Of course there are more reasons I could explore within this topic, but I just picked out the points that I feel like is the most relevant and I didn’t want to keep you guys reading endless of blog posts (which can be tiring and exhausting).
Long story short, celebrities and influencers have reasons to why they post on social media and what sort of content goes to what. Instagram is more on being able to express yourself through photos and now, videos, whilst building a certain theme for your followers to see. Twitter is where most of the memes are first seen and if you are on the trending topics, then you will continuously gain exposure, which is what some influencers want. Others may want to show a different side to their celebrity lifestyle, by showing that exclusively on OnlyFans, where the creator can connect with their fans.
Everyone may have different reasons, whether from a marketing stand point or personal preference, they are free to do so.
If you’ve read all my blogs (even one or two), I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my posts and I hope you’ve enjoyed your time here!
If you are not of legal age (18yrs old in most countries, 21yrs old in others), this may not be appropriate for you.
You may be aware of a content subscription service called OnlyFans. It’s when you pay a monthly subscription fee to see exclusive photos / videos from the creator (you also have the option to choose 6 months or a year). However, most of the content on OnlyFans (OF) sells intimacy; camgirl type of atmosphere and providing sexual desires in other ways.
It was first used by sex workers, who saw it as an opportunity to market their brand as they had (Dickson, 2020); microcelebs; niche audience and their platform is strictly online. However, internet celebrities like Belle Delphine joined and is now one of the most popular creator on OF. She is a streamer (gaming), an influencer and was former Youtuber; her account got terminated due to sexual content. In addition, her Instagram also got suspended for violating Internet guidelines; she does a lot of sexual (very similar to strip tease) modelling and cosplay; specifically Anime.
Click the link below for pictures and videos of Belle Delphine:
The Instagram account is one of the many fan pages for Belle Delphine. There are other fan accounts that are more erotic, but I did not want to include the link as it is not needed. From that account, you could instantly tell she loves to dress up, charm her audience by teasing them (in some pictures, she’s barely wearing anything).
OnlyFans became even more popular after a video on TikTok (it’s a social media app where you can post and share short videos of all sorts; dancing, acting etc.) was posted that Savannah Glembin, made $150k in less than 4 months from OF.
Later on, more TikTok influencers created videos showing off how much they earn and it became more of a way to earn money easily.
Even celebrities hopped on the trend of OnlyFans as a way to connect with their fans and to see bts of their lifestyle by providing them with exclusive content.
Here are some of the notable celebrities that are on OnlyFans:
Bella Thorne
Cardi B
Blac Chyna
Tyga
The problem with this is that whether you are an influencer or celebrity, you have fans that will look up to you and mirror your actions. There will be young viewers and will think it’s okay because everyone is doing it or their favourite celebrity role model is doing it, meaning it is good. So if there is a trend on Tiktok (or any other social media apps) and famous people are joining, it’s likely for others to join. But hey, at the end of the day, it’s your choice.
Bibliography
Dickson, E., 2020. Onlyfans Popularity Spreads As Performers Take To Tiktok. [online] Rolling Stone. Available at: <https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/onlyfans-tiktok-sex-work-1046916/> [Accessed 27 December 2020].
weights_n_freedom., 2020. 8 August, Tiktok [video]. Available at: https://www.tiktok.com/@weights_n_freedom/video/6862040508907261189?sender_device=pc&sender_web_id=6911008855955703301&is_from_webapp=v1 [Accessed 27 December 2020].
As mentioned in one of the blog posts, social media is the fastest way to communicate with one another and to get information. This means any sort of information can rapidly spread, even if the original source of information is deleted (sharing and downloading with others). All celebrities and influencers are well aware of this, and some uses it to their advantage.
Jake Paul. One of the two Paul brothers. A Youtuber. A Social Media Influencer. A Boxer (debatable). You may have not heard of his name a couple of years back, but recently his been one of the hottest names to talk about on Twitter.
Have you seen this clip somewhere on the internet?
(Jake Paul vs Nate Robinson K.O. Slow Motion HD, 2020)
If you have seen that clip, then you already know who Jake Paul is. Within the first two rounds he managed to K.O. Nate Robinson (former NBA star) and got the victory. After the fight, he was interviewed of who he wants to face next in the boxing ring and he confidently said that he will knock out a former UFC Featherweight and Lightweight champion, Connor McGregor.
