6. The lack of the significant presence of the US
6.2. A different media era
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6.2. A different media era
One of the arguments as for why images of women from the United States in the screenshot samples, especially the Taiwanese sample, were not as significant is the different character of today’s media era and the influence it has on celebrity culture. Today, digital and new media is taking over traditional mass media, especially age groups such as the millenials that are the focus of this study. Previous studies have shown that members of Generation Y prefer social media platforms such as Instagram over the usage of traditional mass media channels, such as watching television (Bolton, Parasuraman, Hoefnagels, Migchels, Kabadayi, Gruber, Loureiro & Solnet, 2013). And even though they are still exposed to commercial movies and television programs, they are more and more looking for or at least have access to celebrities and people to look up to on these social media platforms.
Traditional celebrities have gotten famous because of being Hollywood movie or television actors or world class singers, and they are also present on social media platforms. As Gamson describes, in their case:
“in its most conventional form, celebrity in the United States emerges from, and is managed by, a tightly controlled, well-resourced industry” (Gamson, 2011, p. 1062).
However, there has been an increasing number of self-made celebrities, who are often also referred to as social media influencers or micro-celebrities and are known for having gained their following solely based on their social media activities. As the above quoted author says of this phenomenon,
“the Web has also generated a sort of bottom-up, do-it-yourself celebrity production process that is party autonomous from its predecessors” (Gamson, 2011, p. 1065).
Marwick & Boyd (2011) conceptualize the micro-celebrity as it
“can be understood as a mindset and set of practices in which audience is viewed as a fan base; popularity is maintained through ongoing fan management; and self-presentation is carefully constructed to be consumed by others” (Marwick & Boyd, 2011, p.140),
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and argue that it developed due to the heightened popularity of self-branding and strategic self-presentation concepts. Meanwhile Hearn and Schoenhoff (2015) define this social media influencer as someone who:
“…works to generate a form of “celebrity” capital by cultivating as much attention as possible and crafting an authentic “personal brand” via social networks, which can subsequently be used by companies and advertisers for consumer outreach” (Hearn & Schoenhoff, 2015, p.194)
The authors add that with the elimination of certain jobs and the professional assessment processes and evaluation systems such as Klout, becoming a social media influencer, a do-it-yourself celebrity has become a life goal for many individuals, as this career path actually provides opportunities of economic value today.
This way, through social media, a wider pool of individuals have the opportunity to become famous or at least build a larger following base, as they no longer have to go through the rigid Hollywood gatekeeper system. The internet and social media has made it possible to evade the traditional gatekeepers, it has lowered the entry barriers for them, while also eliminating restraints originating from factors such as geographical location. Thus it is much more accessible for the ordinary social media user to become a micro-celebrity or social media influencer, as, just like how Khamis et al. (2016) explain:
“While the goal might be to eventually link up with advertisers and parlay an online profile towards a broader public presence, self-branding through social media does not require initial affiliation with the ‘already powerful’” (Khamis et al. 2016, p. 198).
The authors also note how the fame enjoyed by these social media influencers significantly relies on “vanity and ego of attention-seekers” and how younger audiences that qualify as digital natives, such as the member of Generation Y are “convinced that good looks, good living and conspicuous consumption (through artfully composed images of outfits, make-up, meals, holiday resorts, etc.)” (Khamis et al. 2016, p. 199). This statement provides ground for presumptions for use of social media as a source for self-construction and the development of beauty ideals, especially in the case of digital native millenials. Therefore the social media influencers or micro-celebrities that young women follow on Instagram and bring as examples
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for beauty can be great indicators of their beauty ideals and can give further insights about how they are constructed.
And as we can see from the reviewed literature, micro-celebrities are ‘constructed’ outside of stiff industrial blocks such as Hollywood and therefore they don’t necessarily have an American national background. Accordingly, the interviewees following a variety of self-made celebrities serves as an explanation for the lack of significant US presence in the Instagram screenshots. The screenshots and follow-up interviews provided multiple examples as proofs for this phenomenon as the interviewees sent examples of and talked about following a number of this so-called micro-celebrities or social media influencers – both local and foreign ones.
