With the rise of micro-celebrities, how has postmodernism affected the celebrity culture? My presentation will focus on the examples of micro-celebrities who can be considered as postmodern performance, specifically looking at Poppy, a YouTuber who posts abstract and weird videos of herself surrounding an eerie pastel background with her doing random things in each video. Poppy uses her platforms to satirically breaks down how vapid and superficial celebrity culture is. I explore the idea that Poppy is a performance persona with postmodern attributes, such as niche, pastiche, and rejection of traditional narrative, and criticism of celebrity culture. Being a micro-celebrity, Poppy also uses non traditional means to reach her audience, and is allowed to exist in these spaces that otherwise would not be possible in traditional media consumption devices like television. How does this affect traditional celebrities? And how can we better understand the micro-celebrity using postmodern framework?
About the presenterHipolito Vargas
Hipolito Vargas is a recent graduate of University of Maryland Baltimore County with a B.A. in Media and Communication Studies. Born and raised in the Silver Spring Maryland area, Hipolito enjoys teaching children piano and has an interest in social media, internet culture, video games, and music.