"they have successfully supplanted the male gaze with a capitalist one".. well I suppose it could have been worse. Imagine if it had been a 'feminist' one.
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“*Just* someone who is good at making other people buy things.”? That’s what Steve Jobs was too. That’s what drives our whole economy, isn’t it?
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I like how this piece uses this particular Instagram feed to chart the end of paparazzi culture. I didn’t even mourn its passing or notice, and now I have a tinge nostalgia!
The gendered bad romance of celebrity and capitalism is explored nicely here. Adios, male gaze of paparazzi. We welcome our new female overlord, the Faux Feminist Influencer.
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Meh. It was always about money. Social media proliferated as another venue and means for corporations and institutions who need to market or influence public opinion. Just an evolution away from paper magazines to digital screens.
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And so mindless consumption rages, and people die while pied piping influencers avert the gazes of the vapid. This is news?
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Ecclesiastes anyone....?....vain, vapid, self-absorbed, no talent, but beautiful.....
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how do these "celebrities" have time to do anything each day except get dressed and undressed in their multitudes of outfits. Or maybe visit doctors for their many enhancements? This must take so much time. Do they wake up and calculate how many photos they will post during the day? It must be exhausting. That's why they are always "on vacation" somewhere?
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Maybe is Instagram was in existence in 1997 Princess Diana would still be alive, having never been pursued by the paparazzi
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Conspicuous consumption can take many forms. The Kardashians have simply combined monetized social media to "sell" their own sense of taste as relates to beauty products, fashion, and lifestyle...In a nutshell, they have exploited social media and those that use it to make a buck. If tabloids have suffered ( paps not getting their shots) as a result then others are benefiting. But, the public's appetite driven by FOMA ( fear of missing out) is still there...that hasn't changed. The Kardashians are feeding off of it like vultures feed off land fills...until the garbage is buried. In 20years we'll look back and say..."gross".
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@Harley Leiber I already say "gross".
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This is only half the truth though - these days everyone is a paparazzo if they have their phone with them. If it got rid of people using their long-ranged cameras to get a shot from someone naked in their yard, it would be the one good thing Instagram did for society
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@MK That moment awaits....when Apple makes an iPhone "to get a shot from someone naked in their yard" from a long-ranged distance.
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Kylie Jenner became a billionaire by receiving expensive cosmetic enhancements to her face and then selling cheap cosmetic enhancements to everyone else.
That about nails it
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@GP And, you know, having a famous sister (who got famous through a well publicized sex tape).
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Great article Ms. Hess! I've missed your 'Internetting' series too, glad to see that the rumor that you'd been deported to Brunei was as fictitious as it sounded.
Through not paying attention, this really had never occurred to me, the rationale for the demise of the paparazzi, a group of misogynistic stalkers who once had the power to kill Princess Di, and drive Brittney Spears insane. I think it's an improvement, better to have the celebrities be in charge of their personal photos, and those who don't want to take part don't have to.
I don't think anyone should kid themselves that it's feminist though. It still treats women as a sex object, all those highly edited pores, elongated eyelashes, plastic surgery, etc., that's all surface things to improve sex appeal. The instagram phenomenon is largely treating women as if their physical attractiveness is their most important quality, followed by their expertise in improving their attractiveness.
So it's a step in the right direction, but it's not an overall good thing. Hopefully our interaction with celebrity and sexiness continues to mature.
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The last paragraph says, "The celebrity used to offer a whiff of mystery." That misses the point. It wasn't just a whiff, it was the whole point of tabloid coverage. As with God, sex and money, once you take away the mystery (in this case, finding out "they're just like you and me!"), then what's to be breathless about?
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I have heard the word 'instagram' but had no idea what it was. Now I feel better informed, although not at all inclined to intersect with that world.
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the kick of the paparazzi was that they tended to capture people at their worst - drunk, overly exposed, or at the very least, annoyed at having been caught. but every now and then you got an iconic snap that seemed to justify their intrusiveness - the photo of a sleek-legged jackie kennedy onassis by her nemesis comes to mind. instagram is all about showing what you want to show, not being caught looking haywire unless you want people to see, packaging your narrative, then selling it. because of that, it's boring.
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@Andie Yes, like the PC "corrector collective" tends to capture people at their worst - drunk, overly exposed, or at the very least, annoyed at having been caught.
And a tear was shed for the paparazzi by...
...no one.
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One word for all of this:
Celebritrocity
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Until reading this piece, I was certain that I understood just how fantastically bad social media is. Totally umoored from truth, with its tendency to provoke moral grandstanding, and its promotion of the self as stable & knowable, social media isn't just gross it is truly dangerous. Add one part machine learning to amplify the worst of it and suddenly everything about our fraught moment slips into place. Now I have another thing to add to it... the famous slipped away from the cat and mouse game with the public. God save us.
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Instagram is now just a vast cesspool of utter meaninglessness. It’s depressing beyond words.
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