Influencers internalize the culture industry apparatus, producing themselves as the commodity

Evidence

The ruse of the influencer is that there is no real separation between image and person. The Hollywood “star” is an image produced by the entirety of the moviemaking apparatus; the Nashville “star” is a product of the music machine. These are alienated commodities distinct from the actor or musician seemingly represented by these image commodities, distinct because of their manufacture by the culture industry. But in influencer culture, the apparatus has been transferred to the influencer. What once was a product of the entirety of the Hollywood studio system, for instance, is now the product of the influencers themselves. Maples must maintain a link between herself and her image, and she is the one who must produce herself as the “star” to be consumed. — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 131

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• DEFINE: The load-bearing contrast of the chapter: star = image divorced from person, influencer = apparatus collapsed into the individual.
• XREF: Directly supports the reading purpose: the influencer-as-firm, the self as firm realizing surplus. Also connects to labor theory of value question on where the commodity is realized.

Related

• Influencers internalize the culture industry so the person and image must remain fused (similarity 0.94)
• Influencer self-images are constructed commodities built on concealed material infrastructure (similarity 0.86)
• An influencer’s own image can become merely one product within a broader conglomerate (similarity 0.85)
• The influencer is simultaneously owner of capital and the product sold (similarity 0.85)
• Influencer self-portraits are commodities indistinguishable from the subject (similarity 0.84)
• The influencer’s identity itself is the commodity presented for consumption (similarity 0.84)
• Influencer production increasingly outsources labor to producers who themselves become public figures. (similarity 0.84)
• Influencers are simultaneously product, producer, worker, and commodity (similarity 0.84)
• Showing oneself as a self online begins the manufacturing of the self as commodity (similarity 0.83)
• Influencer images are self-portraits that produce a commodity identical to identity (similarity 0.83)
• Influencers collapse the split between star and industry that once defined celebrity. (similarity 0.83)
• Manufactured celebrity images create audience demand to pierce to the real person (similarity 0.83)
• Fans who see a constructed image force the influencer to fuse image and person (similarity 0.82)
• Influencers differ in how fully they collapse self and business into the warehouse. (similarity 0.82)
• Top influencers collapse personhood into ownership of production means (similarity 0.82)