The Capstone level makes influencers full-fledged corporations, ending precarity for a miniscule few.

Evidence

There is precarity, disposability, and discrimination implicit in this life cycle: even highly prominent and popular influencers can disappear if they’re revealed to be “toxic,” if their fans turn against them or grow bored. That precarity is only mitigated if one can transition out of the influencer life cycle, a stage achieved by a miniscule few, revealing the limits of this meritocratic narrative of popularity. Here, one ceases to be an influencer, properly speaking, and becomes a corporation that appears as an individual human. In this stage, one owns the brands that they advertise, brands like Jeffree Star Cosmetics, MrBeast Burger, or Chamberlain Coffee. These brands may not even be attached in a direct way to the individual’s image, and the influencer may disappear from the branding for the products associated with their name. Emma Chamberlain often does not appear in the ads for her coffee, for instance, and Jeffree Star’s extensive business activities are regularly obscured. Some make the transition to full-fledged corporation by investing in companies that manufacture goods for other influencers and own warehouses that distribute products for others; Jeffree Star, through Killer Merch and his fulfillment centers, does precisely this. In this final stage, the influencer is a very traditional capitalist and cannot be understood as one of many workers struggling in the creative economy. — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 49

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the final stage of the influencer life cycle: the individual becomes a corporation owning its own brands.
• SEED: The Emma Chamberlain point — a creator who vanishes from her own product’s branding — is a strong case-study angle for the reader’s own analysis.