Welcome to my blog! Here you will find a project surrounding the idea of the correlation between fame and use of the internet.
We live in a world that is very much dependent on an individual’s online presence. Our popularity is based on the number of Facebook friends we have, the number of followers we have on Twitter, and the number of subscribers on our YouTube channel. With this new quantitative system of calculating popularity, there is a new wave of celebrities gaining fame around the world. These are the people that use their online presence to their best advantage and create careers over the internet.
As a college student, I have noticed that much of what is sent around between friends are YouTube links. People send each other videos of everything from a cat rapping to the newest movie trailer. But the most intriguing are the videos with the most views. These are the bloggers, musicians, and everyday people that gain success almost out of thin air. The internet is changing society’s perception of fame.
Originally, I wanted to research the longevity of careers founded upon YouTube fame. However, as I delved into the research, I found it more intriguing that there seemed to be a correlation between use of other social media and the ability to maintain and gain more notoriety. My research then became based off of the question, “Do you need social media to maintain fame?”
The subjects that I focused on as a part of the archival data used in the research are all individuals who have gained considerable fame using YouTube as their primary platform. The other social media sites that I focused on regarding these individuals were Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter. These were chosen because of their mainstream popularity and tendency to influence popular culture.
Thank you for reading and I hope I can contribute to your ideas of fame and the internet!