Under the influencer: Participatory culture and the rise of the viratoid

A participatory culture encourages followers of Social Media Influencers (SMIs) to engage with the constructed online identities of prominent SMIs. We explore how ordinary consumers amass celebrity capital by willingly and wittingly associating themselves with renowned SMIs. We propose that these consumers are viratoids, developing their own online persona based on more prominent SMIs. Building on Chris Rojek’s theorization of a celetoid, an individual who achieves media attention for an intense but brief timespan, we propose the viratoid as a new form of celetoid. The viratoid seeks to achieve “fame” and viral online attention by amassing their own celebrity capital by creating content that piggybacks off the celebrity capital and/or “drama” of a well-known SMI. This has implications for how social media networks, marketers, and brands promote and manage SMIs and viratoids, including the amplification of mischievous and increasingly incendiary online content.