AMERICAN THE ORIGINAL INFLUENCER - PARIS HILTON - Sreelekha Samala
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VOGUE
PARIS AUTHOR
SREELEKHA
HILTON SAMALA
RAW, FEAR-
LESS, AND REAL
LIKE NEVER BE-
FORE
THE ORIGINAL INFLUENCER
AMERICAN
MEME
SOCIAL MEDIA
02.
03. SOCIAL MEDIA 07. THE SIMPLE LIFE IS
Goodbye Hollywood and hello NOT SO SIMPLE AFTER
social media. ALL
CHECK OUT PICTURES OF
05. INFRASTRUCTURE PARIS HILTON.
AND LABOR
08. BRANDING
People can be their own brands
06. today from physical looks to onli-
ne persona
INFRASTRUCTU- 10. POSES AND ADVERTI-
RE SING
With social media, infra- Instagram models are dominating
structure has a new place it social media and the fashion wor-
can call home. Read and check ld. Check out what is happening
out why. today
11. 2
SOCIAL MEDIA REPLACING
HOLLYWOOD
Social media is an industry on its own. It’s a platform that connects regular people and Hollywood royalties. It
also makes everyday people just as famous as celebrities in Hollywood. Platforms such as Tik Tok, Vine, and
Instagram gives people a sense of attention with either 15 minutes of fame or even a longer span of fame is
an industry of its own. Usually, infrastructure or even industries are usually considered as hard labor from con-
struction, buildings, and production. The introduction of social media expanded on what infrastructure is and
what is now considered labor. The idea of labor ties in with branding, posing, and the new types of labor mixed
in with people’s emotion well-fare and mental stability.
3
Selena Gomez, a former Disney star appe- Instagram.
ared in tv shows such as Barney, Wizards of Besides her, Nicki Minaj, a former rapper
Wavery Place, and directed popular Netflix has a lot of Instagram followers. She collabed
show, 13 Reasons why. She also guest star- with many rappers and singers throughout
red in many Disney Shows such as Hannah her career. She first became popular in the
Montana, Suite Life of Zack and Cody, Suite early 2010s and has dominated since. With
Life on Deck, and other noteable shows. social media, lots of her songs have not only
Today, she is famous like never before trended, but also became memes.
thanks to social media. She may still be reme- Even her personal life became known to
bered as a Disney Star, but that hasn't stop- the public and the feud she has between
ped her from staying relevant. Nowadays, her rapper, Cardi B.
personal life is open in the air. Unfortunately
for her, people know about her relationships,
health problems, and many more. She has
one of the highest number of followers on
4
INFRASTRUCTURE
&
LABOR
The shift from traditional
infrastructure to modern,
digital infrastructure.
5
I nfrastructure started out as physi-
cal demanding labor for a more traditional
job in an everyday setting. Mentioned in the
introduction paragraph, these traditional jobs
have some similarities to the digital infra-
structures. In Karl Marx’s reading, he men-
tioned a comparison between primitive accu-
mulation to the original sin. He used the part
of the bible where Adam bit the piece of an
apple which later had a dire consequence to
the whole human race. By using this compa-
rison and then implementing this to industry job for the show such as fast food and other
throughout time, this shows how a person labors needed for the farm. Later, a video of
or even a small group of people can corrupt her having sex with her ex-boyfriend at the
a majority of people. Rather than making time caught up with her. She was called bla-
the general public go bankrupt, the digital sphemous slurs and looked down up until
infrastructure sucks people into their world she did a racy commercial for a bigger brand
instead. People seem to not realize that their called Carl’s Jr. Ever since the commercial,
interest in fame and wanting instant gratifi- the idea was to sell sex and good-looking
cation is a labor of its own. women for its brand. To make commercials
T
like these include great equipment, finding
women with nice bodies, and finding a niche
to have an appealing advertisement that sells
oday’s version of Adam biting the products and other labors.
apple is synonymous to Paris Hilton blowing At some point for Hilton, being herself
up on social media. Paris Hilton, the grand- was not only a brand but a labor of its own.
daughter of the Hilton Hotel owners, is born There was this sense of loneliness where she
into a legacy full of wealth which comes with commented in the documentary about how
being followed all the time from paparazzi, her parents told her to not communicate or
mockery from people, and a great deal of interact with fans as often as she does. Her
loneliness. With Hilton, her entrance to fame response to why she interacts with fans is
came from being photographed by a famous to not simply appeal to them to keep her
photographer. She was called in to do inter- image look good, but for the sad reason of
views on TV and was asked to be on the not being able to connect with people in
show, “The Simple Life” with her best friend a more healthy, intimate way. For her job,
Nicole Ritchie. Things for the time being was she is constantly travelling for most of the
alright. She literally worked in a traditional year. When she is back home, people usually
6
treat her in a degrading way. But with fans,
she gets this validation that someone other
than her family cares for her. She mentions
that she can connect with them in a normal
way. Fans tell her their problems from strict
parents to other problems as well as how
they admire Hilton for how she was able to
Paris hilton talks about her mental
overcome some of her obstacles. health
By how beloved she is towards a num-
ber of people, her substantial fame influen-
ced other popular influencers such as DJ
Khalid and Kirill Bichutsky also known in
Instagram as Slut Whisperer. Going back
and forth throughout the documentary,
Bichutsky focused on this high of instant
gratification and building up on his persona
he has when he goes to clubs and what he
posts on Instagram which is absolutely insane
(Horning, 2011).
