Alix Earle is a TikToker whose content falls under the category of lifestyle and beauty. As a 21 year old living in Miami for her last year of college, her social media presence attracts an audience of young women and girls who appeal to the image she's built off of having a fun time and trying to look good. Alix vlogs the monotony of her daily life through short “Spend a day with me” videos, “Get ready with me” videos, and “Help me get dressed” videos, most of which tend to feature a promoted cosmetic or clothing item. According to Crystal Abidin, Alix would be considered an influencer because she has accumulated “a relatively large following on [tik tok] through the textual and visual narration of [her] life” from which she “monetizes [her] following by integrating ‘advertorials’” into the posts and engaging with her audience online (Abidin, 2015, p.1).
Alix Earle’s success as an influencer can be accredited to her ability to curate and capitalize on communicative intimacies with her audience. These strategies can be observed within the Get Ready With Me for Thanksgiving video she posted on 11/24/2022 which features the influencer talking with her audience while simultaneously doing her makeup routine (see figure 1). The video begins with Alix telling her audience about how she threw up in public the night before due to a medication that made her sick. Abidin would argue that the medium by which Alix shares this humiliating experience “gives the impression of exclusive, intimate exchange” thus inviting the audience to foster feelings of familiarity and closeness with the intentional vulnerability she portrays (Abidin, 2015).
As the video progresses, her younger sister enters the frame. The sister verbally affirms that Alix’s makeup looks good and lingers in the background to sneakily borrow some perfume before she exits the frame. Her presence in the video only takes up a couple of seconds, but within that time the audience gets a glimpse into a mundane interaction that reflects the casual intimacy of their sisterly bond. Abidin would likely describe this act to foster a sense of perceived interconnectedness, meaning that the audience feels more connected to Alix by seeing this display of casual intimacy which does not reflect the legitimate dynamic of the one-sided influencer-follower relationship in the digital sphere. Abidin defines perceived interconnectedness as a one-sided relationship that results from influencers interacting with their followers to give the illusion of intimacy (Abidin, 2015, p. 9-11). The one-sidedness of this dynamic is especially important to recognize as the influencer has no way of learning about her audience to the same capacity that she allows them to learn about her, thus fostering a parasocial relationship.
Alix continues to nurture this perceived interconnectedness in the video by saying, “Sometimes I feel like I need to hold myself back from saying things on here cause I just feel like we’re all friends and I just want to say so much that I can’t!” This statement gives the false illusion that Alix and the audience are equally connected. The video ends with the final touches of makeup and Alix assuring her audience that she’ll be sure to update her amazon storefront link with her recommendations for Black Friday “So that we can shop this weekend!” Her intentional choice of “we” exemplifies the influencer business model in action. Abidin considers this business model to be the fact that influencers monetize their audience relationships and media presence via paid promotions and advertorials (Abidin, 2015). Alix operates within this model by curating a commercial intimacy around the event of online Black Friday shopping to encourage her audience to shop her recommendations. Since the influencer profits from this relationship with the audience, the business model essentially calls for the commodification of curated intimacies so that audiences are more encouraged to spend their money on advertised items in this influencer gift economy.
While the message of the video was discrete, I believe that the ultimate goal was to connect with her audience to reinforce their one-sided relationship with curated intimacies in order to prime them to shop from her amazon storefront during the Black Friday weekend. Alix’s ability to use her online personality as a marketing tool for profit holds parallels to Walter Benjamin’s ideas of the ritualistic experiences of art and cult of personality. Benjamin would argue that the mechanical reproduction of art has disfigured the audience’s ritualistic experiences of consuming art to the extent that film audiences “respond to the shriveling of the aura with an artificial build-up of the ‘personality’ outside the studio. The cult of the movie star, fostered by the money of the film industry, preserves not the unique aura of the person but the ‘spell of the personality,’ the phony spell of a commodity” (Benjamin, 1936, ). This same occult like following of a celebrities’ presented persona can be observed with influencer’s rise to fame. For example, Alix received comments from followers on her Thanksgiving video that include intense expressions like “I find you as a person so genuine like you seem so real” (@shriya5345), “So glad we’re friends <3” (@senorgomez), and even “I just want to be you” (@kate_thegreat1). The fact that her followers feel empowered to speak on her personality and the closeness they feel to her reflects the occult following her personality has gathered. Due to the one-sided and capitalizing nature of influencer-follower relationships, Benjamin would describe this phenomenon that surrounds her online persona as a “phony spell of a commodity” due to the fact that she quite literally commodifies forms of intimacy for profit. It is important to note that the cult of personality as it applies to influencers is different from celebrities because influencers have more opportunity to self-brand in a way that can adapt to different marketing trends. This premise is changing the digital marketing landscape by shifting the power away from executives and towards these young typically female influencers who have built relationships with their followers.