When asked about what kind of accounts they follow on Instagram, both Hungarian and Taiwanese interviewees often mentioned these non-traditional celebrities or influencers along with or over traditional ones such as actors or singers. “I only follow just one or two [traditional] celebrities,” said one interviewee adding that she does follow quite a lot of bloggers though (HU01). Another Hungarian girl also mentioned following “mostly my friends and bloggers” (HU09). There were girls who did not mention following traditional celebrities such as actors or singers at all. One said:
“I follow educational profiled like TED or Politico, so-called “foodporn”
accounts as well as fitness profiles, so people who post a lot of workouts and tips.
I also follow pages that are definitely entertaining like 9gag oh and accounts like travel bloggers for travel ideas” (HU12).
Another Hungarian interviewee described the accounts she follows with the following, explicitly stating she likes and intentionally searches for young female influencers on Instagram that work together with brands to provide sponsored content and she deems those images and the recommendations within useful and credible.
“I often use Instagram for getting inspiration for outfits, so I follow a lot of Instagram models and just young women in general that upload sponsored content, whether it is fashion or health related, I like to get ideas from them. I also follow people who just post about fitness and health-consciousness a lot.” (HU04)
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There were interviewees in amongst the Taiwanese girls as well, who specifically mentioned following accounts of these self-made, non-traditional celebrities. “I like fashion and food, so I follow influencers,” said one of them (TW02). Following fashion and food accounts was pretty popular amongst both the Hungarian and Taiwanese interviewees as multiple girls highlighted following such accounts.
Often the accounts they follow were heavily beauty-related, and although they sometimes just specified the categories, such as one girl saying “I follow beauty, make-up and fashion”
(TW07), the ones behind such accounts are exactly the above mentioned kind of people, so-called influencers, make-up artists, bloggers.
Figure 17. Examples of self-made celebrities: British Zoe Sugg (left), Australian Sarah (center) and Iraqi Sarah Angius (right).
To bring some specific examples of such celebrities, in case of the Hungarian sample, the following examples could be mentioned: Zoe Sugg, also known as Zoella, famous British YouTuber with 12 million subscribers on YouTube and 11 million followers on Instagram;
Australian Instagrammer Sarah (@sarahs_day), who has 447,000 followers or hairdresser turned social media influencer Sarah Angius from Iraq.
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Figure 18. Further examples of self-made celebrities, from left to right: Estee Lalonde, Bree Warren, Daisy and Aryee Claudia Dedei.
Further examples based on the Instagram screenshots that the Hungarian interviewees provided (from left to right above) include: Estee Lalonde famous Canadian YouTuber, who has more than 1.2 million subscribers on YouTube and 730,000 followers on Instagram; Bree K. Warren Australian entrepreneur and model; Daisy (@daisylineblog) Polish lifestyle blogger and Aryee Claudia Dedei (@tucsivagyok) Hungarian social media influencer.
Figure 19. Self-made celebrity examples from Taiwanese interviewees: Chiara Ferragni (left), Sonya Sanchez (center) and Pony (right).
For the Taiwanese sample, examples of self-made celebrities (portrayed in the pictures above) include: Chiara Ferragni Italian fashion blogger, Sonya Sanchez Thai-British social media famous mom who has almost 300,000 followers on Instagram; or Pony Korean make-up artist with 5 million Instagram followers.
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Figure 20. Further examples of self-made celebrities by Taiwanese interviewees.
The above three screenshots were also all sent by the Taiwanese interviewees and are examples for self-made influencers that they follow. From left to right they feature: Leonie Hanne (@ohhcouture) “Blogger & Globetrotter”; Nathalie Basha (@thetravelmuse) “travel journalist” from Germany and Polina (@polabur) travel blogger from Moscow.
They are all women that gained a significant following on social media platforms without having the traditional Hollywood/US-based careers, being famous actors/singers. They are mostly bloggers, or in the case of Taiwanese influencers they are often called 網美 (Wǎng měi, internet beauty), meaning they are often followed purely for their beauty and looks, as inspiration for fashion, make-up, skin care and so on for young women all around the country and beyond.
