Cults of personality: the micro-celebrity work of independent professional wrestlers

ABSTRACT

For a new generation of independent professional wrestlers, the combat art of wrestling is no longer confined to the ring (where wrestling matches take place), it spills out across the digital spaces of social media, such as Twitter. Back breakers, piledrivers and sharpshooters (wresting attacks) may be what gets a wrestler over with the crowd during a live performance, but razor barbed tweets and engaging video promos (short, recorded messages), can be just as effective at gaining popularity. Independent professional wrestlers are using social media and digital technology to redefine what it means to be a professional wrestler and earn a living from this often-misunderstood popular entertainment. Unlike global stars like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, independent wrestlers are often famous only to small but dedicated enclaves of fans. Using the theory of micro-celebrity, together with data gained through interview, this article explores developments in on- and offline performance and celebrity. It develops understanding of independent wrestling as a distinct sub-genre which has largely been overlooked in scholarship. It then explores the concept of micro-celebrity, which is the idea of a fame attached to online performance. Finally, it explores these ideas in relation to one contemporary wrestling persona – Charles Crowley.

KEYWORDS:

• Professional wrestling
• independent wrestling
• micro-celebrity
• social media
• performance studies

Independent professional wrestlers are redefining what it means to earn a living from professional wrestling entertainment. Aspiring wrestlers enter the industry from increasingly diverse backgrounds, bringing new skills, sensibilities and attitudes. This ‘work’,¹ in the performative and the economic sense, now extends far beyond the squared circle (the wrestling ring) to encompass the digital spaces of social media. Professional wrestling is traditionally discussed in academic discourse as a primarily live phenomenon which uses digital media to support the live text. However, in the sub-genre of independent wrestling, in pursuit of fame and success, innovative practitioners are challenging this hierarchy. Unlike their contracted peers in mainstream companies like World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and All Elite Wrestling (AEW), where digital content is tightly controlled, independent professional wrestlers are free to use this technology to tell stories, sequester bookings, flog merchandise,² and engage directly with audiences. To the dismay of wrestling traditionalists, written tweets, short videos ‘promos’ (promotional messages), and gifs of wrestling moves, have become ways to ‘get over’ (gain popularity with audiences) before live performance takes place. This article argues that this use of social media by independent wrestlers might be better understood as part of the wider phenomena of ‘micro-celebrity’[removed footnote], rather than more established theory around celebrity. In doing so, it offers professional wrestling as a useful case study for thinking about changing patterns of performance within the live performance economy, with possible implications for related fields, such as stand-up comedy.

Supported by my ongoing work within the British independent wrestling community,³ in this article I use a mixed methodology of semi-structured interviews and autoethnography to explore the work of one contemporary independent wrestler – Richard Summers-Calvert aka ‘The Spectacular’ Mr. Charles Crowley. The word ‘character’ is probably the most attached to Crowley’s work. For example, Summers-Calvert has written Crowley a detailed backstory; enters the ring to custom music; wears bespoke ring gear; performs tightly choreographed movements; and uses acting skill to vocalise during matches and importantly, in filmed promos which are highly regarded by fans for storytelling quality (both dramatic and comedic). Crowley’s appearance is an important part of his success, adopting a kind of carnival aesthetic with flourishes of the occult, folklore, and science fiction. This look, which could be described as mischievous, chimes with various monikers he adopts, such as ‘Your Spectacular Twat’ and ‘The Imp of Professional Wrestling’. This is reinforced by a horned top hat with peacock feathers. All of this endears him to professional wrestling fans, both on and offline, where he notes in our interview how fans tell him they like his black eyeliner and that his ‘muscular physique, flamboyant, peachy bum, goes down well’ (Summers-Calvert, 2022).

Summers-Calvert’s persona Crowley has risen to prominence in post-COVID-19 independent wrestling. Wrestling journalists such as WrestleTalk.com writer Sanchez Taylor calls Crowley ‘one of the fastest rising stars on the British scene’ (Taylor 2022, n.p.). PW Mania’s Lee Tarrier highlights Crowley as possessing ‘one of the strongest characters’ currently active on the UK scene (Tarrier 2023, n.p.). As well as professional wrestling, Summers-Calvert boasts a growing resume outside wrestling, which includes writing screenplays, directing films, and acting in feature-length films, voice-over work, and appearances on the stage and on television. Testament to the success of this aspect of his work, Summers-Calvert was recently cast as a mechanic in BBC’s long-running British soap-opera series Eastenders (Gibbons 2022, n.p.).

