Celebrity may be defined in various terms—as a “discursive category, as a commercial commodity, as the object of consumption.”[1] Beyond this and beyond mere fame, celebrity may also be understood as “something additional, a degree of currency and activity.”[2] Whereas “one could be respectably and quietly ‘famous,’…to have ‘celebrity’ [involves]…a certain buzz in everyday social life.” [3] The rise of the internet extends this “buzz” from gossip columns to social media platforms. Every corner of the world wide web has become a potential site for celebrity discourse. Social media lends itself to the representation of a subcategory of celebrity known as “micro-celebrity.” Micro-celebrity plays upon traditional ideas of celebrity but in a digital context, and this context has consequences for notions of authenticity, the undoing of the divide between public and private, and strategies of representation. Moreover, micro-celebrity attends on a certain “behavior: the presentation of oneself as a celebrity regardless of who is paying attention.”[4]
Interestingly, there appears to be a gendered distinction in the embodiment of this “behavior”. As the internet generally, and social media specifically, become places that increasingly “idealiz[e] transparency and […] a certain amount of exhibitionism,” it seems these principles are translated into literal exhibitions of the female body for the sake of fame. At the intersection of scandal, performance, and self-commodification, social media—as an instantaneous, collective, and interactive platform for display—has resulted in the hypersexualization of girls concomitant with new notions of “celebrity” and its allure.
To make sense of the rise of micro-celebrity and this feminine, sexual phenomenon, it is important to understand the reasons for which social media serves as the ideal site for celebrity construction. There is a demand in general for celebrities to bare all; however, with social media this demand has been generalized. Beyond celebrities, we now seem to expect this same level of self-display from one another. No one is exempt from “life in a kind of virtual Panopticon” as we desire equally to know the private lives of celebrities we admire and the intimate details of our friends and families’ lives.[5] As Van Krieken suggests, our contemporary culture is perhaps best defined as a negotiation between panopticism and synopticism, “where the viewing relationship is reversed so that the many watch the few.”[6] Regardless, while “micro-celebrities depend on attention and visibility to maintain their elevated status […] because most young people put content online, it opens the door for such scrutiny to be applied to almost anyone.”[7]
Graeme Turner argues that “we can map the precise moment a public figure becomes a celebrity. It occurs, he writes, “at the point which media interest in their activities is transferred from reporting on their public role to investigating the details of their private lives.”[8] While Turner’s explicit formulation of this “point” suggests that celebrity is dependent on media coverage, I extend this reading to argue an individual becomes a celebrity when the public at large, not just the media, cares to “investigate” the details of his or her private life. With the advent of social media, this mindset has become ubiquitous and organizes our social behavior. Furthermore, social media offers us the ability to bypass traditional media outlets and conduct this investigative reportage all on our own. As Turner confirms, “ordinary people need no longer deal with the traditional media gatekeepers before they are able to attract public attention.”[9] Thus, this dynamic works both ways—ordinary people can garner attention without traditional media just as they can devote attention without a headline urging them to do so.
Instagram, one of the most widespread social media platforms to date, strikes an ideal balance of image, dialogue, and performance that renders it most attractive as a site for achieving celebrity. Writing on the advent of photography, Van Krieken argues that “the photograph made it possible for the aspiring celebrity to establish a far more intimate relationship with their audience, spontaneous, adaptable and with the aura of ‘reality’.”[10] Instagram is a platform dedicated to the circulation of photos and it literalizes Van Krieken’s “aura of ‘reality’” such that the term comes to describe our contemporary social world. Van Krieken uses the term “intoxicated” to describe our relationship to these pictures and Cashmore quotes Virginia Blum to say we are “‘infatuated’ with 2D images to the point where we identify with them.”[11] Blum continues, “by identifying not with living people but moving images, we have been drawn into an engagement with a kind of fantasy,” and it is precisely this fantasy, which we are made to mediate, that might work to our advantage.[12] Instagram uses the construction and dissemination of images to seduce onlookers. It is a tool for individuals to mobilize and to garner attention which, in the world of the internet, is an increasingly scarce resource. Given the current “oversupply of information and knowledge,” it becomes a game, one in which players must strategize, perform, and position themselves as an object worthy of our attention.[13] The real winners of today translate this “worthiness” into an obligation, an imperative need or desire by which we are made to look, to follow and aspire.
