I found and read a Washington Post article about niche internet micro celebrities. A niche internet micro celebrity is somebody who has a small but cult-like following on a particular social media platform. They often have a backstory, lore, or inside jokes with their followers that. Unlike a traditional “influencer” these people don’t do social media as a job and they do it solely for entertainment. This article interviews some of these micro celebrities and explains how they accidentally found fame. It explains how the creator world is shifting from being made up of large creators to containing a lot more of these micro celebrities.
This article was extremely helpful when it came to answering my question. I had been having a hard time finding research that related to my first thesis: the internet is changing how we as a society perceive celebrities. This article helped me refocus my thesis by explaining an aspect of celebrity culture fueled by the internet that I had not previously thought about. I thought about if it was a matter of how we are perceiving celebrities or if it is a matter of celebrity culture as a whole. It lead me to want to change my thesis to address the effects of the internet on celebrity culture as a whole.