All Summers-Calvert’s wrestling performance is character-led. Not to diminish what he achieves athletically; this emphasises how the choices he makes (online and offline) are driven by his character rather than say sporting acumen. However, the online aspects are the most pertinent to understanding possible changes in celebrity. A vital part of this is the Crowley character’s digital footprint. Twitter is chief among this online performance, where he uses the social media platform to share written tweets and short promo videos that are variously humorous, emotional, provocative and sexual. He does this to further storylines, engage his followers and interact with wrestlers and wrestling promotions. Each mode garners different responses from fans. A particularly dramatic video to set up an eventual split with his tag team partner in Wrestling Resurgence received an emotional outpouring (see Appendix 1). One Twitter user wrote, ‘it’s rare that any media brings me close to tears, let alone wrestling. This is beautiful and heart-breaking. Get yourself down to Resurgence people’ (Gibbons 2022).⁴ While the promo received many replies of similar sentiment, this tweet is particularly interesting, as it highlights both the effectiveness of the video in terms of emotion, but also contains a direct call to action, directing people to attend the live show. In contrast, a sexually explicit video for adult independent wrestling promotion TNT elicited a different reaction.⁵ As well as various replies using animated gifs to convey shock, disgust, and in a few cases arousal, comments included, ‘cheers guys, my wife walked in while watching this and asked what the fuck I was watching’⁶ and ‘Oh good grief, I get home from the theatre to have this “pop-up” on my timeline … ’⁷.

Independent professional wrestling

A vital part of Summers-Calvert and Crowley’s approach to digital storytelling is that he works in the independent part of the wrestling industry. As a sub-genre, independent wrestling defines itself often by what it is not, rather than what it is (Fonarow 2006, p. 26). Tyson R. Smith describes the independent wrestling community as a ‘loose-knit association of low-budget, community-based entertainment’ (Smith 2008, p. 159), unaffiliated from mainstream wrestling. Independent companies differ in the distribution and economic models they adopt. Independent promotions do not typically enjoy television deals and are almost entirely reliant on ticket revenue from live shows. There is also a pronounced difference in scale and frequency, these promotions run less shows and in smaller venues. Independent wrestling further denotes differences in style and tone. Farmer, for instance, suggests that the independent genre is about ‘a spirit of doing something on your own, building a business of your own and creating something that has no restrictions’ (Farmer 2015, n.p.). For fans, much of the appeal of independent wrestling is bound up in complex notions of authenticity, deemed to offer an experience better than of the mainstream, precisely because it is more intimate, less organised, and harder to access. Smith has shown through his study of a provincial US independent promotion how this question of authenticity often amounts to a ‘moral distinction’ whereby fans and performers maintain that ‘indy wrestling is a superior form of entertainment, one that is more community-based and authentic’ (Smith 2014, p. 10).

Authenticity in this context is another way that fans distinguish between the sub-genre and the mainstream. Central to this are the wrestlers, who create stories in the ring by performing wrestling, which takes the form of matches (constructed as sporting contests before the audience with rules and referees to uphold them). From these matches, wrestling promotors build live events, which feature ‘cards’ typically featuring between six and eight matches. Audiences then pay to watch the wrestlers and the wrestling. There are some notable differences between independent and mainstream professional wrestling, for example, in relation to tone, style, production, and proximity to the action. Independent wrestling typically (though not always) has a more DIY feel, the style is more action-based, and contains higher risks while the promotion values (lighting, staging, presentation) are generally lower in sophistication. Key differences concern proximity, scale, and creative licence. Mainstream wrestling typically privileges the meditated audience with the wrestling action geared as much to the camera (and audience watching) as the live spectator sitting in the arena. However, in independent wrestling the inverse is true. Independent wrestling events typically take place is smaller arenas, sports halls, nightclubs and community centres. Here audiences are typically in the hundreds. This means the live audience is much closer to the wrestlers and the action. There are also differences in terms of the creative aspects of both forms. Mainstream wrestling has creative teams that write lines for wrestlers to say and even backstage ‘agents’ who choreograph matches. Whereas in independent wrestling, the wrestler enjoys much greater freedom, writing their own promos, creating their own content, and choregraphing their own matches. The combination of closer proximity to fans and greater creative licence is important in terms of understanding how the celebrity of the independent wrestler is different from their mainstream counterparts. This applies to both the on- and offline experience. A succinct definition of what it is to be an independent wrestler is currently absent from wrestling scholarship. Therefore, I suggest that an independent wrestler is one who commands notoriety on at least a regional level⁸; regularly earns money as a performer (though not necessarily their full income); trains weekly to a high standard; and is not contacted exclusively to one company. Though not exhaustive, this begins to establish parameters for studying this type of wrestler.

Wrestling scholarship is increasingly acknowledging independent wrestling as ‘significant as a site of cultural work’ (Heppen et al. 2018, p. 265), a shift reflective of its recent global development. Increased attention here concerns the role of social media. For example, in Olson’s⁹ study of social media, veteran wrestler Colt Cabana notes how social media is enabling fans to connect with wrestlers in new ways. This includes making decisions about who to support based not just on what they do in the ring but who they are outside it (Tolson 2001, p. 309). For others in Olson’s study social media played a role in marketing, branding, and gaining opportunities with new companies (Tolson 2001, p. 314). Social media therefore supports aspects of wrestler work that have always been central, around personality, celebrity, and persona, but it is also creating new forms of work. Olson concludes that given its ubiquity, there is a need to ‘interrogate the various ways they have changed the face of pro wrestling and sports entertainment’ (Tolson 2001, p. 315), an objective this article contributes to.