Clink the link below to see a clip of the interview:
Furthermore, if you take a look at some of Jake Paul’s post on Instagram, you could really tell that the win really got to him and wants people to be talking about him because of his controversial statement / video.
In this post, it’s a photoshop ad poster of a list of people who he should fight next. He simply captioned the post as “who’s next?”, talking like he’’ confidently beat them all. It almost has 960k likes and 99k comments.
This post, he briefly states that he doesn’t care about what people think of him. But regardless, the more people talk about him, the more exposure he gets, more views on his Youtube videos, sponsors and other things leading to more income.
In the video, Jake calls Conor all sorts of foul names because he doesn’t want to him fight him and even brings up boxing records. This video went absolutely crazy with over 1.3mill likes and more than 90k comments.
From my perspective, he knows what’s going on and he feeds off the negative energy people give him, to create more controversies. The public knows that Jakes two wins are from people who are not boxers (a youtuber and a former NBA star), yet he has the audacity to challenge and state he will win against anyone. This is what I mean from earlier about some influencers takes advantage of the platform they have. In this case, it’s not really a good look for Jake Paul, but the more we keep him on the trending topics, the more income he makes; so it’s a win win for him.
Bibliography
SlomoFights. 2020. Jake Paul Vs Nate Robinson K.O. Slow Motion HD. [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpJJmR_bgc0> [Accessed 27 December 2020].
Helwani, A., 2020. 29 November. [online] Twitter. Available at: <https://twitter.com/arielhelwani/status/1332907845038317571?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1332907845038317571%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fd-29409273342709982354.ampproject.net%2F2011252111003%2Fframe.html> [Accessed 27 December 2020].
Banerjee, A., 2020. Twitter Makes Fun Of Conor Mcgregor Vs Jake Paul Matchup- Here Are The Best Tweets - Essentiallysports. [online] EssentiallySports. Available at: <https://www.essentiallysports.com/ufc-mma-boxing-news-twitter-makes-fun-of-conor-mcgregor-vs-jake-paul-matchup-here-are-the-best-tweets/> [Accessed 27 December 2020].
Paul, J., 2020. 29 November Instagram. [online] Available at: <https://www.instagram.com/p/CILIy3UDyNK/?igshid=11u6ztz60f5ho> [Accessed 27 December 2020].
Paul, J., 2020. 29 November Instagram. [online] Available at: <https://www.instagram.com/p/CIMSOb6p-ZC/?igshid=kpjwiwo9spzh> [Accessed 27 December 2020].
Paul, J., 2020. 24 December Instagram. [online] Available at: <https://www.instagram.com/p/CIy-JuRBUTv/?igshid=1jq8mmjkrl8p3> [Accessed 27 December 2020].
Instagram is one of the great social media app where it allows you to post as much as you can and whenever you can. You can make your account public (for everyone to see) or you may choose to make it private where you can control who sees your posts. Most celebrities have an Instagram accounts and yes, some may post “normal” selfies (not regarded to a future project or advertisement). Sometimes, they post because they want to. Despite their celebrity lifestyle, they are still humans, so they can do, what we can do too.
One celebrity that comes to my mind is Dwayne Johnson, others may know him as “The Rock”.
He is easily recognisable because of his physique and is also very well known figure in the film industry. He played sports such as American Football and was once a professional wrestler.
On his Instagram feed, there have posts where he shows his followers (the public) his self interest in working out.
Click on this link to see the post - https://www.instagram.com/p/CG5K11LF4cg/?igshid=10vs04rwi30l3
Well you see, it’s a video than a selfie. But the point is that, rather than posting only when he has an upcoming project or advertising products, he also uses his social media platform to show his personal interest. In the video, he films himself working his back out, as a way to release off steam (as seen in his caption). He is very relatable in this post as he directly talks to us that we’ve all felt this way before and this is his way of getting rid of that negative energy. This applies to a lot of people as whenever they feel angry or sad, they tend to workout and blast music, which is something we see in his post. We can also infer that he does not only workout whenever he has an upcoming project, but he works out because he wants to. The Rock is showing a completely different side from his celebrity lifestyle (filming, interviews etc.) and by doing this, he is connecting with his audience, making it easier for people to like him and build a bigger fan base.
