Strength in the Community

It is very easy to dismiss the concept of the nanocelebrity if you do not take into account several of the factors that make online socialization different from traditional socialization and traditional mediation. Lev Grossman began to explore these factors when Time named “You” the Person of the Year in 2006. He begins his article by comparing Carlyle’s “Great Man” theory to the power and wisdom of crowds. He places a value to the information and content created by those in an online community.

Jeff Howe continues this line of thought when describing the four factors of strength present in Web 2.0 creations; User-Generated Content, Crowdsourcing, the Long Tail approach to business and Folkonomy. Howe explains how all four of these factors create value to those mediated products online and shows their place among traditional media sources. He talks about an active audience willing to gather media from across the Net to create their own media library. It was these strengths that lead to the rise of the microcelebrity and will fuel the nanocelebrity.

The microcelebrity maybe a niche persona, but their approach to attracting an audience seems to focus on traditional “broadcast methods.” Based on the work of Terri Senft and Alice Marwick, those seeking Internet fame will attempt to broadcast a public persona based on their interests, talents and/or style. Marwick makes a status argument to this by saying “(e)very social group you can think of has a status hierarchy. In some ways fame is status on a grand scale. Fame gives you a kind of power, but it’s not a catch all that fixes all your personal problems (in fact, it’s the opposite).” The nanocelebrity will, be comparison, will focus on their niche. But, they will use a “narrowcasting” approach in their presentations. Services like Facebook and Twitter forces the author to make a stronger connection to their audience and those people with an expert level of knowledge on a particular field can find themselves as nanocelebrities.