Micro-celebrity

For many of us that increasingly find ourselves entangled in the digital and its new cults of personality, navigation (or escape) can feel impossible. The structures of social media themselves generate and perpetuate self-promotion and branding, giving rise to curious new occupations, like ‘social media influencer’. Micro-celebrity is a term first coined by Terri Senft in respect to adult webcam models performing on the internet for money (Usher 2020, p. 171). For Brian Chan and Kishonna Gray, micro-celebrity ‘denotes the state of achieving fame that is rooted in digital environments’ (Chan & Grey 2020, p. 356). The concept of micro-celebrity differs from earlier forms of celebrity then as it is inextricably bound to the economics of social media providers Twitter, Tik Tok, Facebook and Instagram, as well as content sharing platforms such as YouTube, OnlyFans, and Twitch. Micro-celebrity is as much about ‘commodifying oneself’ as it is a form of celebrity; and therefore, bound to practices of self-branding and self-presentation intrinsic to social media (2020, p.356). Within these shifting patterns of attention, performance, monetisation, and self-branding. P. David Marshall argues a new ‘fame-apparatus’ is being produced ‘through a powerful array of social media platforms’ (Marshall 2020, p. 101). These changes to ideas around celebrity, presentation, and representation are blurring the lines between those that seek fame, such as wrestlers, and those that follow the famous, including wrestling fans.

In terms of these new digital publics, Alice Marwick has described how ‘micro-celebrity is a state of being famous to a niche group of people’ (Marwick 2013, p. 117). This idea of performing to a small audience is a key aspect of micro-celebrity, creating what Marshall calls ‘micro publics’ (Marshall 2014, p. 161). These are small communities who follow micro-celebrities, often paying for the privilege, and gaining rewards like private messages, films, images, and other personalised content. To achieve success, like professional wrestlers, micro-celebrities create personas that result from an ‘interplay between the self and a micro public’ (Marshall 2014, p. 163). With the growth of this phenomenon, there is now interest among scholars in expanding the concept of micro-celebrity to encompass different groups and increase representation. Raun, in researching transgender YouTube creators, suggests the term ‘subcultural micro-celebrity’ to add ‘nuance’ and ‘diversity’ to the debate, and Marwick, in Raun, adds ‘niche micro-celebrity’ to this growing lexicon around the subject (Raun 2018, p. 100).

To connect professional wrestling, a form of popular entertainment with over a hundred years of history, with ideas around celebrity is not novel. Benjamin Litherland has noted the historic relationship between wrestling and celebrity, and how enterprising promotors cultivated the fame of their acts by creating performance personas. Litherland argues that due to its increasing theatricality during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century wrestling became ‘indicative of much celebrity culture’ (Litherland 2018, p. 139). Here, spurred on by enterprising promotors, wrestlers increasingly behaved like ‘celebrities-cum-quasi-fictional-characters’ (Litherland 2018, p. 139). To perform fame and sell authenticity remains central to professional wrestling’s success. For example, Dan Ward has explored how Hollywood actor Dwayne Johnson continues to utilise his wrestling background to navigate and enhance his global celebrity status. Ward argues that Johnson recognises how ‘the age of social media necessitates a near constant performance of celebrity’ and that his background in wrestling is a crucial part of his success outside it (Ward 2019, p. 486). While wrestling and celebrity have been studied within mainstream wrestling, there is a notable absence of work addressing the concurrently shifting fields of micro-celebrity and independent wrestling, which I argue are as bound to one another as ever. Micro-celebrity is a concept defined by a type of celebrity achieved digitality with a persona created for that space, where wrestlers using social media build on the existence of an off-line persona. Like musicians and comedians who perform versions of themselves on stage, social media and digital technology is a tool for cultivating interest in their acts. In relation to celebrity studies, this type of online behaviour demonstrated by independent wrestlers, and indeed ‘live’ performers more generally, is an overlooked example of how micro-celebrity digital strategies are being adopted. For the purposes of understanding wider changes around celebrity, wrestling offers much insight. What is particularly different now, is that social media has become ubiquitous, digital spaces are becoming more than just an extension of the live text, often becoming standalone stories. What we see in wrestling is a storytelling architecture where the digital exists in parallel with the physical live wrestling event, with each feeding the other. Further, as I will go on to show, the lines between on and offline are increasingly blurred, suggesting such distinctions in the future may become arbitrary. For example, increasingly micro-celebrities are penetrating traditional media platforms like television.

Working persona – the spectacular mr Charles Crowley

A persistent liar cannot prosper without a powerful memory. Don’t let my foolish demeanour sway you, I am a cunning trickster. Think otherwise and you will soon find that it is you who are the fool.

