Do you remember opening your phone on July 30, 2024, only to find your entire For You Page filled with videos of Stephen Nedoroscik, aka Mr. Pommel Horse? This was certainly the case for me and many of my friends. Nedoroscik was the final competitor for the United States Men’s Gymnastics Team in the all-around team competition and when he earned a strong score, it secured the bronze medal for the USA – the team's first medal in a team event in sixteen years (Team USA Gymnast, 2024). To many, Nedoroscik does not look like a typical gymnast with his thick black glasses, often appearing to “sleep” on the sidelines with his eyes closed in a mediating position. On TikTok, people quickly gravitated towards him, sharing their amazement with his capabilities and referring to him as “Clark Kent” because of his glasses and his “superpowers.” Following his successful competitions and this initial burst of social media virality, Nedoroscik was able to transition to appearances on mainstream media and is even currently competing on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars (Kang, 2024).
Nedoroscik and his rise to stardom showcases the ability of TikTok to allow everyday people to collectively decide who they love which provides individuals with an initial level of fame. However, this initial TikTok fame is not enough on its own to create a high profile public persona that can be monetized over a longer term period. It is rather, the large, established corporations that can help create a sustainable, marketable image around a figure, making, I believe, their assistance necessary for people to reach true stardom in a short period of time.
Scholar Jenna Drenten discussed the concept of the TikTok tabloids in her 2022 article titled, “West Elm Caleb and The Rise of the TikTok Tabloid.” She defines the TikTik tabloid as individual, everyday people having the ability to act as journalists, highlighting stories and events. Through the TikTik tabloid, ordinary users have the power to manufacture what is popular, allowing Stephen Nedoroscik to initially become famous (Drenten, 2022). As people on TikTok began posting fan videos of Nedoroscik, obsessing over his quirks and movements, his name became the fifth most popular search trending on X and his personal Instagram gained over 220,000 followers in less than a week (Team USA Gymnast, 2024). Nedoroscik didn’t aggressively market himself, but through the help of TikTok and the fascination ordinary people developed around Nedoroscik, he gained a mass following that introduced many people, like myself, to the pommel horse and generated more attention for men's gymnastics. However, while important, I do not believe the TikTok tabloids alone were enough to catapult Nedoroscik to the level of fame he has today.
As Stephen Nedoroscik became popular with the help of ordinary people, the contemporary culture industry found ways to capitalize on his following by creating a “cult of personality” around Nedoroscik. Scholar Walter Benjamin describes, in his 1936 essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” “a cult of personality” as the film industry's tendency to transform the film stars of the time from ordinary people into idealized celebrities whose images help generate revenue for the studios. He argues that corporations promoted individual figures in the mass market to draw excitement and intrigue from viewers (Benjamin, 1936, p. 57). While Benjamin referred to the film industry, the same concept and process is used today in the media. After Nedoroscik grew in popularity on social media, large corporations such as NBC looked to utilize his name and the excitement around him to generate revenue. They immediately scheduled multiple interviews for him and leaned into his quirky personality by teaching the world about his other special talent - the ability to solve a Rubik’s Cube (Team USA Gymnast, 2024). In doing so, and introducing viewers to additional aspects of Mr. Pommel Horse, the network created a marketable and “idealized” Nedoroscik that could be highlighted across multiple platforms to increase his celebrity status. Through the work of corporations, who have the power to reach millions of people, Nedoroscik became an even more famous, packaged version of himself with a broader appeal than ever before.
After the Olympics concluded, Nedoroscik appeared on talk shows such as The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The Today Show. His TikTok fame translated into celebrity status and these shows contributed to the “cult of personality” surrounding Nedoroscik (Stephen Nedoroscik, 2024). Both Fallon and The Today Show asked Nedoroscik to solve a Rubik’s Cube on air and asked questions about his comparisons to Clark Kent – cementing these quirks as a key feature of Nedoroscik’s brand (The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, 2024). Cultural studies scholar, Greame Turner, discusses a correlation between the industry and the celebrity in his 2010 essay “Approaching Celebrity Studies.” Turner explains that celebrities are treated as marketable products and valuable assets, requiring careful management and strategic planning to maintain their appeal to the public (Turner, 2010, p. 14). After talk shows helped promote Nedoroscik’s brand as a quirky and relatable gymnastics star, in September 2024, Dancing with the Stars, a popular competition reality TV show on ABC, announced Nedoroscik would join the show as a competitor for the upcoming season. Historically, some of the most famous celebrities in the world, including Kim Kardashian and Zendaya, have competed on the show, highlighting the level of fame Nedoroscik has ascended to (Longo, 2024).
