Baby, baby, baby ooh: The Bieber Fever

WEEK 9: Burgess and Green argue that: ordinary people who become celebrities through their own creative efforts “remain within the system of celebrity native to, and controlled by, the mass media” (Reader, page 269). Discuss this argument giving an example of a YouTube video.

 

YouTube is undeniably becoming a platform for a new kind of media influence. Burgess and Green agree that “YouTube has been mythologized as literally a way to ‘broadcast yourself’ into fame and fortune” (Burgess & Green 2009: 22). So much so that talent scouts are now looking at online mediums as a way of finding the ‘next big thing’ (Burgess & Green 2009: 22).

With growing access to sites like YouTube and many people displaying their talents online, how can we know the difference between an ‘ordinary person’ with talent and a ‘celebrity’?

This question can be answered by democracy. With choice to view what we wish on the Internet, we inevitably target stars that will be liked by the masses. But when your YouTube video goes viral, is that considered genuine success? Or are you restricted to your YouTube fame?
There is no denying that not just anyone who posts videos can skyrocket to celebrity status overnight. People not only require talent, but also must be aesthetic pleasing to some degree and have the ability to actively engage their audience.

YouTube’s biggest success story of all would have to be the 14-year-old boy that captured the nation with his voice… yep you guessed it Justin Bieber. Just as Burgess and Green state, large masses are necessary to promote these over night celebrities into the world of fame. Whilst starting off posting videos of himself singing he has definitely made it out of the realm of YouTube celebrity and has plunged into basically every form of media existing. But the real question is have you got Bieber Fever?

In Bieber’s case he has become a performer for the masses and like Burgess and Green infer, there is no going back. Justin Beiber’s recent Hollywood hit ‘Never say Never” authorizes the fact that even YouTube icons who carefully groomed, inevitably reaching out to the masses.

Yet YouTube also provides examples to the contrary. Chris Crocker hit stardom with his famous sobbing plea to “Leave Britney (Spears) alone”. This single video escalated him into fame, a status he could only possibly maintain via participation online in YouTube. Ultimately he was controlled by the masses as he provided one amusing video in relation to the recent meltdown of World renown celebrity Britney Spears. This is a prime example which portrays the ‘internal system’ of YouTube and how it perhaps isn’t always in sync with the more ‘dominant [forms of] media’ (Burgess and Green 2009:270).

Fundamentally, Mainstream media have relished in DIY amateur videos, consequently turning ‘ordinary people’ into the Justin Biebers of the world. Yet it is here where many reach their downfall. Once people are skyrocketed into stardom via mass media, many are unable to maintain their level of fame, restricting their celebrity to a series of YouTube videos. Ultimately, I confer with Burgess and Green and believe that mass media controls how famous you are.

 

REFERENCES:

http://www.womansday.com/Articles/Life/10-YouTube-Success-Stories.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQOFRZ1wNLw&feature=related

Jean Burgess and Joshua Green, YouTube and the Mainstream Media, in YouTube: Online and Participatory Culture, Cambridge: Polity press, 2009