(Charles Crowley, Twitter, Nov 15, 2022¹⁰)

The remainder of this article is an examination of data gathered through two semi-structured conversations with Summers-Calvert. Using these data, I explore the relationship between the new work of independent wrestlers and the new work of microcelebrities. For Jones & Gratton, interviews of this kind offer the researcher advantages: they enable the interviewee to speak to their own experience in their own words, allowing them ‘to elaborate on any areas of particular interest or importance’ (Jones & Gratton 2015, p. 178). This approach, they note, often lead subjects ‘to reveal insights into their attitudes and behaviour that may not readily be apparent to the researcher from their prior awareness of the phenomenon’ (Jones & Gratton 2015, p. 178). This was the goal of my conversations with Summers-Calvert, to create new knowledge through the process of interview itself.

A notable feature of Summers-Calvert’s commitment to character is the way he frequently refers to Crowley in the third person. This convention, used throughout our discussions, indicates a clear separation between the two. He begins the interview telling me how ‘Crowley is a trickster and anarchist, he is a traveller, he lives out of his suitcase, he’s originally from the carnival circus, a very charismatic man, but also very insecure’ (Summers-Calvert, 2021). This description is crafted for repeatability, a short-hand answer to a question frequently asked. It also demonstrates how he sees Crowley in literary terms – a character in a story rather than an exaggerated version of a ‘real’ person. In writing and performing Crowley, Summers-Calvert has conjured up a figure bound to wrestling’s deep history, a figure that embodies the foundational myths surrounding the form’s origins – the carnival and the fairground.

The carnival is so fascinating because it’s so spectacular, so shiny, so beautifully, so extravagant, but it’s built on basic stuff, really flawed stuff … old bits of wood that are re-used every single time they put up the circus tent, old bits of metal and steel and stuff. And it’s all getting rusty, and they put it away and they put it back up … it’s gritty, it’s dirty, but it’s presented as something beautiful and spectacular.

(Summers-Calvert, 2021)

Here, Crowley’s origins in wrestling lore are reinforced by the imagery Summers-Calvert evokes: the rigged nature of theatricalised athletic contests; the laborious travelling from town-to-town; the shiny visage that masks the business’s often-shady inner workings. Professional wrestling, just like Crowley’s description of the carnival can also be read in these terms. Indeed, on the independent scene, the show’s spectacular aspirations often stand at odds with the everyday backdrops of the working men’s clubs, community centres and dilapidated sports halls. Given his embrace of the theatrical, one might assume Summers-Calvert’s performance of Crowley plays better with big production values in purpose-built performance spaces, but often there is something about the stark contrast between opposing aesthetics that is more captivating. Reinforcing the vital role of architecture, Claire Warden notes that ‘the space where wrestling occurs … remains a vital facet of the wrestling experience’ (Warden 2018, p. 864). Summers-Calvert explores this in intriguing ways – rather than simply accepting the setting to be of an inferior quality – he instead embraces a kind of magical realism, offering an escape from the everyday and the humdrum.

Further underscoring Summer-Calvert’s forensic approach to Crowley, the choice of surname evokes a deeper historiography. He recalls first coming across the name in the Ozzy Osbourne song ‘Mr. Crowley’, discovering its attribution to the English oculist, magician, and poet Alister Crowley. Digging further into the real-life Crowley’s history, Summers-Calvert was drawn to his reported ‘dark charisma’ (Summers-Calvert, 2021). Even a cursory glance at the life and work of Alister Crowley offers intriguing possibilities to anyone aspiring to fame in professional wrestling, which is a form that has long-practiced parody as a mode of storytelling. Alister Crowley’s magical system for example is described by biographer Tobias Churton as part extreme-libertinism, part ‘crooked cocktail of anarchy and madness’ (Churton 2014, p. XXIV). Like the carnival aesthetic, Alister Crowley is another important cultural riff for Summers-Calvert drawing obvious parallels to the modern cults of personality attached to words like ‘influencer’ and ‘followers’, as well tapping into culture tropes like cult leaders.¹¹ One can read across the two Crowley’s shared sense of eroticism, deviancy, and controversy; ‘shameless shit’ Alister becomes ‘The Spectacular Twat’ Charles Crowley (Churton 2014, p. XXIV). Summers-Calvert wanted Crowley’s ‘allure’ to be like Alister, someone whose charisma was undeniable but that also ‘made people do horrible, horrible things’ (Summers-Calvert, 2021). In terms of writing a wrestling character, Summers-Calvert wanted his Crowley to be someone that ‘could really manipulate and convince people to do anything’ (Summers-Calvert, 2021). What we have then is a wrestler with words as lethal to his opponents as a well-timed super-kick or a perfectly executed piledriver. This idea of Crowley as really manipulative raises interesting questions around the worked performance of wrestling, and the reality it is grounded in. Indeed, is this ‘superpower’ only reserved for Crowley’s wrestling opponents? Or by working social media, is he also a manipulator of his fans and followers? This description troubles the never uneasy separation of character, persona, and person present in all wrestling personas. As Summer-Calvert sees it, Crowley is an invention of his imagination, existing outside of his personal life, and therefore Crowley is free to do ‘horrible, horrible things’ without repercussions outside of wrestling (Summers-Calvert, 2021). Here Summers-Calvert appears to view Crowley as a way to protect himself from the dangers faced by micro-celebrities whose online-self is indistinguishable from their ‘real’ life. But it also raises potentially troubling questions about the relationship between the supposedly invented Crowley, and his online followers. Even if Crowley is a fiction, he undeniably exists in the here and now, with all the trappings that accompany that: a Twitter handle, and Instagram and YouTube channels, not to mention a physical body present throughout and accessible at live events. Whilst the persona can be read in some ways as a throwback to the past, the tools of the contemporary enable Summers-Calvert to bring Crowley to life in a way that is distinctively different to characters in other storytelling genres. For example, fans can ‘@’ Crowley on Twitter and get an almost immediate response. In a sense, these fans are interacting directly with a fictional micro-celebrity, i.e. the Charles Crowley persona, as well as the actual Summers-Calvert.