I have noticed many other people – whether it be athletes during the Olympics or seemingly random creators – become viral on TikTok as users hyperfixate on them, much like they did with Nedoroscik. However, because the mainstream media or large corporations did not pick up on them, as happened for Nedoroscik, there was no “cult of personality” or broader brand to rapidly launch their stardom to an equivalent level. Instead, they are seemingly forgotten after a short period of time. In contrast, the successful “cult of personality,” and strong marketing plan employed around Nedoroscik in combination with his success on Dancing with the Stars, will allow him, I believe, to remain in the spotlight as a “celebrity” for many years to come.
References
Benjamin, W. (1936). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.
Drenten, J. (2022, January 27). West Elm Caleb and the rise of the TikTok tabloid. The Conversation. Retrieved November 19, 2024, from https://theconversation.com/west-elm-caleb-and-the-rise-of-the-tiktok-tabloid-175485
Kang, E. (2024, August 22). Dancing with the Stars Announces Olympic Medalist Stephen Nedoroscik as Season 33's First Celebrity Contestant. People. Retrieved November 19, 2024, from https://people.com/dancing-with-the-stars-announces-first-celebrity-contestant-season-33-stephen-nedoroscik-8699646
Longo, J. (2024, September 25). 21 Surprising Celebs Who Once Competed On "Dancing With The Stars," But You Might've Totally Forgot. BuzzFeed.
Stephen Nedoroscik on friendship with teammates, 2028 Olympics. (2024, August 14). Today. Retrieved November 18, 2024, from https://www.today.com/popculture/tv/dancing-with-the-stars-2024-season-33-cast-rcna167735
Team USA gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik's rise to Olympic fame. (2024, August 3). NBC News. Retrieved November 18, 2024, from https://www.nbcnews.com/video/team-usa-gymnast-stephen-nedoroscik-s-rise-to-olympic-fame-216353349649
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. (2024, August 14). Stephen Nedoroscik Talks Becoming a Viral Meme at Paris Olympics; Solves Rubik's Cube in 15 Seconds [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pbK0CiKbaY
Turner, G. (2010). Approaching celebrity studies. Celebrity Studies, 1(
Emily, I enjoyed reading your op-ed! I agree with your stance that TikTok is not enough to transition into mainstream media. I had heard of Stephen Nedoroscik very briefly during the Olympics for his role in securing the bronze medal for team USA. That was all I knew of him until I started seeing some of his performances on Dancing With The Stars. With my personal experience regarding Neodoroscik, I found your focus on the marketing of him really interesting as the push he received from major corporations definitely helped him to become more well known.
ReplyDeleteThis reminded me of some of the ideas presented in Turner’s (2010), “Approaching Celebrity Studies.” It talks about how being a celebrity is an industry and that celebrities can be “manufactured, marketed, traded…,” all alluding to the fact that the celebrity becomes a product. In this case, the product is Stephen Nedoroscik and corporations like NBC put him on all those talk shows as a way to market him and the Rubik’s cube was simply one of their marketing strategies. All of the different things he has done to appear in mainstream media is him being traded by various promotions and media outlets that may have varying audiences. As the product becomes more recognizable by people, he becomes more cemented as a celebrity figure.
These are things that do not come from being on TikTok alone as TikTok is only one platform and continues to have the same audience. Your op-ed really pushes this point well and definitely has got me thinking about other people who may be following this pathway into mainstream media.
Emily,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your op-ed. I found it very interesting. Just like you, my for you page was flooded with videos of Stephen Nedoroscik during this year's Olympics. He was constantly appearing and posted for weeks. Although, after the Olympics concluded, I never saw anything else about him. This was until he broke into Dancing with the Stars.
I find it very interesting to look back on his social media to see how they branded and marketed Stephen Nedoroscik to become a "real" celebrity. Once he appeared on DWTS, his presence returned back to my For You Page. I think this related back to Jennings article about Algorithms. Although I enjoy watching, I have never searched for Men's Gymnastics on my phone. During the Olympics, I was bombarded with videos of it. It makes me wonder how the algorithm works for my for you page to be constantly filled with more videos of Stephen Nedoroscik. I think his ability to reach such celebrity status just from his Olympics performance, aside from the marketing of himself, was the Matthew effect. People saw him on their phones and enjoyed the content. Once they saw him on DWTS, he was already "famous" and had a better chance of gaining more popularity based off his previous success.
TikTok is a powerful platform and it only makes me wonder how the barrier to entry for influencers and wanna-be celebrities will come to fame if the platform goes away.
-Carli Fleisher