This week celebrities and the audience were the hot
topic of our media class. Celebrities have an aura of glamour and mystery that inspires curiosity amongst people. In some cases this curiosity becomes morbid. They are observed and judged by the audience – us – all the
time. We in turn obsess on varying degrees with them and accept or reject what
they promote; from new trends to personal statements. It is comparable to
having an ant farm that we observe with constant interest and amusement,
ready to pass our judgments as they come up with new and imaginative ways of
keeping us engaged. As Tuner states: “[t]here are many forms and sites of
consumption: from attending writers’ festivals to visiting celebrity porn sites
on the internet. The mode of engagement in the various forms and sites can vary
dramatically.” (Turner, 2014: 121). However, the audience is no longer just the
audience anymore. With the changing technologies and the rise of new media in
the past decades, the audience is now also a producer, a gatekeeper of content
and an audience that has its own audience (Thiel-Stern, 2013: 2).
The Internet has allowed for several forms of
expression and interaction to take place. Through blogs and vlogs, voices have been given to people who otherwise probably would not have one outside of their immediate circle of people in the physical world. Most of us have Facebook and Instagram
and thus we have an audience of our own as we have ‘friends’ and ‘followers’
who we share our status updates and photos with. By that same token we are the
producers and gatekeepers of this content that we make and post for others to
look at and judge. It is part of our image, of our social identity. After all,
we all have a public life, a private life and a secret life.
In his literature, Turner quoted
Gramson who distinguished between five audience types that consume celebrities. ‘The traditional audience’, who are
those people that believe what they hear, read and see without question. ‘The second-order traditional’ is the audience
that believes in the ‘deserving celebrity’, and although they are invested and
entertained by the celebrity world, it happens in a more negotiated way, where
they question what they hear and regard it as possibly fabricated. ‘The post-modernist audience’, who see
celebrity news as fictional and with ulterior motifs, and who believe that
there should be more research done before believing anything. However, they
also take interest in the techniques of artifice in and of themselves. Finally, the fourth and fifth types of audience
are ‘the game player gossiper’ and ‘the game player detective’. The reason they
are enumerated in the same sentence is because both these audience groups do
not really concern themselves with the celebrity stories, as in how much truth
they hold or their production purposes. Rather, both these groups use
“celebrity material for play, for experimentation, as [food] for their own
cultural activities” (Turner, 2014: 123). As Turner puts it, “[c]elebrity
production is, for the ‘detective’, a giant discursive playground and for ‘the
gossiper’ a rich social resource… these audiences ‘use celebrities not as
models or fantasies but as opportunities’.” (Turner, 2014: 123).
Interesting as these categories are, we
agree when Turner says he “would suggest that contemporary consumption
practices no longer necessarily fall neatly into the categories that Gamson
outlines.” (Turner, 2014: 123). After all, with the audience now having its own
audience, we all jump back and forth between these categories. A
good example of this is Kim Kardashian.
Kim Kardashian was a friend and stylist
to Paris Hilton, who was possibly the first person to be famous ‘just for being
famous’. Although this put some media attention on Kim Kardashian, what really
launched her into glory was the sex-tape with rapper Ray J that was released to
the public in 2003.
[1] Whether she wanted the video to be seen or not is irrelevant. The fact is that the audience played a fundamental part here, as they made her famous by taking interest in the video and making it go viral. Without the audience, this would not have been possible. Along with Kim Kardashian, the rest of the Kardashian-Jenner clan was also
launched into stardom. They have all established different businesses since,
but at the core of their fame lies the ‘famous for being famous’. We find this
an interesting case to reflect on, because based on Gramson’s categories Kim
Kardashian founded her empire by using other celebrities, for whom she too
acted as part of their audience back then. Nowadays the Kardashians have their
own reality TV show, and an endless empire that taps into several industries
that fall within the Creative Industries themselves: fashion, apps, games, and
of course, they are the faces that appear on advertisements. This allows for their audiences to consume their family in several, very diverse, ways.
However, they
are also a part of each other’s audience, have their own audiences, and share their
audiences with each other. While more diverse content is produced to keep
their audience’s engaged in consumption, Momager (mom-manager) Kris Jenner plays
gatekeeper. With all the Kardashian related news we see fans actively
participating in ‘celebrity worship’. “It reflects the extent to which the
fan’s mode of consumption has moved from ‘the cult’ to the mainstream as
increased levels of personalization and interactivity have become routine
components of the processes of consumption in the digital era, and as the fan
has become increasingly embedded in what Hills (2002: 177) calls the
‘commodity-text’ of the celebrity through their contributions to the
construction of the celebrity’s online persona.” (Turner, 2014: 124).
Another aspect of Turner’s literature
that struck a chord is how often people rely on reality shows, in this instance
‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’, to get their daily dose of gossip, and, in a
way, a sense of friendship. These interactions (between the observer and the
program) take place in the person’s home, so there is a sense of familiarity.
The person gets to watch what feels like authentic footage of the Kardashian’s
life and when it becomes ‘too much’, the person can simply turn the TV off
without having to deal with the admin that a real friendship would involve.
Keeping up with The Kardashians nurtures this fake sense of friendship by adding
the ‘private’ confessions, where Kim, or anyone of her relatives, appear on
camera doing a sort of diary log and speaking directly into the camera, so it
gives the feeling of her looking you (the viewer) in the eye. (Turner, 2014:
127-128).
In
conclusion, we believe that the Kardashians serve as a good example to
illustrate the following points: firstly, that technology has changed not only in
itself but the relationship between celebrities and the audience, and the audience and the audience's audience. Secondly, there
are more ways of consumption and a greater sense of proximity and interaction
with the stars. Thirdly, anyone can become famous if they use they social media
correctly. Lastly, that in order to stay relevant a generous amount of diverse content needs to be produced all the time. Technology and its immediacy has converted the audience into serial voyeurs with exhibitionist tendencies too.
References:
Turner, G. (2014) ‘Understanding Celebrity’, SAGE.
Thiel-Stern, S (2013)
‘Beyond the Active Audience: Exploring
New Media Audiences and The Limits of Cultural Production’, p. 1-17.
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