When you watch a filmed Crowley promotional message (normally shared on Twitter), it is fairly apparent that Summers-Calvert has benefitted from some formal training. As is clear though, it is not simply that he is a wrestler that can act, his verbal dexterity is part of the Crowley persona, in fact, speech may be his most powerful offence. Drawing on a self-professed insecurity, Summers-Calvert explains to me this weaponisation of language, ‘His words are everything, he can manipulate you, he can get inside your head, he can make you feel insecure, and the moment he sees that … he can capitalise on it’ (Summers-Calvert, 2021). This demonstrates an important aspect of his work – that for Summers-Calvert – persona is linked to wrestling ‘psychology’, which is a somewhat ambiguous term used in the wrestling industry to describe an understanding for the unique demands of wrestling storytelling. Interestingly, Crowley’s manipulative behaviour described here points to broader notions attached to celebrity. To be successful as a celebrity, is to use tools like social media to manipulate the media and the fans. Wrestling’s open deceitfulness perfectly illustrates this. Summers-Calvert describes Crowley’s ability to ‘get inside your head’ and manipulate opponents with words as much, if not more, on social media than in the ring.

Understanding this demands a more refined concept of what is meant by persona. Here I find Auslander’s concept of the ‘performance persona’, developed in relation to Glam Rock music acts, a useful tool. Building on the work of Simon Frith, Auslander sees a performance persona as simultaneously expressing three layers: 'the real person (the performer as human being), the performance persona (the performer’s self-presentation), and the character (a figure portrayed in a song text)’¹² (Auslander 2006, p. 4). That Auslander developed these ideas by studying Glam rockers makes it particularly relevant to wrestling. Indeed, it is around the same period (1980s), that wrestling entered mainstream culture in a big way. This period, later dubbed the ‘Rock “n” Wrestling’ era, saw an upswell in wrestling’s popularity, built around major household names like Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage. Glam rock and wrestling then share overlaps in terms of costume, production and performance as well as music.

Applying this idea of the performance persona to the work of contemporary independent wrestlers like Charles Crowley, helps to draw out the construction of these characters and their behaviour. Ultimately what we experience in the ring, and on social media, is the interaction between all three, and thus the audience is never entirely sure which it is interacting with.

While Summers-Calvert tries (though not always successfully) to separate his personal life from his acting and film persona, and his wrestling persona, he tells me this is not the case for all wrestlers; ‘there are a lot of wrestlers that just want to be themselves, that go out there and you know, as them, put that to a hundred and they’re just extension of themselves’ (Summers-Calvert, 2021). Managing multiple personalities is not easy and requires a constant negotiation. Indicative of this, Summers-Calvert often feels like three different people; ‘Richard Summers-Calvert is a persona as well as Charles Crowley’, with Richard existing outside of both (Summers-Calvert, 2021). Rather than the kind of existential crisis this might appear to present, he instead finds productivity in moving between them, especially when acting; ‘sometimes I notice that as Charles Crowley I’m not doing things that I could do, that would benefit me, that Richard Summers-Calvert would do’ (Summers-Calvert, 2021). This works both ways, and so Summers-Calvert will often draw on Crowley when auditioning for an acting role because as he puts it ‘my God you stand out as Charles Crowley’ (Summers-Calvert, 2021).

