Digital expression from the shadow states: The in-betweeners in the late-capitalist era

ABSTRACT

This article examines the social media-induced affective notion of fame from the perspective of people living in peripheries, such as the region of Northeast India, whom the mainstream media (and by extension, the popular imagination) have always obscured, or somewhat suppressed. When they come across these visibility-inducing social media platforms, does this lead to the creation of new forms of celebrityhood? This article observes three specific people from the region – a filmmaker, a small-time Bollywood actor, and an Instagram dancing sensation. The case studies outline their usage of the affordances of the social media platforms through which they acquire a kind of cultish fame. It examines how they leverage fame to instil the greater North-east region in the popular national imagination. This article claims that social media is not merely a platform for these artists to connect with and maintain their audiences, but also a place to create awareness, to define their identity and reveal the socio-historical fractures that they have inherited. This article extends the notion of micro-celebrity (Senft, ”Keeping It Real on the Web”) to dwell on the relationship between media-managed obscurity and social media-enabled self-promotion to conceptualise the category of in-betweeners.

KEYWORDS:

• Visibility infrastructures
• micro-celebrity
• social media
• Northeast India
• fame
• celebrity
• influencer

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The popularity of the film can be gauged from its 7.44 rating at IMDB, a 91% approval from Google users and over 31,000 people following its Facebook Page. See Ankur Pathak, ‘Kung Fu Hustle: Made in Assam’, Mumbai Mirror, August 9, 2013.

URL: https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/kung-fu-hustle-made-in-assam/articleshow/21723423.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst.

2. Kenny Basumatary (Filmmaker) in discussion with the author, December 2016.

3. See ‘Assamese Action Film Made in Less Than Rs 1 Lakh – Times of India’. 2018. The Times of India. Accessed March 13, 2018. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/bollywood/news/assamese-action-film-made-in-less-than-rs-1-lakh/articleshow/21723279.cms.

4. Bijou Thaangjam (Actor), discussion with the author, December 2016.

5. Mangte Chungneijang Mary Kom is an Indian amateur boxer and the only female to become World Amateur Boxing champion for a record six times, the only female boxer to have won a medal in each one of the first seven World Championships, and the only boxer (male or female) to win eight World Championship medals.

6. Ibid.

7. His cat Buddy is a regular feature, so are his friends and colleagues in the industry. He also has a series of posts dedicated to exposing his multiple talents.⁸ On September 11, 1958, the President of India approved the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) when faced with difficulties in controlling the increasing violence in the North-eastern states. In short, AFSPA gave armed forces wide-ranging powers to maintain public order in disturbed areas which included the seven states of the Northeast region. The act has been quite controversial with human rights organization deeming it aggressive. Irom Sharmila from Manipur went on a hunger strike from 2000 to 2016 opposing the Act.

8. See ‘The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958’ (”Government document, Place of Publication), 1–2. See also The Hindu Net Desk, ‘What is AFSPA, and where is it in force?’ Thehindu.com, April 23, 2018 and May 10, 2019 URL: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/what-is-afspa-and-where-is-it-in-force/article23648102.ece

9. See Mike Isaac, ‘Zuckerberg Plans to Integrate WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger’, New York Times, January 25, 2019.

URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/technology/facebook-instagram-whatsapp-messenger.html

10. In Indian politics, since the arrival, in power, of the right-wing government in 2014, the Northeast region has seen an increase in not only projects on digital infrastructure, but investments and general interest in the population (Saikia 69–84; Bijukumar 176–194).

11. Thaangjam in one of his social media posts highlighted how his friend and colleague was not selected for a role even after a good audition since he did not have massive followers in his Instagram profile (Thaangjam).

12. Pointing out the contradiction of being a micro-celebrity, Marwick remarks that even though thousands of people might practice the ‘components of micro-celebrity’ which includes maintaining an ‘easily consumable persona, responding directly to readers, and sharing personal information to enhance emotional ties with fans’, none of these can ensure an audience. See Alice Marwick, “You May know me from YouTube” 333–50.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sagorika Singha

Sagorika Singha is an International Research Group on Authoritarianism and Counter-Strategies-Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (IRGAC-RLS) Postdoctoral Fellow at The Sarai Programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi as well as an affiliate at the Centre for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP), UNC, Chapel Hill. She completed her doctoral studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University (2020). Her research focuses on contemporary celebrityhood, new media forms, mobile media cultures, and subcultural politics. Previously, she was a Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS), Bochum.