Influencer content stays commodity-form even when relocating to a ranch retreat

Evidence

Star retreated from Los Angeles completely, moving during the coronavirus pandemic to Casper, Wyoming. There he bought a ranch for $1.1 million, which he named “Star Ranch”—a yak ranch with more than five hundred acres and forty yaks—along with a nearby ranch for his mother. Star ingratiated the local community through numerous donations, such as a local toy drive and a free Wyoming Symphony Orchestra concert. As we have noted throughout this book, Star’s videos in Casper focus on farmer’s markets, on heritage brands, on a retreat from his past excess and glamour. Yet Star’s Instagram page was regularly filled with examples of filtering this “retreat” through the excesses of influence. In a video from the Casper farmer’s market, Star tells us how he “stocked up at the farmer’s market. Of course, it’s all local businesses … made here in Casper, raw honey, so good! Let’s do a little haul right here, guys.” The market inevitably appears, that constant stream of commodities that, even if it is framed as “socially responsible,” as “local,” is still about endless excess, endless waste. … Even though the place appears different, the backgrounds—as a form on which the influencer appears as a commodity—remain the same. — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 310

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Direct evidence for the four-infrastructures analysis of a real creator: the ranch/home is repurposed as a backdrop (form) for the commodity-self, echoing the ‘house’ infrastructure and the trees-as-infrastructure essay’s interest in place-as-setting.
• XREF: Connects to Deleuze/Guattari territory of the entrepreneur as always accumulating; also to Goffman’s front-stage/back-stage self-presentation.