7
BRANDING
TRACING BACK TO WHERE BRANDING
B randing started out as a way to
identify slaves whether it is claiming owner-
ships of a group of slaves or even an indivi-
STARTED AND HOW IT IS APPLIED TOD- dual slave. To brand a slave means to use an
DAY iron rod or plate to burn their skins with a
sort of pattern or mark and place it in a speci-
fic location such as arm, legs, knees etc. With
the placement and look of the mark, slaves
can be traced back from the region they are
from or supposed to go as well as who he
or she is owned by. Later on, in a modern
sense, branding is used to identify an indi-
vidual from passports, driver’s license, DNA,
and their physical features (Browne, 2015).
I n the same aspect, in social media,
for a regular individual and a celebrity to
either get noticed or stay relevant, they need
some sort of recognition to be branded by.
Paris Hilton for one was mostly known for
being an heiress in the beginning. Over time,
with her exposure in photographs and being
all over the media, her body became her own
brand with the voluptuous blond hair, the
amount of the color pink she wears, and how
pretty she is. The catch phrase, “That’s hot,”
is what she is also recognized by.
A nother online celebrity mentio-
ned earlier, Slut Whisperer, received fame by
Instagram. What he did to get said fame is
to first find a catchy Instagram name. After
15 attempts on finding what his followers
liked, he found the name “Slut Whisperer”
is something that stuck. Next, he found the
right content that added on to his image. On
his social media page, he wrote and posted
jokes about slurs and other problems. The
reason why he may have gotten away is
because he made jokes about everything and
everyone. In the documentary, his mother
mentioned how she would like to be a grand-
mother one day following with Bichutsky
agreeing with him mother but adding on to
him taking the responsibility.
8
With his fame, people saw him as a per-
sona on not as a person. He said when he
hooked up, he saw the girl’s body whereas
the girl he was with for the night wanted
to be able to say she was with a celebrity
for a night. By having to uphold a sort of
brand or persona, is not only laborious but
mentally tiring as well.
is really hell. joy and happi-
seems. it may be fun at first,
but later on, you realize it
media. fame is not what it
ness slowly fades away.
consequences of social
9
POSES AND
ADVERTISING
L astly, a type of labor that is not mentioned as fre-
quently throughout the documentary but is mentioned is
poses. Poses play another huge part on social media. In the
fashion industry, different types of body sizes are discoura-
ged and there are still racial stereotypes. Using social media
platforms, models can come is all different shapes and sizes
which helps the sigma from the fashion industry. In addi-
tion, poses have no limitation and anyone can do all types of
poses whereas in the fashion industry, rules and poses are
limited.
I n the documentary, Hailey Baldwin – a model made a
great point on Instagram. She mentioned how Instagram
has a strong influence on the fashion world today. With
poses and the way girls put themselves on the platform, it
is a way for the everyday girls get labor on Instagram. By
posing, girls are putting an effort to look good. If a post has
a large amount of likes, that is another payment for them. A
bonus can be a post with advertisement. Amanda Cerny- an
influencer, mentioned getting paid $50,000 per post. Going
back to Baldwin, I found it interesting when she wasn’t able
to get jobs due to some Instagram influencer taking her spot
in the fashion industry or booking a spot for the job. She
also mentioned how some influencers can get paid even a
$1,000,000 per post. With post like these, there are usually
some sort of pose. Some poses can be holding a bottle with
a popular beverage or food item and etc. (Pham, 2015).
10C
Works Cited
Horning, Rob, and Rob Horning. “Social
Media, Social Factory.” The New Inquiry,
18 Apr. 2017, thenewinquiry.com/
social-media-social-factory/.
BROWNE, SIMONE. Dark Matters: On the
Surveillance of Blackness. Duke University
Press, 2015. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.
ctv11cw89p. Accessed 15 Apr. 2021.
Pham, Minh-Ha T. “Asians Wear Clothes
on the Internet: Race, Gender, and the Work
of Personal Style Blogging.” JSTOR, 2015,
www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv11g96t3.
https://www.adweek.com/programmatic/
og-influencer-paris-hilton-how-i-work-with-
brands-now/
https://indianexpress.com/article/enter-
tainment/hollywood/hollywood-plans-to-re-
sume-shooting-after-coronavirus-6438828/
https://walkthechat.com/how-did-tiktok-
become-the-first-chinese-app-to-succeed-
oversea/
h t t p s : // w w w . t h e v e r g e .
com/2016/10/28/13456208/
why-vine-died-twitter-shutdown
h t t p s : // e n . w i k i p e d i a . o r g / w i k i /
List_of_most-followed_Instagram_accounts
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/celebri-
ties/news/a35656644/paris-hilton-address-
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