As we can tell from all of my posts I am fascinated with alternative celebrities, mainly things that revolve around the internet. In my opinion, the internet is already the next reality tv. With social networks and youtube, everyone is putting themselves everywhere and because we love to look at other people and even enjoy a sense of voyeurism from "lurking" on our computers, people are becoming famous from all over the place for sometimes doing nothing. The best example of this would be Tilla Tequilla who got famous from having the most friends on myspace. Ironically she was given her own reality dating show on MTV which has made its way onto its second season. As Hartley points out in "Kiss me Kat", "reality tv, one could contend, is our new genre of hesitation, thrilling us with its confusion of once distinct realms". I take us for it providing us a window to explore ourselves by watching others live. Chuck Klosterman talks about this in Sex, Drugs, and Coco Puffs on the massive popularity of Real World and also how when he played the game The Sims, his Sim version of himself was more interesting than his real life. In terms of internet celebrities I would like to draw our attention to one of the many that I personally know and am friends with. This one in particular is fascinating because she is using her internet stardom to her advantage and capitalizing off it. Meet HannaBeth, or myspace.com/loveandconfusion: a Myspace Model extradoniare. She has caters to a niche market of spectators, more of the EMO- Screemo, Music, tattoo world, but has a insanely large following. She now has her own clothing line which can be purchased by sending her a message on mysapce. Two things that are the most interesting about her are 1. how she became famous and 2. the clothing line internet phenomena. 1. Early on in her career she quickly befriended Jeffree Star, an even bigger internet Star Male Drag queen, who is personal friends with Kat Von from LA INK. He/she placed Hanna on her top 8 friends and from that point on Hanna started collecting people like an avalanche. Returning to the clothing line, it has become a popular activity on the web to post pix of you wearing your HannaBeth hoodie in a typical emo Apple Photobooth picture. Last time I was with her she mentioned to me how she is also in the works of her own show for MTV and already has a reality Vlog for Buzznet. I don't really know what else to say other than WOW when I think about all of this. More so, questions start appearing like, where do we draw the line? What are the hierarchies of celebritism? Does it even matter at this point? (if you are this famous on myspace, would it make a difference if you broke into the theatre world?) Will it get worse (I think so). All of this taps into the concept that we want to be noticed, even if its behind a screen (how ironic). P.s., it should be noted Hanna is currently Dating Miley Cyrus' black sheep brother...how appro-po.
1 comment:
I find your point about the internet being the next “reality TV” very interesting. I think there is something to be said about that because maybe with the change in the way we think of celebrity culture, it (can) allow(s) more to have access to become celebrities. But vehicles like Youtube and the like, seem to be a more realistic approach of measuring or monitoring how society is expressing itself. Most of what is on youtube doesn’t seem to be for profit—to me this leads me to believe that some of the stuff could be a more accurate depiction or reflection of the multifaceted nature of our society, more so than our current state of sensationalized reality TV.
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