In this moment of content overload, celebrity depends on the “capital” that is attention.[14] However, as social media evolves in this “Culture of Likes,” it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish oneself as an individual worthy of attention and the potential fame that follows. Moreover, the instantaneous nature of technology fosters a need to pursue and achieve fame as rapidly as possible. The shortcut to fame? Scandal. In the same way that Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian positioned their sex tapes as the ultimate opportunity for re-branding, a similar tactic is being employed by girls on social media. Sex sells, because sex startles. The increased prevalence of pornography contributes to the sexualization of young girls. A 2016 report by The House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee notes that “children as young as eight were learning about sex through exposure to ‘hardcore’ pornography.”[15] Nancy Jo Sales reveals children as young as six are typically exposed to online porn, and the “majority have watched it before they turn 18.”[16] Peggy Orenstein clarifies that teens are not necessarily partaking in intercourse “at higher rates than they did 20 years ago,” but they are “engaging in other sexual behavior with increased regularity.”[17] One strain of this “other sexual behavior” is the online posting of suggestive photographs, often in lingerie, by adolescent and young adult women. Exposed to porn at formative ages, they have been made to believe this is not only the new norm but a mode of visibility, a viable method for seeking attention and receiving it. It is no secret: “everyone knows you get more ‘likes’ in a bikini than in an anorak.”[18] However, where posting a bikini photo was once primarily in the name of validation from our peers (specifically, male peers), it is now something upon which one might capitalize in the pursuit of celebrity. Why strive for validation from few when you can have it from many and profit in the process?
Sociologist Charles Wright Mills acknowledged this trend as early as the 1950s, noting “the central role of women, particularly young women, and their public eroticization, as well as the dynamics of prostitution in the commodification of celebrity.”[19] He continues:
Everywhere one looks there is this glossy little animal, sometimes quite young and sometimes a little older, but always imagined, always pictured, as The Girl. She sells beer and she sells books, cigarettes, and clothes; every night she is on the TV screen, and every week on every other page of the magazines, and at the movies too, there she is.
“There she is,” he writes, and he is not wrong. However, now there are even more media for her representation. She not only graces the pages of magazines, stars in movies, or appears on billboards; she is in the very palm of our hand. Following various waves of feminist thought, girls now admire mainstream and A-list celebrities who frame their sexuality as an active choice beyond just a component to their fame. Pop stars such as Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, and Nicki Minaj — or reality stars such as Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Heidi Montag, and Paris Hilton — who might have formerly been “denounced” for their public sexual displays are now celebrated. Girls see their behavior as an “expression—rather than an imposition—of sexuality.”[20] Therefore, sexuality becomes a plausible strategy “to trade on […] physical assets to gain popularity,” an access point for girls looking at female celebrities and aspiring to their empires.[21]
If celebrities exemplifying this behavior prove to be successful business models, who wouldn’t want to give it a try? But, as Marwick warns, while “the rewards of achieving micro-celebrity may seem considerable […] the cost is often high.”[22] This, Orenstein suggests, is because “curiosity about sex is natural, but porn is another realm in which female sexuality is presented as a performance for male pleasure; bodies—both men’s and women’s—are wildly distorted.”[23] Just as female sexuality exists as performance in pornography, we have begun to recast it as a similar performance in our notions of celebrity. Where “celebrity has traditionally been viewed as something someone is […] micro-celebrity, by contrast, is something someone does,” and a big part of what female micro-celebrities are doing is sexualizing themselves for the sake of fame.[24] The allure of celebrity can be so blinding that girls will publicly go to such lengths as taking their clothes off under the guise of empowerment when, in reality, they are being led to do so by subconscious pressures related to the male gaze and the need for attention and validation. To better demonstrate this claim, I will proceed to highlight three individuals who embody the parallel between the sexualization of girls and our contemporary discourse of celebrity.
