What Kind of Life Form Is an Internet Celebrity?

Wang Po-Wei
Artistic Director, Digital Art Foundation

“Internet celebrity” refers to a new type of figure that emerged this millennium following the establishment of the World Wide Web (WWW) and is now deeply rooted in our daily lives. Before the year 2000, there were “idols” or television and movie “stars” created by mass media. These are not entirely the same as today’s Internet celebrities. Known for their on-screen “roles,” idols and stars became objects of adoration. However, their off-screen personalities and lifestyles were often completely different from their on-screen personas. Added to that, in the pre-Internet era, the distance between us and those we idolized was great both in terms of time and space. This gave way to celebrity news and tabloids. Cultural studies scholars have noted that the rise of the paparazzi in the film and television era was due to the public’s desire to bridge the gap between themselves and those they idolized. These “gossip” reporters enabled the public to peek into the private lives of celebrities.

No matter the distance from their audiences or the way that idols and stars became deeply ingrained in our minds and hearts through their on-screen “roles,” they are distinct from Internet celebrities. Internet celebrities that emerged after the year 2000 included the previously mentioned idols and stars who were well established in the mass media era and worked hard to cultivate their online presence in the Internet era, as well as bloggers who around the year 2000 provided in-depth information through written articles and key opinion leaders (KOLs) and influencers who emerged with the advent of platforms. They became popular as the Internet became the primary interface for work and leisure.

If Internet celebrities are unique figures that emerged in the digital and Internet era, what are their physical, mental, and spiritual states?
What does living like an Internet celebrity look like?

In ANGELA (a strange loop), a collaboration between director Susanne Kennedy and artist Markus Selg, these questions are explored. I believe that in terms of the changing roles of audiences and interactions in the digital and Internet age, algorithms that mediate communication and three-dimensional changes and constructs in a world in which there is integration of the virtual and the real can help us to better understand this work.

The most significant difference between the digital and Internet era that began in the year 2000 and the previous mass media era of film and television is the role of audiences. In the mass media era, audiences were largely passive spectators of programs produced and broadcast by central broadcasting systems. After the year 2000, owing to the influence of the Internet, the average person not only became a consumer, but also a producer, of online content. Because work and recreation are now largely conducted online, and even take place in cyberspace, no matter if tracking behaviors or the products of actions, feedback is rapid and immediate. Online, distances, both in terms of time and space, between information senders and receivers have been greatly reduced. In other words, in this digital and Internet era, big data and diverse “real-time interactions” have replaced the one-way communication and passive reception of the mass media era. However, do we truly know who we are interacting with online? This “who” not only refers to algorithmic robots, but also to countless asocial, amoral, and even non-human forms, such as the strange characters and toy dogs in ANGELA (a strange loop).

If the ways in which we interact are changing, do people’s physical, mental, and spiritual states differ between the digital and Internet era and previous eras?

Algorithms are playing unprecedented roles in the answer to this question. In the mass media era, most interactions beyond information consumption took place in physical spaces and with real entities so that we were mainly interacting with living people. In addition, we were able to perceive and respond to emotions and cues, which helped to facilitate smooth communication.

In this digital and Internet age, interactions tend not to be face-to-face. Instead, communication is mediated and generated by algorithms. (Even if we ignore robots and only consider interactions with real people) with the intervention of digital technologies, interactions mainly take place remotely, with the result that we are unable to truly perceive the expressions, emotions, cues, or underlying motivations of those with whom we are interacting. This is particularly evident for Internet celebrities who seem to live in a giant bubble that is propped up by narcissism. Echo chamber, filter bubble, and stratosphere are alternative descriptions of this. On the one hand, Internet celebrities desire the energy of fan responses. On the other hand, due to the mediation of algorithms and the need for real-time feedback, this energy becomes increasingly short-lived, while the desire for it becomes increasingly powerful. This paradox distorts the force field separating the virtual from the real, making the world of Internet celebrities seem like a virtual reality game. This is the world of ANGELA (a strange loop) that was constructed by its creators.