Overall, for the Hungarian sample images of traditional celebrities (actresses, singers and models signed with agencies) constituted 52% (47 images) of the images of which 55% (26 images) were American. Meanwhile the same ratio for the Taiwanese sample was 42% (45 images), of which only 28% (12 images) were American. As for the micro-celebrities, the ratio of American women were 42% and 14% (18 and 9 images) in the Hungarian and Taiwanese samples, respectively. Although women such as the interviewees’ friends are also included in the other group, so it is not exclusively just social media influencers of self-made celebrities, this data underlines the change in the media era. It can be seen from the examples and this data that both the Hungarian and Taiwanese interviewees follow a significant number
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of social media influencer as the source of their beauty ideal constructions. The role of traditional media, such as watching television and reading printed magazines has been declining and it has been replaced by digital and social media, which can perhaps serve as a reason for the also declining role of Hollywood idols.
6.3. Hollywood’s recruitment from new regions to cater for a global, diverse market
The second argument for the lack of significant presence of influencers from the US in the screenshot samples is the trend of Hollywood movie studios recruiting talents from different regions of the world to cater for a diverse market of consumers. As Hollywood movies are shown all around the world and are important sources of celebrity recognition, who often serve as sources for women’s constructions of beauty ideals, the stars they recruit and their national backgrounds are important to examine. On the most basic level, this could be attributed to the processes of glocalization and Hollywood producers and directors realizing the importance of it. Glocalization means the difference in the reception of globalization’s effects and thus the different cultures and cultural aspects that have been shaped by globalization, yet still remained localized to a certain extent.
However, there has been more specific literature in academia focusing on the convergence of Hollywood and other global, for example Asian, film industries and the implications of these processes. As Klein wrote, “Hollywood is becoming Asianized in diverse ways, while Asian film industries are in turn becoming Hollywoodized” (Klein, 2004, p. 361). Klein warns not to interpret globalization in the film industry either as the United States imperialistically and one-sidedly influencing other regions by exporting its cultural products, or as just a series of simple, equal cross-cultural exchanges. Instead she calls for the recognition of the complexity of these processes. In her research, analyzing the above mentioned phenomenon of stars from various national backgrounds appearing in Hollywood movies, which I brought as an argument for the lack of US presence in the screenshot samples, she concludes:
“Precisely in order to become more globally marketable, Hollywood films are absorbing many Asian elements, including various kinds of workers, star personae, styles of action and stories. […] Hollywoodization and Asianization – globalization and localization, homogenization and heterogenization – go hand in hand” (Klein, 2004, p. 379).
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Klein explains that as a result of Hollywood movie studios depending on foreign markets for their sales increasingly ever since the 1990s, when the export of movies constituted around half of their earnings. As Donoghue also mentioned,
“international markets (Europe, Latin America and Asia) now outearn the North American domestic market by two to one for the major studios”
(Donoghue, 2014, p. 4).
The realization of the globalization of audiences and thus having to cater for culturally and nationality-wise diverse markets has lead producers to adjust the movies not only in terms of content and style but regarding their star actors and actresses as well. Klein (2004) brought Jackie Chan from Hong Kong as an example, while Semati and Sotirin (1999) talked about director John Woo as “another example of intercultural exchange” or as part of the
“movement of talents from national film industries to Hollywood” (Semati & Sotirin, 1999, p.
178).
The legitimacy of the logic behind efforts made by Hollywood film studios to cater to diverse markets and audiences as the earnings from said markets increase, by casting talents from various regions of the world has been scientifically proven in academia. In their 2013 research Meiseberg & Ehrmann (2013) found empirical evidence that the familiarity and relatablility of the cultural background of the cast and production team of the movie for the audience enhances the performance of the movie in foreign markets. The authors explain this by the concept of “cultural discount” which means the decrease of popularity of foreign movies in a country as the audiences are presumed to prefer productions that are culturally as close to their own culture as possible. As they explain,
“the cultural familiarity that a particular movie conveys to foreign audiences is a central determinant of its export success: A lack of familiarity results in low export returns” (Meiseberg & Ehrmann, 2013, p. 64).