Eileen Kelly, @killerandasweetthang
Eileen Kelly, “aka Killer and a Sweet Thang” as she introduces herself in a video for New York Post, is a 21-year-old “blogger” based in New York City.[25] She calls herself a blogger, but really, her rise to fame took place on Instagram, a result of racy photos featuring her petite figure in lingerie, skimpy swimwear, or most commonly, none of the above. She often presents herself topless or fully nude, juxtaposing provocative poses with her innocent baby face. Kelly’s feed is a calculated mix of nude portraits, S&M scenes, a rather striking series in which she is made up with bruises and cuts, photos featuring her now elite social circle, and those in which she harmlessly rides a bike down the street or licks ice-cream in a flirty summer dress. As the New York Post article dated January 2016 notes, Kelly amassed over 140,000 followers in a year thanks to her sexually charged imagery, and, while at the time of publication her follower count totaled 200,000, it has since grown to nearly 400,000.
Kelly rejects the “Lolita” label Dana Schuster and others apply to her identity, not to mention what Kelly felt was a “twisted” and “hyper sexist” portrayal in Schuster’s article originally titled: “I fuel fantasies of men who want sex with young girls, and I’m fine with it.”[26] She insists, “I don’t have famous parents. I went to a random high school in Seattle, and yet I’ve gained this following on social media. I’m relatable. I’m human!”[27] In this quote alone, we observe how Kelly embodies the trope of authenticity vital to celebrity but even more so to micro-celebrity, which “requires creating a persona, producing content, and strategically appealing to online fans by being ‘authentic.’”[28] As Marwick observes, “because they are not subject to the processes of the star-making system,” we expect microcelebrities to be authentic in a way that traditional celebrities may not be able to achieve, at least not in ways that are as seemingly “organic” or “genuine.” Lionel Trilling makes the distinction that “authenticity as a display of the hidden inner life, complete with passions and anguish” differs from sincerity which is “honesty without pretense.”[29] Marwick adds that it is the “display of hidden inner life, the act of revealing intimate information, that creates a bond between micro-celebrity practitioners and their audiences.”[30]
It seems that Kelly has misinterpreted authenticity as some sort of need to bare all, as if taking her clothes off is a signal to her audience that she is “real.” While he speaks specifically of nude celebrity websites, Turner’s description of celebrity and the audience’s relationship to this medium is deeply related to Kelly’s strategy and inspiration. He writes: “the desire to see what the celebrity is ‘really like’ obviously has a substantial sexual dimension […] nude celebrity magazines and sites exploit this to the hilt, offering the ultimate sign of availability—the unlicensed display of their naked bodies.”[31] The difference here is that Kelly sanctions the display of her body on her Instagram feed. She is aware of the performance since she alone cultivates it, actively staging her photos to craft an image that teeters on the line between sexuality and naïveté. She further complicates what constitutes authenticity, using her sexualized body as a vehicle for attention, to demonstrate her “realness,” to affiliate with her audience while simultaneously keep them at bay. In doing so, she muddles the purpose of social media, a platform established to connect us with one another that now serves, more than anything, as a voyeur’s paradise.