Selling authenticity and getting over on social media

That professional wrestling work, especially in the independent sub-genre, spills out from the ring and the arena into the digital is something followers of the industry now take for granted. Indeed, Eero Laine notes that in WWE ‘the plots and characters move seamlessly between live televised productions and social media feeds’ meaning that for pro wrestlers today ‘the performance never really ends’ (Laine 2019, p. 30). This blending of different levels of performed reality makes wrestling an interesting way to understand more coded forms of performance, especially those occurring online. In micro-celebrity, disclosure is has become commerce, with authenticity one of the main draws for fans. A key part of success appears to concern offering content deemed ‘genuine’. Marwick suggests for example that many micro-celebrities are ‘strategically appealing to online fans by being authentic’ (Marwick 2013, p. 114). This is what Tobias Raun sees as ‘affective labour’ where micro-celebrities ‘signal accessibility, presences, connectedness and maybe most importantly authentic – all of which presuppose and rely on some form of intimacy’ (Raun 2018, p. 100). Summers-Calvert’s Crowley is an example of this. On social media, he switches between several Crowley voices. The first is character focused, typically used when furthering an ongoing angle within a specific wrestling promotion. The second is a generalised persona that covers broad community concerns. Character posts promote events, expand and extend stories, or take the form of verbal attacks which spark or escalate conflict. Whereas persona posts typically plug merch or make a comment on the day’s trending topics. Character in independent wrestling is often changeable depending on the company where the story is situated¹³; whereas persona is more stable.

The persona voice of Crowley is interesting in terms of how social media can be used to generate celebrity and garner attention. For example, in ‘Generic Faces’ (2018) (see Appendix for link), a three-minute film set in a dusty workshop, perhaps an artist’s studio, we see how storytelling can be used outside of the framework of a specific promotion. ‘Generic Faces’ starts by suggesting that we are in a creative space. We are shown a showman’s jacket draped over a chair, a feathered top hat, gold ribbon and black eyeliner – symbols of the circus – established Crowley trademarks. These theatrical symbols stand in stark contrast to the workman-like state of the rest of the room – tools and workbenches – a juxtaposition indicative of the Crowley backstory. Next, we see a figure with his back to us, gazing into a mirror. As the camera moves between the wide shot and close ups of his face – Crowley tells us ‘This world of wrestling is a deprived carnival full of generic faces’ and ‘these faces belong to the people that you cheer for, and these faces, they are afraid of being different’ (Summers-Calvert, 2018). This promo, delivered in a sinister heel tone, plays with different meanings of the word ‘face’, which is the wrestling word for hero. We have Crowley’s literal face in the mirror, we have the faces of the wrestlers who are ‘scared to be different’, then we have the specific wrestling meaning of the word face (Summers-Calvert, 2018). It is only in the final shot that he turns his own face towards the camera and directly addresses the audience. Shared across social media, the vignette establishes who the wrestling character ‘Charles Crowley’ is, what he looks like, where he fits in the wrestling scene, and what stye of wrestler he might be. However, the promo also establishes the attributes of the performer playing Crowley, it tells us something about who Summers-Calvert is also. In this sense, the film is an advert to fans, but also promoters by showcasing desirable aptitude. It says, Summers-Calvert is a skilled talker with a unique aesthetic and the ability to tell interesting stories. It is a showcase of all the layers that make up his wrestling practice.

Whilst we might consider these voices as the primary modes of address used by wrestlers on social media, Summers-Calvert’s use of Twitter (through a dedicated Crowley account bearing the character name) points to further layers. Acknowledging that ‘there are definitely different voices to Crowley’, together we arrived at the label ‘sub-tweets’, and a ‘sub-persona’, that exists under the surface layers already discussed (Summers-Calvert, 2021). This sub-persona is most prominent when Crowley tweets within threads (chains of social media posts linked together), such as in conversation with another wrestler, a fan, or both. Summers-Calvert considers this more subtle art of social media as ‘performing the comments’, which is particularly important in developing and maintaining relationships with his supporters and related to the wider behaviour of the micro-celebrity (Summers-Calvert, 2021). Using social media in this way has allowed Summers-Calvert to add greater complexity to his performance and offer his followers ‘a very well-rounded vision of who Charles Crowley is’ (Summers-Calvert, 2021).

