Celebrities and Social Media

Social media has created a way for both celebrities to gain more fame and for non-celebrities to be catapulted into the life of fame from one single post. Marshal 2010 writes that ‘celebrity culture in its intensified growth over the last century has always been a very elaborate discourse on what the famous are “really” like.’ The desire to know what a celebrity is doing in there glamorous and over the top lives is something that many of us normal people love to do. I myself follow a lot of modern celebrities on Instagram. From Kendall Jenner to Cara Delevigne to Rihanna, you name them and chances are I could tell you what they are doing right this moment from their personal accounts. The fascination with celebrity culture is something that will continue to grow.

Marshal writes that ‘there is an expansion of celebrity culture outward. Through new media forms, greater portions of the populace are now constructing online public personas’ (2010). A few years ago a young 15 year old boy by the name of Justin Bieber was discovered from his youtube videos that he had been posting online of himself singing since he was 12 (Adib 2009). Today Justin Bieber is one of the most well known people in the world with his Instagram account having a measly 10 million followers. Justin Bieber is perhaps the prime example of how social media, in this case youtube, can play in the rise of a celebrity. Five years ago he was just a normal teenager living a normal life in Canada.

Marshal (2010) uses Tiger Woods as a prime example in how a celebrity persona can actually differ completely from the real person and how social media has contributed to a celebrity downfall. From the outside before the scandal broke, Tiger Woods played the part of the sports superstar who was also a devoted family man. However, after the scandal broke of his partying and womanising ways and dozens of mistresses later, his public persona and reputation was shattered. The fast speed of news racing around social medias made the fall relatively quick for Tiger. But is this not what we are looking for? ‘We are looking for something which punctures the manufactured image and thereby reveals both truth and reality’ (Marshal 2010).

References

Marshal, PD 2010, The Specular Economy, Society, Vol 47, pg 498-502
Adib, D 2009, ABC News, Pop Star Justin Bieber Is on the Brink of Superstardom, <http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Weekend/teen-pop-star-justin-bieber-discovered-youtube/story?id=9068403 >

Image References

www.kcconfidential.com –

www.zimbio.com –

Grand Theft Auto

Cultural texts are viewed by Raessens (2005) as ‘as open texts that different groups of viewers interpret differently, depending on social, cultural and other contexts’. This short and concise quote from Raessens demonstrates that in the domain of ‘interpretation’ the culture that surrounds you as well as the social situation that you are in can determine how you view things, in this instance how you view games.

As I am not much of a gamer I found it more challenging than usual to write a blog post this week. The first game that comes to mind when I think of interpretation and culture together is the Grand Theft Auto series. As well as the fact that this is one of the only games that I’ve played, the violent nature of the game makes it an interesting one to analyse in terms of interpretation.

According to Turner (cited in Raessens 2005) ‘culture, as the site where meaning is generated and experienced, becomes a determining, productive field through which social realities are constructed, experienced and interpreted’’ (Turner, 1996, p. 14). Grand Theft Auto continues to be one of the most popular game series created with sales continuing to sky rocket and a new game set to be released this year. Devine and Squire wrote an article which explores the meaning of race and violence in Grand Theft Auto and interestingly enough it found that ‘that players use their own experiences and knowledge to interpret the game’ proving the fact the game is differently interpreted by each player. 

The violence in the Grand Theft Auto games drew criticism from the NYPD association president Pat Lynch as he said that ‘being involved in a shootout in a video game has no consequences and that is the wrong message to send to young people’ (PVC world, 2008). Yes, understandably this is not the ideal message to send to young people but isn’t a game just a game? The argument could go on forever of the harm that violent video games does to its players but the domain of interpretation seems to me to be right on the money.

References

 
DeVane, B., Squire, KD, ‘The Meaning of Race and Violence in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas’ <http://website.education.wisc.edu/kdsquire/tenure-files/10-DeVaneSquire_revised.pdf>

PC World 2008, Rants Begin About Grand Theft Auto IV, <http://www.pcworld.com/article/145460/article.html >

Raessens, J 2005, ‘Computer games as participatory media culture, Handbook of Computer Game Studies, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, pg 373-388


Image References 
www.hdwallpapers.in
arjungirotra.blogspot.com