Sky within Reach

A young dynamic lecturer sitting beside me on an eventful bus journey almost two years ago asked what I meant by social media! To him social media was any form of communication meant for the masses, as in the case of the drummers of the royal era who would go from village to village announcing the decrees of the king. That sounded quite logical, leading me to partially modify the title of my research topic to include "Online" before "Social Media". 
In a famous research paper, Kaplan & Heinlein defines this new form of media as one that facilitates multi-directional conversation powered by user-generated content, using Web 3.0 technology as the platform, while OECD defines user-generated content as something creative shared with a mass population, which is made outside the professional domain of people. I feel it was fine till that time. But then arrived the era of Social Media Marketing, when User Generated Content started taking a back seat as more professionals flocked to reap benefit of the huge population present here. I won't deny that users are not in control of the media now, as the critical mass has not yet been gathered by the marketers; thank God! But I am a little perplexed to see that individual creativity is gradually getting overshadowed by the professional acumen of the marketers. It is for the sake of marketing that marketers need to relinquish control of conversation in social media to users, because the day marketers become the masters of the social media, trustworthiness of the brands will nosedive and users will be indifferent to the marketing efforts here. Hence, every time I find a common (wo)man being catapulted to stardom with the sheer blessings of social media, I feel relieved that my profession is safe! :-)

Over the years social media has made people stars overnight. Funny videos have gone viral, literally affecting millions of people around the world. But some others have also effectively utilized social media, by finding their niche and entertaining people with their creativity, expertise, humour or knowledge. As a researcher I am more interested in these people, who have become phenomenon surviving more than a single post in different social media over a considerable period.

Sara Maria Forsberg

About a month ago a 19-year-old Finnish supermarket cashier Sara Maria Forsberg uploaded a video on her YouTube Channel "Smoukahontas Official" showing how language would sound to foreigners. This gibberish video garnered more than 10 million views in a couple of days. In the last 7 months she has shared 7 videos, with an average  of 2.5 million views per video. She followed her "What Languages Sound Like To Foreigners" with a sequel and then shared another video showing her singing in 14 different genres. Videos which were made with little professional help landed her with an interviews on British BBC Radio, Finnish Public Radio YLE and Swedish TV. She has also been invited to The Ellen DeGeneres Show as a guest. The mayor of her hometown of Pietarsaari handed her the town keys as a gesture of appreciation, declaring her as the most famous celebrity of the town. The girl who was filling shelves at a store selling cheap goods even in the early March this year thus became a global celebrity, who now employs two managers to help her with the busy schedule. You may know more about her latest ventures from her Facebook page.

Jenna Marbles

Boston University graduate Jenna Mourey, commonly known as Jenna Marbles, is undoubtedly the most prominent YouTube celebrity, having garnered 13 million subscribers to her channel in four years. With more than one billion total views, her's is the 8th most viewed channel in YouTube and the topmost by any woman. Her video in 2011 "How To Trick People Into Thinking You're Good Looking" had over 5.3 million views in its first week. Another video "How To Avoid Talking To People You Don't Want To Talk To" was featured in an August article in The New York Times and ABC News. Her popularity on YouTube has helped her amass a whopping US $2.5 million. You may follow her blog, Facebook page, Twitter, Tumblr, or Instagram accounts.

Jen Selter

These stories show how some have carefully selected or fortunately found their niche in social media to get into stardom. And that reminds me of another Jewish girl from Long Island, who has probably found a super-niche and taken selfies to another level! With more than 3.5 million followers in her two Instagram accounts and 745K+ followers in Facebook, Jen Selter prides herself of easily acquiring 70,000+ likes  and earning four to five thousand new followers as she posts a new images of her carefully curated rear end in yoga pants. A fitness freak and social media enthusiast, Jen started with a Tumblr account and soon got an Instagram account simultaneously where she posted random photos of people working out. Then she began posting her own images in her Tumblr account, which catapulted her to fame, as more serious fitness freaks started sharing her images. Once her personal Instagram handle hit 300,000 followers, sponsorship and “shout-out” offers piled up, from companies like Nike, Lululemon and New Balance etc., ensuring that she gets thousands of dollars for a simple belfie (selfie of the butt)! Thus she could easily quit her job in the gym and yet afford a much better life. She has been featured in the 2014 April issue of Vanity Fair magazine as a style spotlight, for her inspiration and motivation to young ladies and the world.