For the wrestlers I work with, storytelling is built around clear expressions of emotion. Matches are often planned by plotting desired emotional states – moments of anger, frustration, and fear. So, in this way, Crowley’s performance of emotion on Twitter is a logical continuation of that corporeal art. In a similar sense, Crowley’s use of modern communication technology to tell private jokes at the expense of fellow wrestlers is a continuation of the mode of conflict used in traditional in-ring and on-screen narratives, it just plays out on a different platform. It is not only an expression of Crowley’s trickster backstory, which is often rude and inappropriate, it is also text-based sparring. For Summers-Calvert, there is a tension here – between traditional ways wrestling has been understood, and the changing attitudes of a new generation of digital natives. What this demonstrates is how the construction of authenticity within professional wrestling, and phenomena like micro-celebrity, is always contested and constantly in flux, taking on different meanings in different contexts. Summers-Calvert notes how this debate around authenticity creates divisions amongst fans and practitioners. The most viable example is on social media. Here, so-called traditionalists (including retired and active wrestlers, people tied to the industry and fans) are pitted against active wrestlers seeking new modes of storytelling. Topics regularly debated in this way include intergender wrestling (wrestling matches in which men and women fight), absurdist comedy wrestling, elaborate wrestling choreography, and the incorporation of social media into wrestling stories. Former wrestling booker, on-screen wrestling manager, and social media content creator Jim Cornette is particularly noteworthy in this discourse. He has been extremely forceful in rejecting the idea that a wrestler might call themselves a performance artist – labelling these workers as ‘cosplay wrestlers’ (Cornette 2020, n.p.). Summers-Calvert has experienced similar, albeit less forceful, resistance from peers when it comes to his social media output. He attributes this in part to feelings of frustration and tells me that ‘people that struggle to know how to capitalise on social media, Twitter for example, really do get agitated’ by his more provocative activity (Summers-Calvert, 2021). The common rebuke levelled here is ‘you should let your work do the talking” (Summers-Calvert, 2021). However, for Summers-Calvert, it is not so much that he does not value his in-ring work, it is more about amplifying it and spreading it to as many people as possible. On Twitter he claims, ‘it will talk louder to far more people’ (Summers-Calvert, 2022). For Summers-Calvert, this way of working social media shifts the core text of wrestling. However, he does not see it as simply a move away from performance in the ring to performance online. More interestingly, for Summers-Calvert the core text has always been embodied in the personas and characters, it therefore matters not where wrestlers perform, what matters is only that performance is happening – ‘I think it all boils down what your character is, and I think that’s the core of it all now’ (Summers-Calvert, 2021). This is a particularly thought-provoking notion, highlighting how perhaps for too long wrestling has been seen only as a live spectacle relating to corporeality by scholars working on the subject. Perhaps in the future we might see the development of wrestling characters that only inhabit online spaces or those created online before moving into the offline physical wrestling space.¹⁴ Evidence like this I suspect indicates a wider trend towards a professional wrestler-centric model for the industry, something that is reflected in Crowley’s testimony and in my wider research.

Professional wrestling can contribute to knowledge of micro-celebrity through its rich history of blending different types of performance: fiction and non-fiction; artifice and actuality; fakery and authenticity – across different forms of media. Benjamin Litherland notes that kayfabe, the concept that governs the interplay between shoot (real) and work (performed) in wrestling storytelling, ‘may serve as a useful starting point for considering the layers of performance in modern celebrity’ and ‘their relationship to fictional and non-fictional texts’ (Litherland 2014, p. 533). Through concepts like kayfabe, professional wrestling can be a useful tool for scholars seeking to understand other performances like this. Kayfabe is located between multiple points of tension: the physical space where performance happens and the digital spaces where it is shared and debated; and between the reality of a given practice and its performance, those parts that claim authenticity, and those that are unequivocally theatrical. Against this backdrop, we have figures like Charles Crowley, whose followers are seemingly not interested in seeing through the trick, but rather wilfully participate along with it, performing with Crowley in an act of co-creation rather than seeking to expose. Read alongside established celebrity studies ideas on authenticity, this begs the question, is the performance of micro-celebrity a new subtler form of kayfabe? Or inversely, with the growth of digital spaces, and the emergence of micro-celebrity, is it rather the case that traditional ‘live’ performers are seeing the potential upsides to moving into these spaces because of the opportunities created by exclusively online celebrities? Moreover, perhaps it is just further evidence of an inseparability between on/offline that will come to define culture in the future.

In conjunction with kayfabe, wrestling which is overtly disingenuous and gleefully inauthentic, also offers the concept of ‘selling’, which is the act of exaggerating cause (moves) and effect (pain) during the act of wrestling in the ring to sell it to the audience. One way of thinking about this is how influencers ‘sell’ authenticity on social media in a similar way to wrestlers selling the impact of a piledriver in the ring. Kayfabe and selling offer a fruitful lens for examining the behaviour of micro-celebrities. Litherland notes that kayfabe is a ‘game of cat-and-mouse around the notions of legitimacy and performativity’ (Litherland 2014, p. 531). Ward concurs, seeing kayfabe in terms of a ‘strategic troubling of the boundaries between public-private and authenticity-artifice’ (2019, p. 486). This clearly resonates with debates around social media and micro-celebrity. On social media we are seemingly sold access to a performed authenticity that chimes with the personas of professional wrestlers – what Tolson calls a projection of public image where ‘celebrities (of various sorts) are experimenting with a particular genre of personal disclosure’ (Tolson 2001, p. 444). In a sense then, micro-celebrities might be said to be engaged in selling and kayfabe can help decipher this false authenticity.

Summers-Calvert uses videos that he creates himself for specifically for social media to make Crowley ‘memorable and unique’ highlight the troublesome aspects of this debate. For example, he describes the acting as ‘not over the top’, which is true when compared with the often forced or hokey performance of many wrestlers, but neither does he strive for kitchen-sink realism. On acting, he hopes that if ‘it’s genuine, it’s real and it’s creative and it stands out’ then it will leave a lasting impression and allow people to invest in the Crowley character. However, as well as creating a compelling story, and engaging people with his wrestling, Raun’s concept of affective labour is something that Summers-Calvert is actively participating in and benefitting from. Indeed, he is selling here just like he sells moves in the ring. His various uses of ‘genuine’ and ‘real’ are indicative of the same economy of authenticity prevalent in micro-celebrity. To further complicate matters, whilst it is certainly true that his behaviour is like the subjects in studies like Raun’s, Crowley is not as much a ‘real’ person¹⁵ or even a performed version of a real person. Despite their shared body, Crowley is the creation of Summers-Calvert’s imagination.