While Kelly insists she does not get paid for her posts—whatever this means considering she landed a modeling job for VFiles, received a free trip to Art Basel, and relished a shopping spree at Kitsuné Paris all thanks to her famous feed—she has used her following to foray into supplementary territory.[32] She was quoted in various articles saying her dream was to start her own sexual education program and has since established a platform to do so. Previously, her website of the same alias was used as a blog, then a space for posts on various sex-related topics, articles that read more like Web-MD if not were copy-and-pasted directly from it. The site now functions as both an e-commerce shop and members-based chatroom by the name of Birds&Bees. Kelly’s shop features t-shirts that either have photos of her likeness, her Instagrams, or “Killer and a Sweet Thang” printed on them. A link to this website is also the first and only thing to greet fans on her Instagram profile. Commercial intentions aside, it is interesting to note Kelly’s web transition. While her internet presence once consisted of topless photos and preachy articles intended to impart her “knowledge,” her latest venture is the creation of a grassroots advice forum that sets users in dialogue with one another, circulating sex-related fears, triumphs, questions, and advice.
If anything, this seems to be the most successful and “authentic” of Kelly’s achievements as she has removed herself as a “credible” source and allowed her celebrity to create a safe space for intimate, genuine conversation. Regardless of her motives, Kelly’s celebrity identity is alive and well. She has been written about everywhere from New York Post to W Magazine and i-D, distinguishing herself as someone to know and someone worth talking about. She embodies celebrity as “the spectacle of a particular kind of sexual objectification,” garnering both criticism and praise as a result.[33] She perpetuates her identity for the sake of visibility and has carved a place for herself in Van Krieken’s “economy of attention.”[34] As revealed in her W Magazine feature, Kelly has fans and stalkers alike, but while the latter may be ill-received in Kelly’s personal life, “being tracked by a stalker, possibly more than one, is also a recognized benchmark” in the progression toward celebrity.[35][36] Whether we respond to Kelly’s identity in the form of gossip, envy, admiration or disdain, all serve to reaffirm her celebrity and differentiate her figure from the domain in which the average individual functions.
Charlotte D’Alessio, @charlottedalessio
Like Kelly, 18-year-old Charlotte D’Alessio is another teen making a name for herself by way of her “girl next door” looks and myriad Instagram photos on the beaches of Malibu. Once a member of my own community in Toronto, Canada, Charlotte moved to Los Angeles in high school, left her name (Briar) and, with it, her identity behind. Subsequently, she began to promote a new social image in which her braceface was swapped for amateur modeling photos featuring D’Alessio and her newfound crowd in bralettes and bikinis. Rumored to have had a fling with Anwar Hadid, brother to social media sensations and models Bella and Gigi, Charlotte built a decent following thanks to her bronzy glow, piercing green eyes, long legs and slim figure. Her highly followed playmates didn’t hurt either, although D’Alessio’s real Cinderella moment was in 2015 at the Coachella Arts & Music Festival. Taking the weekend by storm alongside her model friend, Josie Canseco, the pair’s photo ended up on the festival’s Twitter page, pop star The Weeknd’s social media accounts, photographers The Cobra Snake and Bryant Enslava’s largely followed Instagram pages.[37] This led to a widely circulated BuzzFeed article, Business Insider feature, and modelling contract with Wilhelmina (she has since transitioned to LA Models). D’Alessio’s popularity skyrocketed from 16,000 followers to 174,000 post-Coachella, and now that number has grown to a whopping 256,000.
D’Alessio demonstrates many of the same strategies as Kelly, however, unlike Kelly who capitalizes on her baby face, D’Alessio’s selling point seems to be the opposite. She appears far older than her age and began posting sultry photos as early as fourteen. She may be a legal adult now, but her raciness can be traced back far earlier than her legality, able to pass for a Victoria’s Secret or Sports Illustrated model five to fifteen years her senior as a pre-teen. Given the frequency of her Snapchats and Instagrams in wings, bikinis, and lingerie it seems this was, and still is, the teenager’s ultimate goal. Though she is Canadian, D’Alessio perfectly embodies Mills’ model of the “All American Girl”. She possesses all the major components: “doll face and the swank body starved for the camera, a rather thin, gaunted girl with the wan smile, the bored gaze, and often the slightly opened mouth, over which the tongue occasionally slides to insure the highlights.”[38]
D’Alessio is just one more of the many underage girls accounting for the rising trend of posting sexual photos online. As adolescent psychologist Michele Borba suggests:
The photos are becoming more perfectly cropped, more concerned about appearances as opposed to what [the girls are] doing with [their friends]. As authenticity starts to go down, we find that the girl becomes more concerned about how many like [she’s] getting and what people think about [her] as opposed to what kind of person [she is].[39]
Especially when one attracts enough “likes” to move beyond plain validation and towards modeling contracts and sponsored posts, it is no wonder we see younger faces and less clothing as we scroll. While women are all too familiar with the reality of a gendered pay gap, this sector inverts the typical male to female ratio. Average value per Instagram post for a female model is $1,245.51 compared to $704.02 per post for male models.[40] This discrepancy illustrates the gender dynamics of micro-celebrity, which favor women, turn likes into dollars, and incentivize their performances of overt sexuality.
