Molly Knight, one of the excellent parts of that mixed blessing known as ESPN, has a new article in the New York Times Magazine about “Stalker Sarah,” a Los Angeles teen who’s found value of a kind in the detritus of modern celebrity. The girl chases down celebs at airports and restaurants not to snap pap photos to make a buck but to share cell-phone shots with those who are of the moment or on the cusp. Posting these images to the Internet affords her a different sort of wealth–notoriety by (fleeting) proximity. Although it’s ultimately sad as stories about fame almost always are, this piece is no Day of the Locust. It’s about a well-intentioned person with questionable priorities in an age of media anarchy, a time when focus is less important than click. An excerpt:

“In L.A., stalking celebrities may not be the most dignified job in the world, but it can pay the bills. A nonexclusive photograph of a celebrity can earn a few hundred dollars. The most prolific paparazzi can sell five or six sets of pictures a day and earn about $10,000 a month, but many operate under the premise that they are one groping photo away from a major payoff. A photo’s main value, after all, depends largely on what the star is doing. ‘You could get a photo of Brad Pitt just standing there, and you wouldn’t sell it,’ says Henry Flores, who co-owns the agency Buzz Foto. ‘I have taken photos of Angelina and Brad holding hands, and I couldn’t even sell it.’ But Flores earned $30,000 for a photograph he took five years ago of Britney Spears being loaded into an ambulance. The photographs last summer that showed Kristen Stewart kissing Rupert Sanders, her married Snow White and the Huntsman director, may have sold for up to $250,000, Melanie Bromley, the former West Coast bureau chief of US Weekly, told The Los Angeles Times.

In pursuit of these career-defining moments, the most successful paparazzi spend years cultivating relationships with not only managers and publicists, but also restaurant workers and trainers. ‘You can’t be covered in tattoos and dressed like a gangster if you want to be successful at what we do,’ Flores says. Many star handlers reward these less-threatening photographers with choreographed exclusives, but the business is still littered with less-polished free agents who chase stars in their cars or photograph their children on school grounds. Ninety-five percent of paparazzi, it seems, are men, many of whom go by the sort of nicknames — like the Fingerbreaker and Cheesecake — that you would expect to hear on a minor-league hockey team. Mostly, though, they stand around waiting for something to happen.

Sarah is very much a part of their circle, trading texts and tips with them. The paparazzi have accepted her for strategic reasons. In the era of YouTube and reality TV, there are simply more people than ever before who qualify as famous, and their every move is seemingly reported in a never-ending proliferation of gossip sites and blogs. Perhaps only a teenager could possess the energy and technical aptitude to serve as the global tracking device for it all. Sarah is incredibly adept at recognizing even the most minor celebrities and has a much better sense than her older colleagues about which seem ready to break huge. Scooter Braun, the 31-year-old talent manager of Justin Bieber, Carly Rae Jepsen, Psy and the Wanted, considers it part of his job to follow Sarah’s whereabouts on social-networking sites. It also helps that she’s nice to his clients. ‘The thing is, she’s not overbearing,’ he told me. ‘She respects people’s space. She’ll say, ‘Do you mind if I get a picture?’ And if you’re like, ‘Not right now, Sarah,’ she’s like, ‘No problem.’ And she’s just a very sweet, sweet person.’

Most celebrity photographers yearn to catch a star at their most defenseless, but Sarah tends to think of them as friends.”