Instagram has an active user base of one billion (Clement, 2019), indicating that a large number of people are viewing content from the social media platform daily. With user numbers so high and the ability to sell products to their target demographics by using familiar faces such as Influencers like Zoella, using Instagram to market products was a step forward for digital advertising. In addition, users are more likely to trust a recommendation from an Influencer as they’re someone they believe to be ‘more authentic’ than traditional celebrities (O’Neil-Hart & Blumenstein, 2016). Abidin (2018) comments on the ability of Influencers making money, suggesting that the acceptance of internet celebrities has meant that Influencers have now formed an “elite economic group” who have developed the ability to turn their self-branded ‘digital’ image into a business (Abidin, 2018, p. 94).

An example of a celebrity influencer who uses brand advertising on Instagram is Kylie Jenner. With a follower count of nearly 140 million, Jenner topped the Instagram ‘Rich List’ in 2019 (Hopper, 2019); with a sponsored Instagram post from the star costing 1.2 million dollars. Influencers, whilst not sharing the same follower count, can still seek to earn thousands of pounds per post that is “proportionate to the number of followers they have” (Abidin, 2018, p. 79). Kat Richardson, Creative Director at an Influencer marketing agency, spoke to the BBC surrounding the money influencers usually make from posts; an account with 30,000 followers can expect a payment of ‘around £750’ but an account with a million followers will earn ‘£10,000 for a one-off post’ (Mackay, 2018). Due to the amount of money to be made that aligns with your following, some Influencers begun to buy “fake followers” to enable them to receive a higher payment per post. Abidin (2018, p. 79) suggests that Influencers purchase “fake followers” that act as “click farms” to engage with posts as well as artificially increasing their following. Consequently, Instagram begun to pick up on this trend and deleted all of the fake accounts in 2014.

However, there has been backlash against using Instagram as a way of marketing products for a variety of reasons. Influencers have been shamed for working with companies such as Flat Tummy Co, who are advocate for weight loss; they are responsible for products such as “Flat Tummy Tea” and “Appetite Suppressant Lollipops” which appear frequently across the app. This sends impressionable fans and followers unhealthy messages surrounding dieting and weight loss from someone they trust. Another issue with marketing on Instagram has been the failure to identify sponsored content, the Advertising Standards Authority has set regulations that state Influencers and celebrities must identify if their post is an advertisement; an example of this being implemented is stars such as Kim Kardashian-West using ‘#ad’ in their captions to ensure that the public are no longer being misled.

Though, with the introduction of Instagram hiding the likes a user achieves on posts, it leaves us wondering how Influencers sponsorships on the app may be affected.

Bibliography:

Abidin, C. (2018). Internet celebrity: Understanding fame online. Chicago: Emerald Publishing Limited.

Clement, J. (2019). Number of global social network users 2010–2021. Retrieved from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/ [accessed 14 October 2019]

Hopper. (2019). Instagram Rich List 2019. Retrieved from: https://www.hopperhq.com/blog/instagram-rich-list/ [accessed 30 December 2019]

Mackay, H. (2018, 3 October). Instagram: How much do social influencers earn? BBC. Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45735861 [accessed 30 December 2019]

O’Neil-Hart, C. &., Blumenstein, H. (2016). Why YouTube stars are more influential than traditional celebrities. Retrieved from: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/youtube-stars-influence/ [accessed 13 October 2019]

In chapter three of her book, Abidin (2018) discusses animals made famous by the power of the internet. The author discusses ‘Meme Celebrities’ using the infamous example of Tartar Sauce, the cat more commonly known as “Grumpy Cat”, who became an overnight meme sensation in 2012 with the help of people online creating and sharing memes of the animal (Abidin, 2018). As the Internetcelebblog discusses in their post discussing meme culture, memes are able to reach a significant amount of people extremely quickly allowing for the images to go viral. Tartar Sauce introduced the idea of famous and influential animals within contemporary society, consequently famous animals are now easily found across a variety of social media platforms such as, Instagram and Facebook.

In an interview with Vogue (Taylor, 2018), Loni Edwards, CEO of the Dog Agency, discusses how animal influencers can build substantial brands that earn them and their owners a lot of money; with animals with an Instagram following of over 1 million expecting a payment of $10,000 per post (Taylor, 2018). With an active user base of over a billion people, people are learning to maximise their usage of the social media platform by uploading cute photographs of their pets to Instagram in hopes of building a mass following. Notably, some already famous influencers have extended their reach by creating secondary accounts just for their own pets, enabling them to become well known alongside their owners. Abidin (2018) whilst referring to children in her book, names influencers children that are ‘groomed’ to also become influencers as ‘micro-micro influencers’ which can be applied to the pets of influencers who are also pushed into the limelight. An example is YouTube creator Emma Chamberlain who created an account for her cat Declan, which has amassed 460k followers to date — outperforming many other ‘human’ accounts.

