Chasing Internet Fame (Colby Harrison)

Something that has been a topic of thought for myself over the last few years, grappling with social media, has been its pathway to fame. Social media is not only just a platform for friends, creativity, the connection of social subcultures, and flat-out pure entertainment, it's a business, a corporation running off of its creators. These creators are people just like us or people that once were just like us. Social media is corrupt and can twist our perceptions of life essentially. Social media has presented itself as your claim to fame. Whether your tik-tok goes viral or your tweet gets 100k likes or your instagram followers continue to go up, all of these are values of “fame” on these platforms. Social media has subconsciously influenced many on this pursuit of fame through social media, looking to create a new viral tweet or start a new trend on tik-tok….its all really the same.

 What scares me the most is that those who decide this is what they want to do are completely consumed by the manipulative and corruptive nature of social media, distorting one's perception of the world and their sense of self and identity. It is absolutely haunting to watch someone record a tik tok in public or devalue themselves to the point of no return online all with the hopes of “going viral”. The worst part of this is that it actually works. Millions of people over the course of social media have sold their souls within their respective platforms, resulting in fame and a lot of money, I mean a lot. Large YouTubers can make anywhere from 1 cent per view to $100 per view, and can also make up to $100k from a  sponsored video. Tik-Tok stars (physically hurt me to type this) can make $20 - $40 per a million views and can also bring home extra money through sponsored videos that range from $20k per video, all the way up to $500k. Apparently Charli D’amelio earned $17.5 million just last year.

I mentioned selling their soul to the platform, people doing awful things all in an attempt to go viral. One of my personally favourite toxic youtuber fame chases is Sam Pepper’s murder video because mmm(chefs kiss), this thing is a work of art in the twisted media playground of youtube. Sam Pepper staged a kidnapping where he and his best friend Colby Brock had bags placed over their heads, tied to chairs, and placed at gunpoint all for the sake of a prank. Colby, the one getting “pranked”, is unsuspecting and forced to watch his best friend Sam shot in the head. The video is dramatic and intense and Colby’s emotional outburst is 100% real as he WATCHES HIS BEST FRIEND DIE!!! Like how the fuck is this a prank?!?! As you can guess the video blew up, but the amount of backlash was unexplainable. Sam Pepper chased YouTube fame and turned into a sick monster to do that to his “friend”. Here is a link to the video, the original has since been deleted but this is a short clip of it: https://youtu.be/3qzQR-87jss

My main goal of this post is to express how corruptive social media has been, offering children, literal children, a way to make money and get famous without getting an education, or getting a job, or even having a mild taste of the real world. The media are breeding this behaviour and they know it, creating “products(influencers)” that can act as the gears to make their money machine continue to go. It seriously concerns me that there are people out there looking for any way around reality, consequently leading them to the magical world of social media, one that can give you fame and money….but what happens when that stops? What happens when your relevance, your stock plummets. Children raised within the warped reality of social media, left with no education, a shallow materialistic personality, poor spending habits, poor sense of money and so on. The medium leaves you beat up, constantly chasing that internet fame forever turning you into a social media monster, and this goes for every platform out there! I wonder if this aspect of social media platforms will ever go away, I highly doubt it.