His followers could also develop a desire or passion in exercising because they see The Rock doing it. It’s not necessarily advertising because he isn’t telling you to visit this or buy this product, it’s more to show his followers one of his many hobbies, which they may find interesting.
Bibliography
Rock, T. 28 October, Instagram. [online] Available at: <https://www.instagram.com/p/CG5K11LF4cg/?igshid=10vs04rwi30l3> [Accessed 27 December 2020].
Social Media is everywhere. It’s how we interact with one another and it’s the fastest way to do so. People may also use social media to build an audience (target group, followers etc.), to raise awareness of certain topics or to advertise products and brands (could be their own). For this blog post, I will be focusing on how celebrities / influencers use selfies to advertise on social media.
Instagram & Twitter
For many Instagram influencers; specifically in the UK, they have to follow certain rules whenever they post on Instagram. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) states that when they are advertising brands or products, it must be clear (obvious) to their followers that it is an advertisement post.
For example, ex Love Island contestant, Montana Brown recently posted an ad photo.
As you can see, she advertised clothing wear from Jack Willis by posting multiple full body outfit pictures. You know it is an advertisement post because she made it clear by mentioning Jack Willis in the caption and by tagging their official Instagram account. To add on, she even used a hashtag related to Jack Willis and another hashtag to show that it is an ad.
As a way of advertising late models of Samsung's smartphones, the "S20 series". As opposed to just traditional advertising, selfies played a big role. videos and pictures of members of K-Pop boy group BTS (who are also ambassadors of Samsung) can be seen "candidly" taking selfies. with adverts and posts captioned "captured #withGalaxy S20 series" (Twitter posts).
BTS have been known to sell out products just by using or wearing them. this has now been famously known as the "BTS effect", so when member 'V' took a selfie on August 16, it received an overwhelming amount of attention garnering 1.2 million retweets, 3.1 million likes and numerous comments asking what the model of the phone was, it was just one of the many examples where BTS have indirectly advertised.
Why do celebrities / influencers do these advertisements?
The answer is simple really, to earn more money. Yes, these people may have tons and tons of money, but all of that money doesn’t always belong them, there’s factors to it. Also, we don’t know their exact plans... they might want extra income, so that when this celebrity / influencer status is gone (nothing in the media industry is permanent), they have more than enough money to live a comfortable lifestyle!
Bibliography
Blair, O. (2018) Influencers now have to follow these new rules when posting on Instagram, Cosmopolitan. Available at: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a23577731/influencer-rules-instagram-asa/ (Accessed: 26 December 2020).
Brown, M. (2020) December 16, Instagram. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/CI3LUOZgzvi/?igshid=qsj823w6pb22 (Accessed: 26 December 2020).
Mobile, S. (2020) 12 July, Twitter. Available at: https://twitter.com/SamsungMobile/status/1282102374308278272?s=19 (Accessed: 26 December 2020).
Mobile, S. (2020) 7 May, Twitter. Available at: https://twitter.com/SamsungMobile/status/1258365967714996224?s=19 (Accessed: 26 December 2020).
BTS (2020) 23 November, Twitter. Available at: https://twitter.com/BTS_twt/status/1330807007490711552?s=19 (Accessed: 26 December 2020).
Press, T. (2020) 19 August, Twitter. Available at: https://twitter.com/TheKTH__Hype/status/1295903661743157249?s=19 (Accessed: 26 December 2020).
I will be discussing ‘how celebrities and influencers use selfies commercially. How and why do they ‘specifically curate and publish distinct types of selfies for specific social media.’ (Crystal Abidin)’
As you may know there are different types of celebrities such as, actors/actresses, artists, Youtube celebrities and more. We can also agree that anyone (not necessarily easier) can become an internet sensation and an influencer, as more and more people are on social media.
Selfies have become a norm in today’s society, even celebrities and influencers are taking selfies. We see them everywhere on some of the biggest social media platforms; Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Snapchat.
Stay tuned for my upcoming blog posts, as I will be exploring different points to how celebrities and influencers take selfies and the purpose of them doing it.
