I found this to be an astonishing piece, even checking it wasn’t 1 April:
Coming this summer, in Los Angeles, London and Sydney.
For ironies, the website of the Social Star Creator Camp provides rich pickings.
“This camp is for the teen completely dedication [sic] to learning and executing the best practices necessary to become a successful social media influencers. … You must be between the ages of 13 and 19, be very motivated to succeed, and have a well-defined concept in mind for your channel/platform.”
In the FAQs, the participant becomes ‘the creator’. Divinisation is near. But not, it seems, metamorphosis: “This experience is not about changing YOU or your ideas. We want the best YOU to go viral.” The model of pedagogy within this quote is illusive but important to track down.
This is so because, on another plane, however, this is very much the Zeitgeist of social media and many of the assemblages it inspires and feeds off. Its impact is is particularly evident and ironic in the above article’s final quote from the parent of one camp attendee: “We tell all our children to follow the path that God has chosen. We’re not looking for her to become a brand.”
My professional context needs to come to terms with this dichotomy, and this elision of categories, as it’s trying to do, for instance, here and here. The second of these links is especially discursive on this point, regarding ‘expressive individualism’:
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