Scandal-ridden influencers become ideological placeholders for divergent audiences

Evidence

As Influencers such as PewDiePie become iconized as enemies/heroes of the (alternative) media, they also become placeholders against whom people can align themselves to exemplify larger moral values and political allegiances. Even though YouTube celebrities have largely framed the scandal as an attack by traditional media that are vying for a share of the attention economy in digital spaces, by islands of politicized spectators, PewDiePie has been lionized as a symbol of the struggle for free speech, as a proponent against fake news, and another chess piece in the spillover effects of vulnerable global media ecologies. — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity, 210

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to symbolic-annihilation or scapegoating literature on media moral panics; also Lofton’s work on celebrities as secular saints. — connects to: Online influencers become symbolic placeholders for audiences’ larger moral and political allegiances; Scandals that fade for most people can harden beliefs among partisans — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2764
• SEED: An essay angle: how an individual influencer’s scandal gets colonized by opposing factions as a proxy for larger culture wars — free speech vs. accountability as competing claims on the same person.

Broader Connections

• Online influencers become symbolic placeholders for audiences’ larger moral and political allegiances #corroborates (1.00)
• Scandals that fade for most people can harden beliefs among partisans #expands (0.85) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2764