Another component to D’Alessio’s celebrity involves the relationship she cultivates with her “fans.” Marwick and Boyd argue that “micro-celebrity can be understood as a mindset and set of practices in which the audience is viewed as a fan base.”[41] Furthermore, Marwick suggests that individuals whom micro-celebrities “interact with online are thought of as fans, rather than friends or strangers, and these relationships are carefully maintained to sustain popularity.”[42] This creates a complicated dynamic in which individuals we might have known in their lives before celebrity now treat us, their former friends and acquaintances, as though we were fans. Moreover, the fans themselves are gaining traction for their very adulation. When the BuzzFeed article first surfaced and D’Alessio began to receive increasing media coverage, I can recall the hype with which she was referred to in our community, gossiped about in social circles back home. Suddenly, this regular teen who had disappeared from our view was catapulted onto the celebrity stage and “verified” as such. The pinnacle of D’Alessio’s transition was when Instagram officially recognized her account with a blue checkmark badge. It is no surprise she shared a photo to mark the occasion. Radiating with joy, the post captured her elated smile as she dined at the Beverly Hills Hotel, accompanied by the caption: “OMG I JUST GOT VERIFIED. THIS IS HOW I FEEL <3 <3 <3 <3 <3”. The small symbol is a major distinction, and in this moment, D’Alessio was granted a certain “distance and aggrandizement” unavailable to the average user.
Instagram explains that the verified badge appears on profiles to confirm the “authentic account for the public figure, celebrity or global brand it represents” because these individuals or brands “have a high likelihood of being impersonated.” The explanation Instagram provides uses the term “authentic” three times in five sentences, emphasizing once more how its platform lends itself most aptly to the creation and dissemination of celebrity as the discourse of “authenticity”. In this case it is true; when one searches for D’Alessio’s account on Instagram several appear under her name. D’Alessio has built such a following that she now has fan accounts (@charlottedalessionews, @charlottesupdates, and @charlotte.babes) that boast decent followings in their own right. These accounts repurpose D’Alessio’s fan base, validating their reputation by noting in their “bio” whether D’Alessio herself has ever followed, commented, or liked what they have reposted of her content. While their motives for starting these fan accounts may be devotion, it is also likely her fans are attempting to ride the coattails of D’Alessio’s celebrity and taste some for themselves.
Because of social media and the complicated ways in which it mediates proximity and distance, the parasocial interactions that once classified a fan’s relationship to celebrity are “recontextualized.”[43] The fact that micro-celebrities very inception depends on their fans results in some sort of dependency whereby the micro-celebrity must negotiate their former “closeness,” and keep intimacy at an arm’s length. Micro-celebrities engage with fans by replying to certain comments, and this is “considered a necessary part of acquiring and maintaining followers.”[44] On the flip side, individuals who formerly knew said individual must mediate the new dynamic, which shifts the relationship from that of acquaintance to the sphere of the parasocial. This is something I have witnessed among girls who once walked the same elementary school halls as Briar and have since adapted to ogling at her latest lingerie or bathing suit campaign as Charlotte. It is certainly an odd time to be on either the giving or receiving end of celebrity, and as D’Alessio’s identity begs the question, can we even isolate one from the other?