Therefore they suggest that adding cultural diversity to a movie, for example by hiring stars and cast members from different cultural and national backgrounds would help increase the popularity of the movie in said stars’ respective regions, cultures.
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Figure 21. British actress and activist Emma Watson
There were numerous examples amongst the screenshots that underline this argument, non-American actresses that have become globally famous through roles in Hollywood movies.
An important example from the Hungarian sample would be British actress Emma Watson.
(See Figure 20.) Watson was chosen by three interviewees independently as an example for beauty and is commonly known in Hungary because of her leading role as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies. Although the majority of the cast was indeed British, the Harry Potter movies were produced by American entertainment giant Warner Bros Entertainment and are part of their now enormous Harry Potter franchise and thus can be considered Hollywood movies.
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Figure 22. Israeli actress Gal Gadot well-known for her role as Wonder Woman
Meanwhile the most salient example from the Taiwanese sample was Gal Gadot (see figure 21.) – Israeli actress who played the leading role in one of 2017’s most popular Hollywood movies, ‘Wonder Woman’, also produced by Warner Bros. She also appeared in popular movies ‘The Justice League’ and ‘Batman vs Superman’ as Wonder Woman and in many ‘Fast and Furious’ movies as well. It was her role as Wonder Woman in particular that made her known for the Taiwanese interviewees. Even though in this case the choice of recruiting Gadot was probably not made by producers to cater for the Asian market, but it resulted in making her well known and popular through the Hollywood movie in this region as well, thus diversifying the sample. Although her national background is Israeli, not American, her influence is brought to the world by the American Hollywood film studios.
Therefore, because of stars like Gal Gadot, even though the influence of Hollywood and the cultural products they export is still significant, the role of the United States and the national background of influencers in this present research was not as significant as it was expected.
6.4. Conclusion
Contrasting expectations derived from the literature review, there was a lack of significant US presence in the samples of Instagram screenshots as expected, in particular in the Taiwanese sample. In this present thesis I brought two main arguments to explain this phenomenon.
Firstly it can be attributed to the rise of the self-made celebrities, who are also often called 82
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social media influencers. They are individuals that gained a significant following on social media platforms such as Instagram and thus became possible sources for young women’s beauty ideal construction. Previously young women knew celebrities they looked up to from traditional mass media outlets such as magazines and Hollywood movies and therefore were exposed to mostly American superstars. However, social media influencers share a more diverse national background – and local influencers are also quite popular and often more relatable for young women. This phenomenon can therefore serve as an explanation for the lower ratio of American women, especially in the Taiwanese sample. Secondly it can also be argued that the stars of Hollywood are also becoming culturally and nationality-wise more diverse and therefore the stars women know through these big-production movies might not always be from the United States either. Previous studies have mentioned this phenomenon, marking Hollywood’s desire to cater to a variety of markets globally to make their movies more exportable as the reason behind these castings. Two examples that emerged from the two samples were British Harry Potter actress Emma Watson and Israeli actress Gal Gadot, often also known as Wonder Woman. Overall, we can see that as it can be explained by these two ways of reasoning, both Hungarian and Taiwanese interviewees follow a nationality-wise very diverse group of women as their source of beauty ideal constructions on Instagram – and the United States didn’t prove to have the significance in the samples that it was expected to.
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Beauty is an important concept not just for women, but for our whole society. Feminine beauty provides a form of cultural capital for women, making it a significantly strong motivator for their actions such as consumption, their activities and also a big influencer of the importance they attribute to the concept. This is what we call the beauty premium and many women in each society are constantly thriving to perfect their beauty to gain such a premium. To do so they are trying to achieve what they perceive as the ideal beauty.
The beauty ideal however is highly dependent on culture, which determines the attitudes and norms of the society. Millard (2009) also reinforces this presumption, stating that “despite
The beauty ideal however is highly dependent on culture, which determines the attitudes and norms of the society. Millard (2009) also reinforces this presumption, stating that “despite