So far on this blog, I have discussed the concept of microcelebrity in various contexts and provided a distinction between microcelebrity and traditional celebrity (see "What is a Celebrity?"). I think that before going any further on this concept, it is imperative to provide a fuller exploration of what microcelebrity is, and potentially construct a holistic definition of the term.
It is hard to define a new concept, especially when it is not even listed in the dictionary. According to the World English Dictionary, a microcelebrity is "a celebrity whose fame is relatively narrow in scope and likely to be transient." This extremely limited definition is the only available official classification of the term. While daunting because this is relatively unexplored territory, this is also an exciting opportunity to make a contribution to the way that we define the networked notoriety of persona's making the greatest contributions to the overarching cultural conversation.
In this brief article from Obvious Magazine, The New Era of Microcelebrities, Luis Soares classifies a microcelebrity as someone "who has created some services as an example of his genre wins readers and an audience beyond his inner circle of friends and acquaintances and starts drawing the attention of a small community of strangers on the Internet." We have seen this in the example of YouTubers who have developed channels based on specific genres of humor and interest. Beauty gurus, fashion bloggers, and YouTube comedians appeal to niche audiences. Each has their own fan base in the form of "friends" and "followers." Each fan base is generally pretty singular and independent; however, in this networked age of six degrees of separation, there are often audience overlaps. According to Soares, a micro celebrity's fame is differentiated from a traditional celebrity's fame because it is not reliant on media attention and coverage. A micro celebrity's influence is somewhat easier to quantify because it is directly correlated to the user's number of likes, follows, and reposts—influence in the infosphere, not in non-virtual reality. This does not mean, however, that microcelebrities' identities and influences remain limited to cyberspace.
At the end of the piece, Soares makes the assertion that “from the moment you become a creator on the Internet, you yearn to become a micro celebrity, one way or another.” This intrigues me for a variety of reasons. When people become content creators, they certainly do not begin producing content with the express purpose of becoming Internet famous. Generally, people become creators for personal or professional reasons. They want to share their content, get their names out there; but, do we all subconsciously want to be famous? Do we crave this type of attention and approval from the denizens of cyberspace from the moment that we log on to our computers? Furthermore, is this an inherent human quality or does the form of media direct us toward this goal of achieving notoriety?
Pamela Haag, a blogger, offers a more in-depth qualification of the microcelebrity in her article, The Rise of the Micro-Celebrity. In her view, microcelebrities have developed in an era in which young people no longer trust big organizations. After the Great Recession, jobs are harder to come by and the “social safety net” that previous generations had no longer applies. Individuals must rely on their own personal corporations, their personal brands. She asserts that the concept of microcelebrity stems from the New Millennium babies, and is unique to this generation. Obviously, this is untrue as there exist microcelebrities of all ages.
According to Haag, “the micro-celebrity in social media is comfortable with a gap between the ‘real self,’ such as it persists, and its promotion, curation, and presentation to friends, fans, and followers.” In other words, microcelebrities cast personal integrity aside for the sake of renown in cyberspace. Their ultimate aim is to self-aggrandize and propagate their voice (in the form of all types of content and curated information) and brand as much as possible. The game: to become as popular as possible no matter the costs. While microcelebrities are not soul-less, moral-less people, they will exaggerate certain aspects of their personalities online for the sake of attracting attention and gaining popularity.
Haag explains microcelebrity in the context of modern celebrity economy, saying, “Young people are asked to function today in what amounts to a celebrity economy. In this economy, all they have to rely on is their own “brand” and name. Their celebrity-hood is micro, because it doesn’t transpire on the big screen or in larger-than-life proportions, but in the capillaries of social media, reality tv, and Twitter. It’s an inner experience of self rather than an objective state of being famous.” The projection of self, whether an obscure, exaggerated fragment of one’s stranger personality facets or closely aligning with offline identity, through social media platforms is the cornerstone of microcelebrity.
In truth, microcelebrities are the founders and CEO’s of their own personal PR firms. They ruthlessly and shamelessly self-promote in any way possible to broaden the scope of their genre niche and dig deeper roots of cultural influence of that niche. Developing, maintaining, and evolving a brand to adapt to their following, while seemingly inauthentic, is essential to the success of any microcelebrity. According to Haag, this is following in a trend of millenials to constantly seek approval and emotional validation, which microcelebrities seek out in the form of likes and follows by whatever means necessary.
As discussed in my previous post, the authenticity of microcelebrities is called into question when self promotion and mutable personalities get in the way of originality and the ‘true voice’ of the user, the voice that the users audience fell in love with. While microcelebrities must brand and promote themselves, they must walk a fine line with their followers to ensure that they do not appear to be controlled by commercial interests or too fame hungry.
While I began with my words, I think it will be worthwhile to insert the words of cyber-communications scholar Alice Marwalk. Her book, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity, and Branding in a Social Media Age, is one that I will be referencing frequently throughout this project. In her ethnographic work, she has studied the ways that fame has changed in the Web 2.0 environment, and brought the term 'microcelebrity' into the spotlight. In the introduction of her book, she provides this poignant explanation of the phenomenon which incorporates the economic and socio-political offline variables which affect all of our online interactions today. I will close with these words, because I think that they do a fair job of summing up all of the ideas that I have introduced, and further qualify what I will be exploring as I dive into the realm of microcelebrity:
"...far from the revolutionary and progressive participation flaunted by entrepreneurs and pundits, social media applications encourage people to compete for social benefits by gaining visibility and attention. To boost social status, young professionals adopt self-consciously constructed personas and market themselves, like brands or celebrities, to an audience or fan base. These personas are highly edited, controlled, and monitored, conforming to commercial ideals that dictate “safe-for-work” self-presentation. The technical mechanisms of social media reflect the values of where they were produced: a culture dominated by commercial interest. Although freewheeling creativity, rebellion, and non-hierarchical communality still exist online, they are dwarfed by social media applications that transform “social graphs,” the web of digital connections around a single user, into networks of personal brands contending for the very real benefits of high online status. These changes are deeply rooted in contemporary consumer capitalism, specifically the philosophy of deregulation and privatization known as neoliberalism...Individuals tend to adopt a neoliberal subjectivity that applies market principles to how they think about themselves."