A lot of my research has been focussed on finding fan comments on certain musical artists’ instagram accounts. I have taken quotes from Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, Tinashe, Jesse Rutherford, and Halsey’s accounts. All of these quotes and more will be collaged together in my research paper. The comments have also been separated into categories depending on content in order to organize them better. The purpose of using other people’s comments is to show the influence of the persona, and how they are always judged by people they barely know. These people could love someone who is completely fake and never know it because of the barrier social media creates. Speaking of this, I did find an article that explains how a well-liked media persona committed suicide and how people were shocked because they thought he was perfectly okay. The key to this article is that they really had no idea who this man was, they had only met and worked with him through media:
https://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-tools/social-media-pretend-friends-and-the-lie-of-false-intimacy/
I also came across a video that had gone viral in 2015. A 18 year old instagram influencer and youtube named Essena O’Neill had a public breakdown, listing the ways that social media had ruined her life and how things were not as they seemed:
All of these above sources would be considered primary as they come directly from the people who are experiencing them.
I have also being doing research about personas. One website even shows a checklist questions a person may ask themselves when creating a brand as a musician (for example:
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- If I do not write or perform political songs, what divisive political causes would I be willing to discuss online?
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- How comfortable am I with my body? Are there any parts of it that are off limits to the internet?
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- If I have struggled with a tough past, how open am I to broadcasting the details of that?)
3 Easy Steps To Establishing Your Musician Persona (Worksheet Included!)
I have found other websites as well that talk about musical personas such as : https://thewritepractice.com/lady-gaga-and-the-creation-of-a-persona/
Also, Britannica gives a very good definition of a persona in terms of literature which is helpful in creating my studio project: https://www.britannica.com/art/persona-literature