Patty’s TikTok Tabloids: A How-To on Packaging Pop Culture
The verified user @Pattypopculture frequents the for you page of viewers’ TikTok feeds, but his rising popularity comes at a cost. With over 3 million followers and 114 million likes, Patty’s account accomplishes exactly what its username promises: discussion of pop culture icons via rapid, minute-long videos. These brief blurbs of rumored information can be sectioned off into breaking news headlines, conspiracy theories, and “why everybody hates this person” videos. In particular, one conspiracy theory video, “🤯THE CRAZIEST CONSPIRACY THEORY ABOUT THEM 🤯Part 16: Billie Eilish,” exhibits the issue with TikTok tabloid microcelebrities through its content, style, and message.
For reference, the Billie Eilish Conspiracy Video lasts only one minute and eleven seconds, but its content functions as a brief argument with different tactics and facts to solidify Patty’s point of view. The initial interview clip of Billie claiming that she wants to die un-remembered transitions into Patty’s definition of Sanpaku eyes — a Japanese myth about eyes stating that visible whiteness below the iris signifies an early death. After applying the Sanpaku eyes to Billie, Patty lists off a few other myths about the eyes, plugs his channel for any first-time viewers, and then insists that the myth is a fake conspiracy theory. (Pattypopculture, 2022)
Patty can best be coined as a microcelebrity; conforming to Crystal Abadin’s definition, he advertises himself while discussing larger figures in pop culture. For instance, in the Billie Eilish Conspiracy Theory video, celebrities like Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, and John F. Kennedy are shown in the background while Patty himself moves around in the foreground. In filming the video this way, Patty elevates his own status — he portrays himself as just another gossiper who can relate to the target audience but also as someone willing to degrade the status of well-known celebrities to gain notoriety.
This parasocial relationship resembles someone spilling the tea about a mutual acquaintance through short-term media intimacy. Notably, however, Patty distances himself from the fringes of society by disagreeing with the conspiracy theory. Instead of fulfilling the role of any other influencer on the app, Patty only focuses on a perceived interconnectedness that he and the viewer share because they both keep up with pop culture icons. (Abidin, 2015)
That being said, the style of Patty’s pop culture assessment is purely a form of sousveillance — he and the viewers closely following the life of an individual celebrity. This video and those like it are best described as TikTok tabloids that are willing to disregard the truth, and therefore, they represent a much more classic version of tabloid news that people such as Jenna Drenten have pushed to the side in favor of social surveillance tabloids. Instead of democratizing fame on the app via social surveillance, Patty provides the equivalent of the National Enquirer for the younger generation. (Drenten, 2022)
In fact, his reports on typically youthful celebrities are often unfounded. Pushing past the truth of Billie Eilish, Patty spreads rumors without a single reporting source to back up his claims. Even his “why everybody hates this person” videos involve dramatization of the truth and an absolutism that breeds a herd-mentality among his audience members. Before even clicking/tapping on the Billie Eilish Conspiracy Theory video, the tabloid-esque new media similarities stand out. A common image of Billie fills the entire preview with the title in all caps: “CONSPIRACY THEORY ABOUT: BILLIE EILISH.” (Pattypopculture, 2022) Every type of “digital paparazzi” or “talking head” that uses this same format supports Drenten’s tabloidization of TikTok. (Drenten, 2022)
Noticeably, much of Patty’s messaging resembles that of reality television and the Andy Cohen-like breakdown of what happens within these highly publicized worlds. While Real Housewives shows try to commercialize off of the “real” events that their actors/characters live through, Patty attempts the same feat by profiting off the audience’s concern for Billie. Laurie Oulette and Susan Murray predicted this increase in interactivity, but it is difficult to say whether this account is self-aware of its commercial, camp nature. Patty seems only fixated on the crosshairs between what is real and fake as a means of building up his viewership and profile foot traffic. (Oullette & Murray, 2004)