Sarah Snyder, @sarahfuckingsnyder
Finally, we come to nineteen-year-old Sarah Snyder, a brief but shining example of everything already established. Snyder is most notable for her title as Jaden Smith’s girlfriend. Her rise to fame is somewhat elusive, hence why she cannot seem to evade the clause in headlines that qualifies her position as Smith’s arm candy. Bustle, in particular, has been on a quest to uncover Snyder’s identity for some time with articles titled “Who is Jaden Smith’s girlfriend?” and “Who Is Sarah Snyder? Jaden Smith’s Girlfriend Is A Star On The Rise.” When rumors first started circulating that the two were an item, Snyder was often dubbed “mystery girl.”[45] Not just Bustle, but other tabloids (Hollywood Life, Popsugar) have published similar headlines promising to elucidate her identity. Naturally, interest piqued and the details followed. As Bustle uncovered, it seems Snyder’s micro-celebrity flourished per the trajectory laid out in the previous examples. In 2015, they reported the following as facets of her identity: “She’s Older;” “She Takes A Great Selfie;” “She’s A Model;” “She’s Got Great Style;” and “She Might Have A Bit Of A Past.”[46] Flash-forward to 2016, and the headline which once left Snyder nameless as Smith’s girlfriend now reads “Who Is Sarah Snyder,” her name in print, qualified as a “Star On The Rise.” Evidently, these components of her identity shifted to become ingredients for micro-celebrity, and the more recent article proceeds to re-label and repackage Snyder per the following: “She’s A Model;” “She’s Instagram-Famous;” “She’s Had Some Trouble With The Law;” and “She Has A Great Sense of Humor.”[47]
Even in 2015 when Bustle reported Snyder is “older,” they only meant this in relation to Smith who is somewhere between one and three years her junior. Her age has been as vague as her celebrity origins, and it has been inconsistently reported that Snyder is anywhere from seventeen to twenty-one years old. Regardless, it seems that she has been posting photos with drinks in hand and body parts on display far earlier than the legal ages for either consumption or consent. While back in April she had 580,000 Instagram followers, that number has since doubled.[48] Her youthful face is balanced by the sexualized display of her body, and, like Kelly and D’Alessio, she has posed for several highly sexualized advertising campaigns, most notably Calvin Klein lingerie.
However, there is a new twist in Snyder’s plotline. In September 2015, her mugshot began circulating online after a Page Six report accused her of stealing the infamously expensive Hermès Birkin Bag.[49] While Snyder’s “scandal” preceded her inflated social status, it certainly serves her celebrity at present. If anything, Snyder’s criminal record validates her status rather than dilutes it. Perhaps this is because she was ultimately perceived as guilty, because in the case of shoplifting (compared to other offenses), “forgiveness is easier to come by,” or maybe it is the reality that nowadays, nothing is too shocking.[50] Cashmore writes, “consumers have been overscandalized: it takes something special to shock, appall, outrage, horrify, disgust, or sicken us; and when it comes to being offended, our immune system is fully functional.”[51] While we still care to bring Snyder’s past to light in the present, perhaps it serves to promote rather than detract from her celebrity, just as her contentious sexual imagery is something we not only allow but by which we are not in the least bit phased. One cannot help but wonder: is this simply the new norm?
***
In Jason Reitman’s film, Men, Women & Children (2014), mother/daughter duo Donna and Hannah serve to complicate the many ideas explored here. Hell-bent on pursuing an acting career, Hannah takes great pride in a website her mother has built to host her “professional” acting photos. On this site there also exists a private gallery full of sexually suggestive photos in which Hannah, photographed by Donna, is dressed in a variety of “sexy” costumes. A failed actress in her own right, Donna convinces herself that her actions are out of love and that they will benefit her daughter’s hopeful career. Everything comes crashing down, however, when Hannah loses her “big break” as a finalist in a talent competition due to the company’s discovery of the site.[52] Although Hannah was rejected from a star search talent competition for her site’s racy backend portal, had she (or Donna) instead presented the sexually suggestive imagery up front, on social media, might it have been received differently? Might it have instead been framed, as many of these other girls have attempted to rewrite the narrative, as a message of empowerment rather than exploitation, in service of celebrity rather than detrimental to it?