The informal style of the video in which we see Alix leisurely sitting and applying a full face of makeup in her pajamas is another example of managing intimacy as the audience is made to feel like they are casually catching up with someone rather than consuming an intentionally curated vlog embedded with promotional content. Aside from amassing 3.5 million views, this video proved to be a success because it worked to further develop Alix’s relationship with her audience for branding purposes while simultaneously capitalizing from instances of disclosive intimacy by drawing attention to her amazon storefront.
Works Cited
Abidin, C. (2015) Communicative ❤ intimacies: Influencers and Perceived Interconnectedness. Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, No.8. doi:10.7264/N3MW2FFG
Benjamin, W. (2005, February). The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. Walter Benjamin. Retrieved December 2, 2022, from http://www.sfu.ca/~andrewf/benjamin
by Ekaterina Vinnik
ReplyDeleteDear Naomi,
Your post was especially interesting to me as I chose the same prompt for my blog post and also wrote about an influencer, using Crystal Abidin as my main reading. I have really enjoyed reading your post as it was a pleasurable experience and allowed me to look at the prompt from a different lens. I really like how you took a step-by-step approach and touched upon all the important moments in Earle’s video that could be connected to Abidin’s concepts on influencers. Your post made me realize how even the most seemingly authentic YouTube and TikTok videos filmed by our favorite influencers can be curated and manipulated behind the scenes just to create and maintain this concept of “perceived interconnectedness”, which you talked about in your blog post. It is sad to think that most influencers create their content for business and monetization purposes, rather than fun.
I have noticed that a lot of famous influencers fall under the "pretty blond girl" stereotype. For example Loren Gray, Olivia Ponton, Peyton Coffee, Madi Monroe, Mads Lewis and others, including Alix Earle, all share the same characteristics - they are thin, blonde, and pretty according to societal standards. Alix Earle and the repeated images from hers and other similar influencers' videos could be tied to Hall's reading and especially his concept of stereotypes. According to Stuart Hall, stereotyping is a “representational practice” and it occurs when certain images are read together with each other and when a certain concept is always represented the same way (Hall, 1997, p. 225). Alix Earle adds to the stereotype that to be successful and recognized by people, you need to be skinny, fit, blonde, tan and pretty. After watching 10 of Earle’ most recent TikToks, it can be concluded that her popularity comes mostly from her looks and her ability to speak to the camera, rather than an extraordinary talent or ability to do something special. This trend of becoming popular just based on how you look like has been extremely prevalent in today's social media world.
- Ekaterina Vinnik
Hi Naomi!
ReplyDeleteYour piece on Alix Earle is ironic for me to read because I just saw an article published online yesterday about how she is a rising star in the popular culture industry and could be the next Charlie D'amelio or Addison Rae.
When analyzing her contact, her videos aren't anything outside the ordinary. As Naomi mentions they are "Get ready with me" lifestyle videos that truly anyone can create. Naomi mentions in her piece that I also came to the same conclusion about is that the reason why her videos are so widely consumed is because of the readability and feeling of personal connection to the audience she provides (Bekuretsion, 2022). Naomi connects Alix's platform to the influencer business by her promotion of recommendations and brands in her videos. However, I have found her platform to be closely related to Taylor Lorenz categorization of these niche internet micro celebrities she calls 'nimcels' until I read more about Alix's earnings from brand deals.
Lorenz article Niche internet micro celebrities are taking over the internet, she discusses the differences between influencers and her idea of micro celebrities. When I started following Alix years ago she catered to my interests by making me feel like she was talking directly to me when she would do her everyday videos and how she only had a small following at the time. According to Lorenz's idea of 'nimcel' the creators aim is simply to "entertain" and they "rarely make money" (Lorenz). After revisiting Alix's page I found that she has close to 1.5 million followers and many videos collaborating with brands. That review led me to believe that she no longer fits into the niche micro celebrity category Lorenz created because she no longer has a small loyal following and instead massive engagement.
Naomi was right in her piece when she identified Alix as an influencer. I am curious to see if she fits into the A list celebrity category one day.
Bella Corman
Lorenz, T. (2022, September 02). Niche internet micro celebrities are taking over the internet. Retrieved December 12, 2022, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/24/nimcel-influencers-tiktok-youtube/