Influencer Mode Switched On
The term “internet celebrity has become a cultural phenomenon that captivates, especially, the younger generations struggling for being “liked” or “shared” in the “connected” society” (Juntiwasarakij, 2018, p.550). Emphasis on the concept of ‘connectivity’ as there is a huge debate about whether social media and the life of internet fame is bringing people together or actually dividing us as a society. However, that is a conversation for another time. This blog is going to focus on arguably the biggest component of the internet celebrity world and that is influencers. “Influencers are the epitome of internet celebrities” (Abidin, 2018, p.24) and essentially dominate the world of social media but in a world where it is hard to ever believe what you really see and hear, are influencers really being authentic? and does this effect the way people perceive these influential and some what iconic online celebrities?
Many scholars argue that influencers present themselves in an authentic way for the benefit of growing their brand and for the main goal of economic stability and growth which directly links to Goffman and his dramaturgical analogy. Goffman argues that when in front stage (aware that the actor is being observed) they automatically present themselves in a way that is deemed to be less authentic due to them being aware that they are going to be observed resulting in a ‘loss of face’ (Bullingham and Vasconcelos, 2013). This coincides with Abidin (2018) and his argument that authenticity has become more of a performative ecology with self-presentation elements. For example, we can take a look at one of the most practical examples of ‘authenticity’ within the world of influencing and YouTube with the story of Logan Paul and the suicide forest. In short Logan is an American Youtuber who went to the famous suicide forest located in Japan and uploaded a video of his reactions to seeing a dead body, receiving a lot of backlash and arguably trying to be too authentic. “Authenticity becomes carefully choreographed, turning into a strategic form of self-presentation (Gaden and Dumitrica, 2014, as cited in, Van Driel and Dumitrica, 2020, p.4) and the Logan Paul example is living proof of this as towards the end of the video that he uploaded he tried to cheekily plug his blog and increase his brand.
Although there are arguments that some aspects of being an influencer are beneficial such as key individuals filtering and disseminating content for their audience (Abidin, 2018) and the standard characteristics of content creation such as entertainment or for informative purposes, the real question is, does the concept of authenticity affect the audiences perception of said influencer? and the answer is yes. Whether the positives or negatives outweigh each other will always be up for discussion but research from Poyry et al (2019) found that certain celebrity characteristics have an effect on how favourably the audience perceives them whether it is down to internal or external factors or both.
Overall, some aspects of the online celebrity world make influencers appear as less filtered and more real thus fostering feelings of relate-ability and authenticity (Abidin, 2018) however, it is sometimes very obvious that an influencer may be exploiting their audience by presenting themselves as authentic for the benefit of their brand and economic growth.
Bibliography
Abidin, C. (2018). Internet celebrity : Understanding fame online. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Bullingham, L., & Vasconcelos, A. C. (2013). ‘The presentation of self in the online world’: Goffman and the study of online identities. Journal of information science, 39(1), 101–112.
Gaden, G., & Dumitrica, D. (2015). The ‘real deal’: Strategic authenticity, politics and social media. First Monday.
Juntiwasarakij, S. (2018). Framing emerging behaviors influenced by internet celebrity. Kasetsart Journal of Social Sciences, 39(3), 550–555.
Pöyry, E., Pelkonen, M., Naumanen, E., & Laaksonen, S. M. (2019). A call for authenticity: Audience responses to social media influencer endorsements in strategic communication. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 13(4), 336–351.
van Driel, L., & Dumitrica, D. (2020). Selling brands while staying “Authentic”: The professionalization of Instagram influencers. Convergence, 1354856520902136.