Hannah’s website was rejected because it was classified along the lines of pornography in a way that, for some reason, the sexualized images of girls on Instagram are not. The ubiquity of social media has enabled a platform by which celebrity is not only increasingly democratized, but raciness is increasingly normalized. Returning to Cashmore’s point, as social media is a vessel for increased visibility and scandal, we are becoming a culture oversaturated and overscandalized to the point where “scandal is like novocaine: the more of it we have, the less sensitive we become.”[53] Scandal, “by definition, fires up interest,” but as we become further desensitized to the sexualization of girls online, what “fires us up” is beginning to involve less and less clothing. Where do we draw the line? When will we stop granting attention to and validating girls who are baring all? As the effect trickles down from traditional to micro-celebrity, perhaps to see some shift involves our condemnation of mainstream celebrities who model this behavior and facilitate its presence which we not only accept but perpetuate. As we are on the verge of baring all, both literally and figuratively, is this simply the way of the world? Is this the sole way for girls to market themselves? Or will there come a point where we can no longer take more off and thus, may begin, or at the very least to consider some alternatives. Perhaps, rather than investing our energy in attacking the celebrities who demonstrate this behavior—the Kim Kardashians and Kylie Jenners who pave the way for young girls to follow suit—we might instead spend more time giving female role models of a more wholesome variety—the Amandla Stenbergs and Jazz Jennings of the world—greater attention. We must engage with girls in an effort to understand their motives for posting suggestive content, not only so we can become aware but so they themselves might become conscious of their choices and most importantly, the reasons behind them. As social media pervades and while we may not be able to persuade girls to post the anorak shots over the bikini selfies, what we can do is embrace a dialogue in which we turn a mirror on girls and they can turn a mirror on themselves. Unlike the toxic black mirror of social media, it is this new kind of mirror which instead may servce to promote critical reflection. It is through open, honest conversation, one in which girls can share their anxieties, motives, and desires that we may ultimately stand a chance against the digital epidemic.
***
Devyn Olin is passionate about technology and the way it intersects with our world and the people in it. Devyn dedicated her studies at Gallatin to exploring the nature of businesses and relationships in the context of the digital age, specifically narrowing her focus through the female lens. Devyn completed an official Business Studies minor through the College of Arts and Sciences and Leonard N. Stern School of Business and served as Creative Director of Embodied Magazine from her Sophomore to Senior year, helping transition the publication from print to digital. Subsequent to graduating, she pursued a full-time job as a community manager at a social marketing agency. More recently, Devyn has begun to explore the impact of law in the digital age and with that in mind is currently navigating a transition back to her hometown of Toronto with the goal of pursuing a legal education. Devyn’s passion for a great film is exceeded only by one with an exceptional soundtrack. She wishes she grew up in the 70s, devours all things Maggie Nelson and is an old soul masquerading as a millennial.
[1] Graeme Turner, Understanding Celebrity (London: SAGE, 2014), 2.
[2] Robert Van Krieken, Celebrity Society (London: Routledge, 2012), 15.
[3] Van Krieken, 16.
[4] Alice Emily Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity, and Branding in the Social Media Age (New Haven: Yale UP, 2013).
[5] Ellis Cashmore, Celebrity Culture: Second Edition (New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014), 9.
[6] Van Krieken, Celebrity Society, 71.
[7] Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity Publicity and Branding in the Social Media Age.
[8] Turner, Understanding Celebrity, 5-6.
[9] Turner, Understanding Celebrity, 12.
[10] Van Kriecken, Celebrity Society, 41.
[11] Van Kriecken, Celebrity Society, 41, 170.
