Democraticing celebrity online
Milly Williamson
DIY celebrity' is seen to be part of the internet’s democratisation of public life. Social networking sites and webcam have been heralded as egalitarian forms that have opened up the possibility of public prominence to much wider groups of people. From camgirls to blogging and tweeting, the internet is seen to offer visibility to ordinary people rather than elites, and the proliferation of ordinary celebrity is a sign that this mode of self presentation is open to all (Senft, 2008; Dovey, 2000; Hartley, 1999). However, it is important to note that the proliferation of ordinary celebrities is more a phenomenon of television than the internet.
The ordinary celebrity arises from the explosion in commercially lucrative global format reality TV and the need fill this expanding format with content; television companies control the production, marketing and distribution of the celebrity in ways which serve the (usually commercial) l interests of a programme or company (Turner 2010). The vertical integration found in the production of celebrity on television is largely reproduced on-line. Large websites attached to large multinational corporations dominate the production and circulation of celebrity images on-line. For example, the on-line celebrity gossip magazine People.com is one of the most heavily used on-line celebrity magazines, with hits of over 50 million on the day after the Oscars. Owned by the second largest media conglomerate (Time Warner) the magazine is known to be publicist friendly and is a major player in the construction and circulation of celebrity images and meanings in a field of fame which is structured hierarchically. But when discussing the egalitarian nature of ‘ordinary celebrity’ we must also attend to the neo-liberal presentation of self that is encouraged in this context. Celebrity culture has long blurred the distinction between public and the private – however, in the context of the prevailing march of privatisation, celebrity culture encourages citizens (both the famous and those who want to be) to become entrepreneurs of the self, to seek advancement (in terms of status and financially) through self promotion. In this competition for attention on line, the existing inequalities of gender, race and class come into play. For example, camgirls adopt a gendered representation of self that is marked by the confessional mode and at times the sexual gaze, whereas the top 30 bloggers belong to a highly educated, predominantly male elite who are no more representative of ordinary citizens then the ‘old elites’ (Hindman, 2009; 141). The offline hierarchies that shape the access to modes of visibility and voice continue to operate in celebrity culture online, and promote a hyperindividualism that problematically equates consumer choice with democratic participation and hierarchically organised visibility with equality.