Portfolio Assignment #5

A celebrity that I follow online is the comedian Theo Von, and through his various social media outlets, he utilizes social media in a way that is based on the principals of self-branding and fortifies a certain persona. A clear way that he exhibits his identity online via various social media platforms is in the way his posts are often related to comedy and thus link back to his persona as a comedian. A clear example of this is how he often retweets videos or images and adds his comedic take on them via small captions. Since he constantly uses comedy within his tweets it only furthers his identity as a comic and imprints this powerful image onto his followers to the point that they see him as a comic first and celebrity second. The concepts of writing ourselves into being that Simon Lindgren talked about within the chapter Interaction and Identity, are present within Theo’s social media platforms. Lindgren speaks about how a person’s identity may vary depending on which platform they might be using; this is something that fits Theo Von perfectly as despite him always presenting himself as a comic he takes it one step further on Twitter as opposed to Instagram or other platforms. Theo Von is a textbook example of the way 21st-century celebrities are using social media to aid in their self-branding. On Instagram, he posts his comedy tour schedule, provides links to his podcasts, and post clips of his Netflix special all to further his brand as a great comedian. He strategically follows some of the concepts discussed in the article “The Brand Called You” by Tom Peters in an effort to market himself as a successful comedian. He only posts clips that have show him being funny, witty, or insightful in an effort to sustain his role as a comedian that you want to see more of. Theo Von’s identity as a comedian and celebrity forces him to use media as a tool to further his success. Whilst an average person uses social media as a way to share their thoughts or socialize with friends and strangers, Theo Von uses it as a marketing platform to brand himself as a popular comedian who you should be watching.

The topics discussed this week on self-branding and creating an online identity have been connected to my term meme since it gained internet notoriety. Due to the innate viral nature of memes, there have been plenty of people who have become memes and gained massive fame overnight. When a person becomes a meme, their personality is often linked to whatever meme they have become, and it often sticks with them. A great example of a meme dictating someone’s online personality is the artist Lil Nas x his fame spawned from the multitude of memes that shaped his image and made him who he was. His song Old Town Road is itself a meme being popularized on the social media site TickTok which then garnered him a massive audience. Since then he has released multiple remix versions of the song to the point that it became another meme. Lil Nas X embraced the meme culture and used it to build up his online brand as he fed into the craziness by releasing even more remix versions of his song or joking about how he was forced by his label to wear his cowboy hat 24/7. He built up his brand as a “meme” and engaged with fans online in such a calculated and brilliant way that it only made him even more famous. Lil Nas X is not the only meme turned celebrity there have been dozens upon dozens of people who gained notoriety from becoming memes the difference is that they did not know how to market themselves and sustain that fame. Take for instance Antoine Dodson the person from the “Hide your wife hide your kids” video that went super-viral a decade ago, they did not do a good enough job of creating an online persona or self-branding. Without a proper brand or popular image, it was only a matter of time before Antoine was no longer heard from. I believe that nowadays the phrase “15 minutes of fame” is irrelevant when it comes to the right person since with the proper online self-branding you can extend those 15 minutes for decades.