One of the most famous examples of an animal influencer is Doug the Pug, a seven-year-old American pug who has become the self-titled ‘King of Pop Culture’ (Moiser, 2016). Doug the pug’s celebrity has enabled him to appear as a cameo in music videos such as Katy Perry’s video for ‘Swish Swish’ and DNCE’s video for ‘Kissing Strangers’. The famous pug has also obtained a variety of brand deals enabling him to appear in advertisements including Pedigree and Febreze. Doug’s owner Leslie Moiser has capitalised from his fame, releasing a photobook entitled ‘Doug the Pug: The King of Pop Culture’ in 2016 which became a best-seller, allowing him to participate in an international sold out book tour as if he was a ‘regular’ celebrity. Similar to a ‘normal’ celebrity, Doug the Pug has both won and been nominated for awards; recently winning ‘The Animal Star of 2019’ at the People’s Choice Awards and even winning the 2017 Shorty Award for Instagrammer of the Year beating out other human influencers (Lasimone, 2019; Shorty Awards, 2017). The dogs Instagram ‘@itsdougthepug’, is also extremely popular with Doug amassing a following of 3.8 million.The cases of Doug the Pug and Grumpy Cat lead us to wonder, will animal influencers begin to outrank their human counterparts?

Bibliography:

Abidin, C. (2018). Internet celebrity: Understanding fame online. Chicago: Emerald Publishing Limited.

Lasimone, A. (2019, 11 October). Here are all the 2019 E! People’s Choice Awards Winners. Retrieved from: https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/awards/8543205/2019-peoples-choice-awards-winners [accessed 29 December 2019]

Moiser, L. (2016). Doug the Pug: The King of the Internet. New York: Pan Macmillan.

Taylor, E. (2018, 20 December). It’s hard out there for a pet Influencer. Retrieved from: https://www.vogue.com/article/its-hard-out-there-for-a-pet-influencer [accessed 29 December 2019]

Shorty Awards. (2019). The Ninth Annual Shorty Awards Winners. Retrieved from: https://shortyawards.com/9th/winners [accessed 29 December 2019]

This post, inspired by chapter four of Abidin’s 2018 book, Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame Online, will discuss the rise of children as influencers on the social media platform, YouTube. Abidin (2018) briefly discusses ‘child influencers’ alongside ‘family influencers’ in a section entitled ‘Social Issues’, where it is argued that as media develops, more issues are being raised surrounding the exposure of children across social media platforms. Therefore, I wanted to use this post to expand further on child influencers.

With 2 billion users worldwide (Clement, 2019), YouTube is the second most popular social media platform on the internet. The video sharing platform continues to rise in popularity amongst a diverse range of age groups, inviting users to participate within the YouTube community by creating content and interacting with already popular creators. Children are no exception to this trend, a study by Ofcom discovered that nearly half of children between the ages of 3 to 17, watched more content from YouTube as opposed to traditional television and streaming services (Ofcom, 2019). The study further revealed that children up to the age of 11 favour content on the video-sharing platform, making YouTube the most popular choice within that age range for videos (BBC, 2019). Vloggers are also becoming increasingly popular amongst children, allowing for the growth of child vloggers who create popular content for children a similar age to them to consequently become ‘influencers’; the term influencer can be defined by Abidin (2018, p.1) as “the epitome of internet celebrities”. Whilst child stars are not a new phenomenon, with one of the most famous examples being Shirley Temple, who was 3 years old in her first film, contemporary society has allowed for children to become famous and bona fide celebrities in their own right from social media.

As discussed in blog posts previously, influencers have become extremely popular across social media platforms and this no longer only impacts young adults. Family vloggers first paved the way for children to become famous from YouTube, introducing a new genre that invited families and children to engage with their content. As the genre continued to expand, children have begun using the YouTube platform as content creators rather than simply content watchers. An extremely successful example of this is Ryan Kaji, an eight-year-old creator, who reviews toys on camera then shares them online on YouTube and has cultivated a mass following by gaining a staggering 22.9 million subscribers on YouTube alone (Forbes, 2019). Forbes has recognised the power of YouTube influencers, resulting in the creation of a specific section of its highest earners list to look exclusively at the YouTube community and in 2019, the eight-year-old topped the list after earning 20 million pounds in 2019 alone (Forbes, 2019). Following his success and in-line with Abidin’s (2018) discussion surrounding influencers creating a brand from their success, Kaji has also gone on to create a successful line of toys aimed at his audience which are available from a variety of retailers showing the impact the 8-year-old has had.

Consequently, as children influencers are a new concept there is little academic research surrounding the effects on children it may have. However, there has been significant backlash over the exposure that influencer children face across social media such as in The Guardian (Tait, 2015). Nevertheless, it is easy to see why children enjoy the platform so much; children enter a community of people their age whilst using YouTube, helping them to make friends and also allowing children in more rural areas to interact with more children their age.