Jen Selter on the cover page of Vanity Fair

Grandma Betty

If you thought that only beautiful young ones can become social media celebrities, then take a look at Betty Simpson, more famous as Grandma Betty, an 80-year-old great-grandmother from Jefferson, Indiana whose three-month-old Instagram account has nearly 500,000 followers from different parts of the world. This courageous lady, who has been battling terminal lung cancer from December 2013, spreads love and motivation through her Instagram account, created by her loving great grandson- Zach Belden. Therein lies the true potential of the closely-connected online universe: to inspire.

Grandma Betty

 Colin's Birthday

In one of my earlier posts I doubted whether we are immersing into Social Media or Unsocial Media. And here I give you one more example to show that humanity is still there and Social Media helps to spread it, by finding friend for the lonely souls. A Michigan elementary school boy Colin, who lacks certain social skills because of Asperger's syndrome, told her mother not to plan for his eleventh birthday party, as he did not have any friends. His heartbroken mother went on to set up a Facebook page, which garnered more than 2 million likes and hundreds of thousands of comments in one and a half months. People from all walks of life, including some comedians, police, firefighters, soldiers and students, have sent messages, cards, presents and videos. The interesting aspect is that in spite of such a huge online popularity, everybody listened to the mother's appeal to keep all these secret so that she could surprise her child on his birthday. Finally the surprise was revealed to him two days before his birthday on the "Good Morning America" TV show and he was feted with an early birthday blowout in Times Square featuring the Rutgers University marching band, a giant cake and even a trip to the Disney World. This huge popularity also earned him a one-day contract to play hockey with the professional team of his native place, share the bench with them and be named as the hero of the match!

Colin's Facebook Page for Eleventh Birthday

Murad Osmann

So what leads to an online sensation? Is it a photogenic face, a beautiful body, or sympathetic minds? The answer is quite difficult. Perhaps a touch of mystery adds up to the over-all attractiveness. Murad Osmann's "Follow Me" collection of photos on Instagram has made him and his girl friend Nataly Zakharova social media stars, as people are captivated by the images showing his girl friend pulling him by his hand to share her sheer excitement as they explore new places around the globe. Interestingly, in none of these photos, the face of Nataly is seen. Since October 2011, Osmann's Instagram account has garnered almost one million followers, while more than 20ooo people like his Facebook page.

Follow Me: Murad Osmann

Belle de Jour

I hope that you are not about to complain that people do not need to have brain to become Social Media celebrities. And in case you think so, let me give the classic example of Dr. Brooke Magnanti, who worked as £300-an-hour escort to supplement her income and sustain herself while pursuing PhD from University of Sheffield and used to pen down her experiences in her blog by the pen name Belle de Jour. Her diary, published as the anonymous blog "Belle de Jour: Diary of a London Call Girl" became increasingly popular and won the Guardian newspaper's Best British Weblog 2003, even as speculation surrounded the identity of Belle de Jour. Her experiences were published as "The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl" in 2005 and "The Further Adventures of a London Call Girl" in 2006, which ranked in the top 10 of UK best-sellers. Her books have been published in the UK, US, Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, France, Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Romania, Russia, and China. In 2007 Belle's blogs and books were adapted into a television program, "Secret Diary of a Call Girl". Her popularity became so much that she finally had to disclose her identity in 2009, as she feared that it was about to come out. The Guardian described the revelation of her identity as that of  "one of the best kept literary secrets of the decade" .

What does it all tell us? Which all emotions should we churn to get more attention than most other people? Do we get the magic formula to become social media celebrities? Should we try to build a model on this? I would rather not do so, although the engineering bend of my mind has started poking me to add two plus two to make it four! I am just happy to know and share with my readers that Social Media really has the ability to transform any of us into an overnight celebrity and marketers can rest assured of a more trustworthy media for some more time now!

[This post was originally made in my WordPress blog on 5 Apr 2014. You can see the same here.]