Believing in the selfie as a thing masks the class politics of influencer culture

Evidence

In looking at selfies, we aim to demonstrate how a logic of commodification has subsumed practices of self-documentation and that we cannot say that there is any authentic “self” being revealed online. In fact, believing in the basic claim there are selfies conceals the distinction between the two classes mentioned above; believing that any private, authentic, intimate relation can be revealed over social media distracts from the materiality of capitalism that undergirds social media. Understanding the class politics of influencer culture first requires doing away with the very idea of selfies as a “thing” and, instead, looking closely at what literally appears in the backgrounds of images and videos online. It is this turn to the background that guides our arguments and guides the method of interpretation we use in the chapters that follow. — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 61

Categorization

• DEFINE: The methodological turn to the ‘background’ of images as the object of analysis is defined here — the book’s core interpretive move.
• XREF: connects to: Tech culture’s self-image conceals a closed system of privilege centered on profit — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 647; Fashion blogging scholarship treated influencer work as feminized glamor and aspirational labor. — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame…, 638; Social media performers systematically conceal the labor behind curated feminine glamour — Brooke Erin Duffy, (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love:…, 500