Bibliography:

Abidin, C. (2018). Internet celebrity: Understanding fame online. Chicago: Emerald Publishing Limited.

BBC. (2018, 7 August). YouTube is most-watched platform for young people, says report. Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/49261194 [accessed 29 December 2019]

Clement, J. (2019). Number of global social network users 2010–2021. Retrieved from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/ [accessed 29 December 2019]

Ofcom. (2019). Why children spend time online. Retrieved from: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/media/media-releases/2019/why-children-spend-time-online. [accessed 29 December 2019]

Sehdev, J. (2019, 18 December). Ryan Kaji Who? A look at Forbes’ highest-paid YouTube stars of 2019. Retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeetendrsehdev/2019/12/18/ryan-kaji-who-a-look-at-forbes-highest-paid-youtube-stars-of-2019/#3db08f564caf [accessed 29 December 2019]

Tait, A. (2015, 16 September). Is it safe to turn your children into YouTube stars? The Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/16/youtube-stars-vlogging-child-safety-sacconejolys-katie-and-baby [accessed 29 December 2019]

The substantial rise of internet popularity is no secret, social media alone has become one of the most popular online activities for internet users to participate in. Research suggests that this isn’t stopping anytime soon, with 3.09 billion people predicted to be members of social networks by 2021 (Clement, 2019).

The upsurge of internet popularity has meant that users are able to share media worldwide with a single click, allowing ordinary people to become famous by ‘going viral’. However, Abidin (2018, p. 19) suggests that in order to become a member of the internet fame club one must fit into one of four categories; “exclusivity, exoticism, exceptionalism and everydayness”. The majority of influencers fit into these sections, famous for talent or their ability to appear familiar; but some viral stars don’t fit into any one category. For example, Daniel Lara who rose to fame after a video of his friend commenting on Lara’s outfit saying: “Damn Daniel, back at it again with the white Vans”; the video received 45-million views in days, thrusting Lara into the limelight (Grimm, 2017).

An example of someone who does fit in to Abidin’s categories is Shawn Mendes. Mendes, a global superstar, who became famous after uploading videos to Vine, an app allowing users to upload short videos, where he appeared ordinary whilst having an exceptional singing talent. Applications, such as Vine, have been linked to the rise of internet stars due to their ability to allow someone to gain masses of views in a short period of time. Previous to apps and internet availability, reaching Hollywood was a complicated task where one could only break through the somewhat impenetrable gates by auditions, agency representation or being talent scouted; all exhausting and long-winded options. In contemporary society, the DNA of what makes up a celebrity has been altered as an increasing number of digital celebrities rise to prominence. Traditional celebrities who are surrounded by publicists and management, have fallen out of favour with the public — fans feel they are less authentic and not as relatable to their online counterparts (O’Neil-Hart & Blumenstein, 2016).

A study by Google discovered that 70% of teenage YouTuber subscribers admitted they relate to influencers over traditional celebrities (O’Neil-Hart & Blumenstein, 2016). As Abidin (2018) suggests, audiences have become increasingly invested in the lives of ‘everyday’ people that they can have exclusive access to, unlike traditional celebrities who chose what information to share about their private lives. The rise of popularity in YouTube creators shows this, achieving millions of subscribers by sharing glimpses into their everyday lives. Abidin (2018) comments that the prominence of the internet celebrity has meant that they are “able to turn their digital fame into a self-brand and eventually a business”. Which can be seen in YouTubers, such as Zoella (current subscribers: 11,600,000), who have been able to capitalise entirely out of their Internet fame by creating their own brand.

Is this the new age of celebrity which is less secretive and more open to connecting to those around them? Google thinks so. Their research also discovered that, not only are influencers popular because they’re easy to watch online, but because they’re so much more accessible to their audience (O’Neil-Hart & Blumenstein, 2016). Influencers are able to directly comment and talk to fans, creating a strong bond that keeps people engaged. This is why, in my opinion, they are becoming the most popular variant of ‘celebrity’; leaving traditional celebrities behind to play catch-up in appealing to wider audiences and convincing them to become less impersonable.

Bibliography:

Abidin, C. (2018). Internet celebrity: Understanding fame online. Chicago: Emerald Publishing Limited.

Clement, J. (2019). Number of global social network users 2010–2021. Retrieved from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/ [accessed 14 October 2019]

Grimm, B. (2017, 29 March). Damn, Daniel: A Year in the Life of a Teenage Meme. Retrieved from: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/damn-daniel-a-year-in-the-life-of-a-teenage-meme-122193/

O’Neil-Hart, C. &., Blumenstein, H. (2016). Why YouTube stars are more influential than traditional celebrities. Retrieved from: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/youtube-stars-influence/ [accessed 13 October 2019]