Tag: legion

A Feverish Legion Of Followers Struggle To Achieve Online Fame – Inspired By Kim Kardashian
CELEBRITIES, TOP FOUR

A Feverish Legion Of Followers Struggle To Achieve Online Fame – Inspired By Kim Kardashian

When Kim Kardashian “broke the Internet” with her nude selfie, it was the stunt by a socialite who's an object of fascination in our celebrity-obsessed culture. While some deride her as being “famous for being famous,” I see someone who works intensely hard at what I’ve termed glamour labor. Glamour labor is a phenomenon of the Internet age. It means investing time and effort into editing the body and self to appear as fascinating and polished in person as in one’s highly scripted, filtered and manipulated online life. It means shaping the body (by going to the gym or the salon), while simultaneously crafting one’s online image – all to appear to have achieved an elusive ideal of attractiveness. Those who epitomize the ideal are rewarded by large followings (Kim Kardashian has more than ...