To encourage discussion of the content, the comments section is left relatively untouched and unmonitored save for Patty’s main comment, “The best pop culture podcast you’ll ever hear in your life (my podcast) is in the bio!! Go listen now!” (Pattypopculture, 2022) While possibly used to generate intimacy with an equally talkative community of viewers, Patty’s conversation-starting line could stir up unrealistic notions of accessibility or authenticity — entirely different terms from intimacy according to Abidin. Perhaps Patty actually gathers information from his viewers via their comments, establishing his intimate nature with them, or maybe he just wants to abide by the careless norm. His motivations are not entirely clear. (Abidin, 2015)
The most obvious incitement for more interaction from the audience must be the plug for the channel in an attempt to gain new followers from first-time viewers. In accordance with reality television, Patty’s plug is the equivalent of “stay tuned for next week where we will discuss…” at the end of every episode in a series. By advertising himself before the end of the video, viewers are incentivized to listen to the plug, fulfilling the creator’s goal of gaining more followers. (Oullette & Murray, 2004)
Therefore, the user @Pattypopculture represents the new media fusion of tabloid-style reporting with the sensationalism of reality television. At the viewer’s expense, TikTok has spawned an addictive brand of entertainment which is solely rooted in gaining a larger cult following. As long as pop culture exists, these pages can only amass more interest, and though this content may feel harmless for now, its expanding, eye-grabbing nature may soon occupy all for you pages.
This is such an interesting post! I appreciated the inclusion of reality TV as a similar type of media that also tries to profit from the drama of highly-followed people.
ReplyDeleteDue to the exciting and addictive nature of this type of journalism, it is understandable that Pattypopculture would become very popular. Even though scrolling through these videos can be amusing, it is a form of labor in several ways. First, viewers are inherently promoting the video by watching and interacting with it, as that propels it to other peoples’ “for you” pages. In addition, these types of gossip videos pull audiences back into the hierarchy of society during their time off work (Adorno, 1944). They serve as a clear reminder that both the person reporting the news and the celebrity who it is about are more important than the viewer.
These videos feel completely opposite to the type of journalism that is usually characterized as “news,” but they have already been brought into the culture industry. The culture industry can be defined as the commercialization of culture under the umbrella of the capitalist society. Gossip and debrief tik toks started off as something on the margin of this industry, as they were made for fun and to talk about entertaining topics, but they have become so much more. People who make these videos are now motivated by profit rather than amusement or engagement, a true sign that they have been successfully incorporated into the culture industry (Adorno, 1944).
Adorno, T. (1944). The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception. In M. Horkheimer (Ed.), Dialectic of Enlightenment (pp. 1–12).
Commented by: Sophie Poritzky
I want to preface this by saying that I am someone who does not have TikTok, who does not use social media, and who does not believe in or buy into the idea of celebrity culture, so reading this blog post was absolutely wild for me as I simply had almost no personal context for a lot of the things you brought up. That being said, I still understood everything, so that's a testament to your explanation skills and writing. This was wild! I especially latched onto the moment where you mentioned that this TikTok account tends to focus on younger celebrities. Something that we didn't particularly talk about all that much in this class over the course of the semester but something that I personally am very interested in is the breakdown in the effect of social media surveillance over age group lines, both in the sense of lateral surveillance and more explicitly predatory surveillance. Furthermore, the way you touched on the attention economy was really interesting. Lastly, this post got me thinking about the Psarras reading. You make points in your post that had me considering the idea of these TikTok tabloid paps as microcelebrities in their own right, and it made me wonder about how Psarras' theory of emotional camping could be applied in different ways to these self-appointed journalists and their subjects. For both parties, the exaggeration of the self in order to occupy camera time, something that Psarras argues is one of the main points of if not the most fundamental building block of emotional camping, is a necessity and a curse. I would love explore in greater depth comparing and contrasting the relationship that celebrities and those who become celebrities from reporting on them have to emotional camping and to the necessity in this day and age for the exploitation of the self in search of relevance. - Isaac Pollock
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