microcelebrity

English

From micro- +‎ celebrity. Coined by Theresa Senft in 2008.^[1]

microcelebrity (countable and uncountable, plural microcelebrities)

(uncountable) Celebrity on a small scale or in a specific area.
- 2009 April 19, Michael Agger, “Dude, Murdoch Friended Us!”, in New York Times‎^[1]:
  It was in this culture of microcelebrity that Anderson, an intellectual drifter who had been a hacker in his teens, saw an opportunity for MySpace.
- 2018, Zizi Papacharissi, A Networked Self and Platforms, Stories, Connections, Routledge, →ISBN:
  Microcelebrity involves ways of relating to audiences that developed with earlier forms of participatory technology and have shifted with the introduction of new platforms. Senft (2008) first described microcelebrity in her study of camgirls, women using webcams in the late 1990s to share about their lives.
(countable) A celebrity whose fame is on a small scale or in a specific area.
- 2010, Juliette Powell, Social Media as Your New Business Platform, FT Press, →ISBN:
  Gary's personal brand skyrocketed as he became a micro-celebrity, and speaking engagements started pouring in. It wasn't long before he started to affect the culture around him.

^ Theresa M. Senft (2008) Camgirls: Celebrity and Community in the Age of Social Networks, New York: Lang, →OCLC, page 25: “While the Web can be used as a platform for traditional celebrity—Tila Tequila was recently hired by MTV to appear on her own show—it cannot create old-fashioned stars of its own. Instead, the Web provides the conditions for what I call ‘micro-celebrity’.”