for business use, specifically people who do it. Unless you can say, "I've been hired by celebrity x," then I do not believe it helps you at all, only hurts you.
A friend of mine here in town frequents a lot of clubs, and he has been telling everyone, "I performed for Lil Wayne!" You know what? That's great. That's peachy. Good for you. Don't put it on your resumé. Unless you have it on video, or have a quote, or he hired you to perform for him, it doesn't hold water in the real world, and you shouldn't try and make it do so.
What irks me more is performers who actually use photos of them with celebrities as part of their promo material. One in particular, an illusionist with a huge budget, has the entire backside of his marketing folder dedicated to photos of him with celebrities. The title says, "Friends of Magician".
See, at first glance this may be cool. What anyone with a brain and a second look will realize is, "he doesn't know these people personally. He was just conveniently there, like anyone else, and got a photo, like anyone else could've. These people are not exclusive."
Now, I'll actually use a name here. I learned something from my friend, Bizzaro, just by being around him a lot. By default, he refers to all of his friends as, "my friend," or "I have a friend who..." and doesn't use names. Example, "So, I was talking to my friend the other day, and she had this great idea..."
The beauty of this system is two-fold. He could either be talking about someone famous, or someone not famous. What better way than to respect your friends?
Because think deeply about it, if you were really friends with someone famous, would you really go around announcing it to the world? Bragging that you are friends with them? You probably wouldn't be their friend for very long. Put yourself in their shoes.
Bragging to the world that you are good friends with someone is like having a girl you just met go around behind your back telling everyone she sees that the two of you are dating. And all you did was compliment the attitude she had while ringing up your latté.
Only use celebrity names if you were hired, or have something in writing to prove it. Pointless bragging just makes you look really, really bad.
