Social media
allows people to connect from across the world, felling as if they are just
around the corner. Platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter all allow a
sharing, posting and messaging ground. The interaction between a musician and
his/her audience can be quite astounding, due to knowing nearly anything about
them when posting something online as to where they are or who they’re with.
This can reveal particular issues such as stalking, not knowing whether or not
the accounts are real, and If the musician actually writes the status or tweet themselves.
Musicians can
create an account on any social media platform to reveal an insight in to their
personal life as if we are watching backstage. It lets fans connect in such a
way where they can know nearly anything about them. Pop sensation Taylor Swift seems
to try and keep her life a little more private than other celebrity’s due to
not posting as much as others. When Swift does post, it seems to be quite a surprise
to some. All social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram allow
posting photos that show on fans feeds that follow her. The photo usually shows
who they’re with, what they’re doing, and where they are in the world. The
power over a photo reveals a lot as to location, meaning fans can get to where
Taylor or any other celeb at the time when posting the photo. For example,
Swift posted a photo of herself and her friend at Disney on a ride. Instantly
fans started commenting saying that they were going to go to Disney to see her.
The only problem with posting photos with your location, means that the photo could’ve
been taken a week ago, and Swift is only posting now. By the time the photo was
posted, she could’ve been in Paris for all we know.
Social media
can be used in a way where privacy becomes public. It can become a scary thing
where anyone can find anything about Swift or even someone like yourself, with
just a few clicks. Social media can be a great thing to draw attention to an
artist, especially if they have a new song or album coming out. “The increased
attention then leads to bigger sales of movies or music — and the bigger sales
lead to yet more attention. But the constant media attention, generated by the
stars themselves as well as by an increasingly aggressive social media, has
made it much harder for celebrities to hold on to privacy. Singer Taylor Swift
received 735 disturbing tweets from one man who openly admitted he was stalking
her. She finally had a restraining order put on him” (Hunter). Although it really is up to the
singer as to what she wants to post, you can never really escape the idea of posting
something just for fun, when it can be turned into negative responses and
stalking. Some celebs like to take a break from social media as it can be too
much at times. Ed Sheeran is currently on a ‘break’ away from social media to
travel without it. Although fans know this, they still continue to write posts
on his pages hoping there’s a little chance he will see it to find out where he
is in the world.
Before the
web, celebs would communicate with magazine articles and posters around towns
for their tour. Web 2.0 was created for easier connections and navigating. It
created websites like YouTube, Facebook and many more for social interactions. Twitter
and Facebook are sites that allows celebs like Swift to post a status about an upcoming
tour, a new CD or what they’re up to in their free time. The fans are able to
access this page that Swift has created and can click ‘follow’ meaning anything
that Swift posts, will show on your own news feed. The followers as a fan base,
become part of Swifts world for a moment creating a sense of closeness with her.
The issue about the relations between a musician and his/her audience on social
media could be not knowing if the account is real or fake. The authenticity is
taken away when finding out the account that you have stumbled across on the
web, is a fake account. Many people try to be Taylor Swift on the web by using
old private photos that have scatted and surfaced around the internet on
different gossip sites, making it look like it’s really her account. If you are
looking for a celeb on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook or Instagram, look for the verified
tick. This means that the account has been verified that it is the real, not
someone trying to be Swift or any other celebrity for that matter. This also
goes for blocked accounts on any social media platform, meaning you can only
see their content that they post if they accept you.
When looking
through a busy feed of celebrity tweets, many of the statuses look flawless.
Meaning there is no grammar error, and they seem to point out positive information
rather than negative. This usually indicates that managers are writing the
statuses instead of the celebrity themselves. If Taylor Swift’s manager is
writing a status for her, how authentic is the tweet word for word? If the
status has to go through 100 people to write down your feelings about
something, how is it supposed to sound like Swift wrote the tweet herself? It
is clear when someone writes their own tweet, for example Kanye West made the mistake
of going on a rant about how he really feels towards another artist. It is
clear that he was writing them as there were swear words, and they were badly
written as if they weren’t going though management. “The actual celebrities are too rich, too busy, or too
indifferent to bother with the work of running a media company, so the task is
often farmed out to management companies, personal assistants, and interns. You
can spot these accounts by their 2:1 ratio of ad speak and tween slang, like
their author's sprinkling salt on bland food” (Plante). The
management team do their best to use the language and emoji’s that the celeb
would use so we believe it sounds like them. Also don’t forget to remember,
they’re being paid to promote anything for and about the artist. We can only
really know when an artist is being themselves, is when they’re doing a live
stream from Facebook or YouTube. Even so, the management team could have told
them to say what they’re saying.
Social media can be a great
platform for publicity. It can be used for social or political views, setting
rumors straight, promoting a new CD or being used to connect with fans. Tagging a friend in a status or photo can lead
to their page by a simple click. This helps the person that is tagged to get
more followers. Publicity can be used on social media just so the fans can see
what is happening. Conflicts can be created with other celebrities for
publicity, for example, when Taylor Swift received flowers from Kanye West, she
instantly posted the picture of her holding the flowers to show that there was
no more bad blood between them both. It became obvious later on when Kanye
wrote a new song about her that there was still some hate between the two. Another
great publicity platform on social media is when celebrities (or their
management) reply to a message or tweet they have sent in to them. This creates
a big impact and leads to more people talking about them online. The impact of
word of mouth is a strong effect about celebrities to keep people encouraged
with the new things they are promoting such as CDs or tours. YouTube can be
used as a way to show what’s going on in the studio or backstage. Artists like
Taylor Swift occasionally do a video blog, showing the countries they have
visited and what they’ve been up to for their next project. Although this can
sometimes create a high expectation of the artist from the fans, it can also
lead to fans being invited into special screenings of an upcoming tour movie,
or listening ‘party’ for the new album that is about to get released. This can
lead to fans being against other fans hating on each other through social media
which is a very negative issue that still surround on the internet today.
In conclusion, social media platforms such as
YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all
reveal
particular issues about the relationship between musicians and their audience including
privacy issues of posting anything, knowing whether an account is fake or not, if
the messages that we actually see are written by the person that we follow or
if it’s their management writing the tweet for them, and publicity issues
between celebrities and the industry. Weather the internet likes it or not,
social media will always have an impact; positive or negative to say about
someone.
Hunter,
Heather. "A New Era For Celebrity Stalkers". LifeZette. N.p.,
2016. Web. 22 May 2016.
Plante,
Chris. "That's Not a Celebrity You're Following On Twitter, It's an
Assistant". The Verge. N.p., 2014. Web. 22 May 2016.
http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/8/6121985/celebrity-twitter-adam-levine
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