KIm is my new BFF: The Looking Glass Celebrity

KIm is my new BFF: The Looking Glass Celebrity

Abstract: Mobile-based celebrity games are a byproduct of a new, more feminized video game industry. Within celebrity games, the player engages with celebrity culture in a variety of ways, often being transformed into their own brand of celebrity. Celebrity games are a form of hypertrophic media, based on the dyadic interactions between the player and celebrity. Within this, one becomes a looking glass celebrity – an enculturation process by which the celebrity text situates the player as closer to the titular star than they actually are. In turn, the player uses this position to reflexively construct what they believe constitutes a successful celebrity. The path to fame, however, is a hollow one, wherein the player can never really lose and never really win.

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