[12] Van Kriecken, Celebrity Society, 170.
[13] Van Kriecken, Celebrity Society, 55.
[14] Van Kriecken, Celebrity Society, 54.
[15] Peggy Orenstein, “Who’s the Hottest of Them All?” in The Sunday Times Magazine (Times Newspapers Limited, 25 Sept. 2016), 19.
[16] Nancy Jo Sales, “Social Media and Secret Lives of American Girls” in Time. (Time, 08 Dec. 2016).
[17] Orenstein, “Who’s the Hottest of Them All?”, 19.
[18] Orenstein, “Who’s the Hottest of Them All?”, 21.
[19] Van Krieken, Celebrity Society, 64.
[20] Orenstein, “Who’s the Hottest of Them All?”, 21.
[21] Orenstein, “Who’s the Hottest of Them All?”, 21.
[22] Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity Publicity and Branding in the Social Media Age.
[23] Orenstein, “Who’s the Hottest of Them All?”, 21.
[24] Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity Publicity and Branding in the Social Media Age.
[25] Dana Schuster, “I Fuel Fantasies of Men Who Want Sex with Young Girls, and I’m Fine with It” in New York Post (News Corp, 14 Jan. 2016).
[26] Max Chang, “This 20-Year-Old Was Shamed by the Media Because of Her Instagram Photos” in NextShark (NextShark, 15 Jan. 2016).
[27] Chang, “This 20-Year-Old Was Shamed by the Media Because of Her Instagram Photos”
[28] Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity Publicity and Branding in the Social Media Age.
[29] Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity Publicity and Branding in the Social Media Age.
[30] Marwick, Status Update.
[31] Turner, Understanding Celebrity, 5.
[32] Schuster, “I Fuel Fantasies of Men Who Want Sex with Young Girls, and I’m Fine with It” in New York Post.
[33] Turner, Understanding Celebrity.
[34] Van Krieken, Celebrity Society.
[35] Emilia Petrarca, “Are You There Instagram? It’s Me, Eileen Kelly” in W. Magazine (Condé Nast, 4 Nov. 2015).
[36] Cashmore, Celebrity Culture, 181.
[37] Maura Brannigan, “Catching Up With The Teen Who Got a Modelling Contract” in Fashionista (Breaking Media, Inc., 22 Apr. 2016).
[38] Van Krieken, Celebrity Society, 64.
[39] qtd. in Schuster, “I Fuel Fantasies of Men Who Want to Have Sex With Young Girls, and I’m Fine With It” in New York Post.
[40] Heather Saul, “Instafamous: Meet the Social Media Influencers Redefining Celebrity” in The Independent (Independent Digital News and Media, 27 Mar. 2016).
[41] Alice Marwick and D. Boyd, “To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter” in Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies (17.2, 2011), 140.
[42] Marwick, Status Update.
[43] Marwick and Boyd, “To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practine on Twitter,” 148.
[44] Marwick, Status Update.
[45] Maitri Mehta, “Who Is Jaden Smith’s Girlfriend? Sarah Snyder Is Ultra-Cool.” in Bustle. (Bustle, 02 Oct. 2015).
[46] Maitri, “Who Is Jaden Smith’s Girlfriend?”
[47] Loretta Donelan, “Who Is Sarah Snyder? Jaden Smith’s Girlfriend Is A Star On The Rise.” Bustle (N.p., 10 Apr. 2016).
[48] Donelan, “Who Is Sarah Snyder?”
[49] Derrick Bryson Taylor, “Jaden Smith’s New Girlfriend Has a Criminal Record” in Page Six. (News Corp, 16 Sept. 2016).
[50] Cashmore, Celebrity Culture: Second Edition, 142.
[51] Cashmore, Celebrity Culture, 155.
[52] Men, Women and Children. Dir. Jason Reitman. Paramount Pictures, 2014. Film.
[53] Cashmore, Celebrity Culture, 128.