Abstract:
One of the biggest success stories of the web 2.0 is the launch of the platform Youtube, a video uploading website where most the content is uploaded by its users. Many of the content creators are amateur musicians, sometimes searching for a break in the music industry. Given the size of the platform and the fact that it offers such a vast panoply of content, musicians trying to get noticed by major music labels started practising “self-branding” techniques. Alice Marwick et al. defines the status that the successful Youtubers obtain as a micro-celebrity status, a shift from the traditional celebrity that is associated with mass media and broadcast media to a more interactive, authentic, type of celebrity (2015). The central question that will be researched in this thesis is: Can the authenticity attributed to a musician on Youtube be maintained after being signed to a major label?
