The document discusses how social media has precipitated a new wave of fan culture through the symbiotic relationship between fans and celebrities. It examines Britney Spears and Lady Gaga's social media presence and how their fans use sites like BreatheHeavy and Gaga Daily to spread news and promote the celebrities' careers in the absence of traditional media interviews. The document concludes that social media allows for strong communication between fans and celebrities that benefits both parties.

1. How Social Media Precipitates a
New Wave of Fan Culture
A Look Into the Symbiotic
Relationship Between Fans and
Celebrities Through the Lens of
By: Dustin McManus
Social Media Platforms
Junior, UNC Chapel Hill

2. Dustin McManus
Introduction Junior, UNC Chapel Hill
• Born in Charlotte, NC Interests:
Entertainment
Journalism
• Worked for
Fashion

3. Society’s burgeoning obsession with celebrity-focused media

4. Entertainment Media Outlets
• Over the past decade, the media has shifted a good deal
of attention to covering celebrity culture due to popular
audience demand through tabloids, gossip sites and
television networks solely devoted to the topic.

5. Fan Culture
• With evolving technologies, including social media
platforms, the every day individual shares a link with the
celebrity allowing them to:
▫ Promote and shape public opinion
▫ Communicate amongst other fans
▫ Market the celebrity’s product/career
▫ Disseminate information, news & rumors
Social media applications & online communication “may
signal a power shift in the culture industry from producers
to consumers, or fans.” -Kelli S. Burns

6. Online Fan Sites & Chat Forums
• The premise of this study revolves around
observing the activity of these sites and the effect
this unique form of communication possesses.
▫ Two Important Factors:
1. Simplicity in creating and sharing news & info
2. Inherent ability to attract an audience
“It is these two dimensions – a form of cultural production and a form of
public engagement and exchange – that make social networks simultaneously
a media and communication form.” - P. David Marshall

7. Celebrity Social Media Presence Observed
Britney Spears: “I’m Miss bad Lady Gaga: “I’m your biggest
media karma, another day fan, I’ll follow you until you
another drama.” - Piece of Me love me.” - Paparazzi

8. What my observations of Britney Spears’ and Lady Gaga’s
online social media presence unveiled about mass media
technologies and communication.
New technologies are “used to generate new texts in new
ways, and this in turn results in an expansion of fannish
behavior.” -Karen Hellekson & Kristina Busse

9. Britney Spears & BreatheHeavy
• Fans posting on her online fan site BreatheHeavy and its chat
forum, Exhale, were successful in aggregating news and rumors
about Spears’ negotiations to join the reality singing show “The X-
Factor” for its second season.
• Creating forums and tweeting about this news led to many
mainstream news outlets, such as E! Online, picking up on the story
and reporting on it further.
• Spears has yet to make any public statement regarding these
negotiations, leaving the initial dissemination of news and any
updates regarding her career move in the hands of individuals
utilizing social media.

10. Lady Gaga & Gaga Daily
• After an interview with Oprah Winfrey claiming she was retiring
from mainstream media interviews, Lady Gaga’s fan site Gaga Daily
has been responsible for keeping the celebrity’s image and persona
in the public eye.
• Fans of Gaga are posting on her site and tweeting information
regarding the singer’s upcoming “Born This Way Ball” tour and
rumors involving her upcoming album release.
• Lady Gaga herself has taken to her Twitter account to announce the
official tour dates and the below promotional poster.

11. Conclusions
• Fans are adopting social media platforms to serve as quasi-public
relations teams for these celebrities, marketing their various career
moves and releasing this information to a broader audience.
• These social media platforms are active preserving a media presence
for these two stars who have sworn off much of their own self-
promotion, leaving it in the hands of fans.
• Reveals the clout social media possesses in acting as a considerable
& rapid news source (breaking news of Spears’ involvement with
“The X-Factor”) and as a promotional tool (Gaga’s tour updates).
• Social media allows for communication not just among like-minded
fans, but between the fans and the celebrity themselves, creating a
strong symbiotic relationship and sense of interconnectivity that
both parties benefit from.

12. Growth of Social Media as a News Outlet
While the majority of adults
still rely on traditional
media outlets to receive
their news, social media
and online platforms are
gaining in momentum.
Check out this photo
illustration of just how
social media is usurping the
ways we get news:
http://cdn2.business2community.com/w
p-content/uploads/2012/04/social-
media-news3.gif

13. The following list contains the top
10 Twitter trending topics in 2011.
Both Lady Gaga and Britney
Spears appear in the top 10 at
numbers 3 and 8 respectively.
Gaga was the #2 trending topic in
music for the year, while Spears
was #5.

14. Twitter Statistics
Britney Spears’ rapid ascent to Lady Gaga’s skyrocketing
1 million followers in 2009. followers today.
• It took just 3 months for Spears to become • Gaga’s rapid growth in followers over a
one of the first people to reach 1 million month this past year to solidify her ranking
followers in early 2009, becoming the most as the reigning person with the most
followed person on the site at that time. followers on the site.

16. Four Websites
BreatheHeavy Gaga Daily
• The official fan site for pop star • The official fan site for pop star Lady
Britney Spears that updates daily with Gaga that functions similarly to
content and news regarding Spears Spears’ with news updates regarding
and possesses the chat forum Exhale Gaga and with chat forums for fans to
for fans to communicate about Spears discuss their favorite celebrity in.
and with each other.
• http://www.breatheheavy.com/ • http://gagadaily.com/

17. Four Websites Cont: Twitter
Britney Spears’ Twitter account Lady Gaga’s twitter account
• Britney Spears’ official Twitter account was • Lady Gaga’s official Twitter account was
examined to see how the pop star interacted analyzed to understand how she utilized it as a
with fans, how news spread of her potential marketing tool to promote her upcoming
gig on “The X-Factor” and how fans created world tour, the way she kept a presence in the
numerous trending topics about media after swearing off interviews and how
her, including trending her album title fans created numerous trending topics
“Femme Fatale” as a worldwide trending topic regarding Gaga’s upcoming birthday that
for two weeks straight. trended worldwide.
• https://twitter.com/#!/britneyspears • https://twitter.com/#!/ladygaga

18. Four Videos
• Britney Spears Announces South American Femme Fatale Tour
▫ Spears tweeted this video out directly to her fans and followers in 2011 to
announce that she was bringing her Femme Fatale Tour to South
America for the first time.
▫ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_Bt6NwD4FY
• Lady Gaga’s – Google Chrome Commercial HD
▫ Lady Gaga’s television spot for the launch of Google’s new social media
network, Google Chrome.
▫ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVbXrubQpa0

19. Four Videos Cont.
• Eminem – Stan (Long Version) ft. Dido
▫ Music video for Eminem’s song “Stan” which is about an obsessed fan
who kills himself after Eminem fails to respond to his attempts to reach
out to him. The song was released in 2002 before this current boom of
social media, but the word “stan” which is an amalgamation of “stalker”
and “fan” has been adopted by many hardcore fan bases for different
celebrities, such as Britney Spears and Lady Gaga
▫ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOMhN-hfMtY
• Social Media Revolution 3 (4:15 version via Erik Qualman)
▫ Based on the best-selling book Socialnomics, this video details and
highlights shocking statistics regarding social media in today’s society.
▫ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0EnhXn5boM