Instagram Models and Internet Fame: Dealers Choice
Social media ‘fame’ is something that has become extremely relevant and desirable within our culture that has become largely driven by the individual persons need to express ideas and interact with others on these social networks. You always hear people say be careful what you put on your social media sites because this form of media has become a way to market yourself or project an image to potential future employers. Or now that social media fame has entered the conversation, you can potentially earn a job and get paid to project this image to your friends and followers.
In 2016 it seems that your social media image is everything, and because we as individuals place such a high emphasis on portraying an image through these networks, businesses have naturally become integrated into its frameworks trying to capitalize their income. The importance we place on social norms is extremely powerful. “If something is popular, society tends to place a higher value on it. If an article has numerous social shares, then it will merit attention,” (Greathouse,3). This attracts companies to these social media networks to try and increase customer volume by putting their products in front of as many people as possible.
Advertising has always used public figures, celebrities, and models to help sell their products and make them more desirable in the eyes of the consumer. So it would have been common for you to see an athlete promoting a certain brand of athletic shoe or apparel, or celebrities promoting clothing and household necessities. As things like Instagram and Twitter fame become attainable for people by going viral, companies seek to pay these people for their fame since the internet celebrity does not get paid by the internet itself since people cannot subscribe and pay to follow these people like they typically would for any other online service or product. The difference for the company is that these self-made online celebs come at a much cheaper cost than a high end model or a public icon would. And with such a focus on user driven content, it is almost more effective if a product promotion from someone who isn’t necessarily and important public figure and making them much more relatable or ‘normal’ making it more like an extension of traditional word of mouth advertising. However, “the uniqueness (of the internet) lies in the magnitude of the communication,” because now “consumers have the ability to tell hundreds or thousands of other people,” on a continual 24/7 basis (Faulds, 359). Coming from a seemingly authentic source, people who follow these accounts are more likely to interact with the media and less likely to blow it off as another corporate sponsored ad.
Internet fame can be achieved by practically anyone these days, which is why this user driven content that is viewed as desirable plays right into the hands of the advertisers, unbeknownst to the networks users who might be seeking internet fame for themselves. These regular people deemed internet celebs provide cash to the advertisers with likes and followers. More eyes on products equal more sales. But there is much more of a diverse selection of potential internet celebs that can accomplish the same thing, so these people become easily replaceable or working for much less money than a professional model or celeb who does many of the same things.
A news story about an Instagram model named Essena O’Neill was extremely popular near the end of 2105 because she was lashing out against the unfair treatment of being one of these internet celebrities. She was wildly popular on Instagram with over 800,000 followers and also had her own YouTube channel with 270,000 viewers. But she began making headlines when she suddenly announced in a YouTube video she was leaving her modeling career behind and wouldn’t post any more photos or videos via her social media. Then went and altered the original captions she posted with her photos on Instagram to critical comments about how the shots were highly manipulated and staged to give the candid, relatable appearance to her followers. The money she would gain from taking and posting these photos was mere chump change in comparison to a Hollywood model marketing high end brands very similarly. O’Neill reposted one of her photos with a caption in which she was paid $400 to post a photo of her wearing the dress. But the photo had to encompass the whole dress to peak her followers interest and focus on the product.
Although the average annual salary for a model is only around $18k per year, high end models with a high profile can make millions of dollars annually. These high end models have had much needed exposure over the years to help boost their modeling careers, and this is the idea behind social media modeling. Meaning more exposure throughout social media will help to boost the models profile and get them noticed by larger agencies.
This exposure it what makes it so difficult for these internet or social media models to make it big and receive lucrative payments for their efforts. In a society becoming increasingly more and more defined by social media followers, likes and views, it places a higher importance on these things for all people across these networks trying to make their mark. Young girls see these Instagram models and how much attention they receive from their followers or likes on their media and this can then create a “harmful need for followers and likes for young people,” as Essena O’Neill said herself, “I let myself be defined by numbers,” (Baysinger, 7). This need has become increasingly so important that websites exist that you can actually pay money to receive fake followers to boost your online social networking presence.
The appearance of fame and wealth these internet celebrities portray throughout their accounts is often just a front. They struggle to make money just like every day, regular working class people, but they must maintain an image of wealth and importance throughout their social media accounts that can become extremely difficult to do. It is not the glamorous lifestyle it is depicted as throughout social media. With people seeking to increase their own follower count and online presence, many more ‘wannabe’ Instagram models are being thrown into the mix, unknowingly making it harder and harder for themselves and others to succeed because now with the pool of do it yourself models increasing, marketers and advertisers have a much larger selection to choose from. This larger selection provides advertisers with all the power, taking the power out of the user’s hands, and this power is what separated social media from other platforms in the first place. Now, agencies don’t have to pay the costs of production and can minimize their budgets by more and more people attempting to create their own image by editing and producing content themselves. Then they can target these self-made models with the largest follower counts, offer them much less to promote a product, and if the model demands more, the company can turn away and look elsewhere to other models willing to do the same shot for the same price or sometimes even less.
“Celebrity culture articulates a way of thinking about individuality and producing the individual self through the public world,” (Marshall, 46).
We have always used the norms our media portrays to be important as a way to produce our own individuality and express ourselves within our culture. With the adaptation of social media across the board, this manipulation of image has become much easier and more attainable for the everyday person to accomplish and give them the illusion or false feeling of ‘fame’ without the payout of actually being famous.
This is creating a culture that is placing importance more on individual attention and appearance than ever before instead of the actual quality of what these people can accomplish. Essena O’Neill quit her social media fame to create a new image around veganism and positive messages. “The social media industrial complex is fraught with digital marketers and consultants who puff up their abilities and accomplishments,” (Greathouse, 10). People always say not everything you see on the internet is true. As more people like Essena O’Neill take a stand against these fake promotions of the self throughout our media and focus more on genuine portrayal of individual ideals you think are important instead of what the media culture deems as important, we will continue to strive for the user dominated power and voice that attracted everyone to social media in the first place—free of, or diminishing the power of corporate influence and manipulation.
Baysinger, T (2015). Why an Instagram Model With 800,000 Followers Is Quitting Social Media: Teen blasts the endless chase for 'likes'. AdWeek.
Chu, A. (2015). Pursuit of Perfection: The High Cost of Instagram Modeling. The Daily Beast Company LLC.
Faulds, J (2009). Social media: the new hybrid element of the promotion mix. Research Gate
Greathouse, J (2014). The Cost Of Social Media Fame In 2014? About $6,800. Forbes.
Marshall, D (2010). The promotion and presentation of the self: celebrity as marker of presentational media. Taylor and Francis Group.
