Public personalities are hard to control
for celebrities, it is something that not even Prince Harry and his team could
keep under control. Although what
happens to those celebrities who thrive off paparazzi and social media. It has
been said many new celebrities – especially reality stars “corrupt personal
values so that many vainly strive for fame at any cost, inflating the desire for
public acclaim over real achievement.” (Rojek, 2012 , p.4)
Professor David Marshall describes this new
specular world of media similar to Big Brother. He states “the scary Big
Brother quality of surveillance is not how it is perceived as we have with
complicity entered into an era where the doors/windows to our personas are
perpetually left ajar.” (Marshall, 2010, p.502) This globalisation of celebrity
reporting has eliminated any sense of personal space and privacy for them.
Having viewed many gossip magazines and TMZ
programs – it is easy to notice that celebrities are never left alone. However,
many ‘new’ celebrities have created a thirst for this attention and prefer not
to be left alone. I have encountered through my many hours of ‘research’ that
celebrity hungry family ‘the Kardashians’ all have a huge social media persona.
The Kardashian family was made famous and
‘celebritised’ from the circulation of a home-made sex tape of sister Kim. Both
the three older and two younger sisters have created a fan base that is
fanatic. Not only do the sisters share their public personal persona with fans
on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram the two younger sisters have now started
‘keeking’ on a program called ‘Keek’. This is a program on iPhones or androids
that allow you to video yourself and you’re live and share it with the public.
The specular world of social media has
created a celebrity frenzy, allowing fans to become ‘addicted’ to celebrity
culture – with personal and private information constantly being shared and
circulated – it creates a viscous circle.
Reference:
Marshal, D, 2010, SYMPOSIUM: CELEBRITY AROUND THE WORLD: The Specular Economy,
Springer Science+Business Media.
Rojek, C, 2012, Fame Attack, Bloomsbury Academic.
Great Blog Amelia. A really relevant and up to date piece. You must be keeping up with your celebrity goss! Also a great use of references which is good to see, defiantly helped me sway to your ideas that you brought up. It is a scary world we live in now! you can't help but feel for the pressure and obscene worlds the celebs live in these days. Thanks for bringing up some good points! Good work Amelia.
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