Bieber vs Adele; Celebrities in a Hypermodern World

Within Victor Corona's Memory, Monsters, and Lady Gaga, Corona argues that our current hypermodern society requires celebrities to exude unique and spectacular characteristics in order to sustain longevity and public devotion (Corona, 2007). As Lady Gaga as his example, Corona claims that societal devotion requires more than a captivating voice and that survival in the “collective memory” requires close ties to the populous through Twitter and Facebook (Corona, 2007). In this blog entry, I am going to examine his argument with reference to two highly successful musicians of our time; Justin Bieber and Adele. Justin Bieber is a clear example of Corona's hypermodern celebrity who uses social media to sustain a huge following within society while Adele is the exact opposite, becoming hugely successful without the use of social media and spectacle.

Justin Bieber

Justin Bieber's career started with social media where he posted a video of himself singing on Youtube. His video quickly received millions of views and the attention of Scooter Braun who signed Justin to Raymond Braun Media Group [1]. Right from the start, social media was a part of Justin's success. Today, Justin Bieber has 18,110,625 twitter followers, and tweets an average of 20+ a day[2]! He constantly replies and re-tweets fan messages on twitter, and is constantly posting messages and videos on Facebook with 40.8 million “likes” [3]. In regards to Justin Bieber and his spectacle, his concerts are filled with media and visual interest whereby young fans are constantly entertained.  With Justin's huge fanbase, cleverly called “beliebers”- interesting that both Lady Gaga and Bieber have a name for their fanbase- and his multiple  American Music Awards and Grammy nominations, Justin is a clear example of a successful artist who has utilized social media in order to sustain devotion[4].

Adele

Adele, born on May 5, 1988, is an English recording artist and songwriter and has become an enormous name in the music industry. Adele has sold over 17 million copies of her most recent album 21 and has won 8 Grammy's for both of her number-one albums, 19 and 21 [5]. In contrast to both Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber, Adele has been able to sustain social devotion without the constant use of social media and without spectacle. Currently, Adele has only 4,520,906 twitter followers, which is a third of Justin Bieber's total followers, and she has tweeted a total of 140 times, with a mere average of 3 tweets per month [6]. Adele does have a Facebook page, however, the posts are impersonal and promotional. In regards to Adele's minimal spectacular nature, her aesthetic and concerts are simplistic with minimal media displays, and her entire appeal is solely on her musical talent. Although Adele does not utilize social media and spectacle, her apparent success through album sales and Grammy wins, demonstrates that she has been able to sustain longevity within the music industry. In fact, Adele has sold 1.4 million more copies of 21 than Lady Gaga's Born this Way record[7]. Clearly, Adele has a huge fan base.

It is clear with the examination of Justin Bieber and Adele that Victor Corona's argument does provide some truth to the current societal needs of social solidarity and the use of social media to sustain devotion with the example of Justin Bieber, but he fails to acknowledge the success of artists who are not spectacular in nature and are not in constant use of social mediums like Adele. I disagree with Corona's claims that societal devotion requires more than a captivating voice and that survival requires close ties to populous through Twitter and Facebook.