Conclusion

Summers-Calvert’s Charles Crowley is just one example of a wrestling-based creative practice. Examining other wrestlers in this way would undoubtedly yield different results. As a genre wrestling cannot be considered monolithic or unchanging, to treat it as such risks overlooking a culturally rich activity. Independent wrestling remains largely untapped in terms of professional wrestling scholarship. In this article I have started to explore how wrestlers use distinct personas to engage supporters in storytelling through a blending of constructed performativity and authenticity. This suggests how wrestling practice can be understood in relation to existing theory about celebrity. It also starts to show how wrestling might offer new terms for understanding celebrity, authenticity and performativity in current culture, such as ‘work’ for example. Given the prevalence of social media in wrestling there is further scope to build on this in relation to micro-celebrity specifically, such as exploring how wrestlers perform fame regardless of any actual celebrity status or how wrestlers cultivate small community of dedicated supporters. In terms of the latter, further work might address this from the perspective of fans rather than wrestlers. Further work into the use of social media by professional wrestlers, and how they tap into the emerging economy of micro-celebrity, might look at how wrestlers are using sites like OnlyFans to share content (some of which is explicit), or how wrestlers combine intersecting fandoms for economic gain on video-gaming platforms like Twitch.

The concerns central to the study of professional wrestling are clearly pertinent to other areas of our cultural lives. The real advantage in discussing this much-maligned popular entertainment genre in relation to concepts like micro-celebrity, is that it offers a long and wide-reaching history to many pressing concerns facing society today – how to address questions of performativity online through the idea of persona; how to tell what is true or false or performing true or playing false. Kayfabe is one way that has increasingly been shown to do this (see for example Laine 2014), but I suggest scholars should also look to other concepts like ‘work’ and ‘selling’. There is significant untapped potential in developing wrestling-inspired theories, and this article is just one tentative step towards addressing this.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sam West

Sam West is a curator, professional wrestling promoter, and researcher. His PhD research explores professional wrestling as a storytelling art, and it is based on his first-hand experience of working in the UK independent wrestling industry. He is currently a Research Fellow with ‘Box Office Bears: Animal baiting in early modern England’, which is a UK Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project bringing together researchers from the Universities of Nottingham, Roehampton and Oxford and project partner Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA). Sam is a co-founder of the acclaimed Wrestling Resurgence project. Wrestling Resurgence is an independent wrestling promotion based in the East Midlands set up by arts professionals and theatre scholars. Alongside live events, Wrestling Resurgence have initiated, facilitated, and contributed to several collaborative projects, securing funding from Being Human: Festival of Humanities Research, Arts Council England, Loughborough University, De Montfort University, Leicester University, and the British Academy. As well as professional wrestling, Sam has spent over a decade working in the arts and culture sector as a contemporary art curator and freelance creative producer specialising in performance art. Achievements include a five-year stint as curator at University of Leicester’s Attenborough Arts Centre, and four successful Arts Council England grant awards.

Notes

1. Here I mean work as in labour, but also the various wrestling meanings of the word ‘work’. It wrestling work is a complex term that essentially means how the performance is presented as believable. Harking back to wrestling’s carnival origins, ‘work’ is used in various ways: wrestlers are ‘workers’, to perform wrestling is ‘working’, presenting something to the crowed as real is ‘a work’. It can also refer to a part of the match, such as ‘working over an opponent’s leg’.

2. Often the largest part of an independent wrestler’s income, includes photographs and t-shirts.

3. I have spent the last five years running the independent wrestling promotion Wrestling Resurgence and four years researching wrestling as a post-graduate with Loughborough University. Founded in 2017 Resurgence is an ongoing theatre-led company that stages regular live events around the East Midlands region of the UK. Within Resurgence, I am responsible for the creative direction all events take – booking matches, selecting talent, and overseeing the storytelling processes that are intrinsic to the wrestling genre.

4. Here is a link to the tweet: https://twitter.com/BlazingOptimist/status/1582063595600609280?s=20

5. This style of promo has become something of a go to mode when Crowley is working in a heel (villain) role in a certain promotion. It builds on the equally provocative film from November 2022, which received an equally strong reaction, as well as criticism from fellow wrestlers. https://twitter.com/CrowleyCarnival/status/1580218129413656576?s=20

6. https://twitter.com/AthersBFC/status/1638269248098258949?s=20

7. https://twitter.com/MattBourne_/status/1638320187534458880?s=20

8. In the UK, with a scene comparatively smaller, it could be argued for a status of national fame, whereas the US, which has a larger independent scene, fame could national. It is worth noting that other historically rich wrestling territories like Mexico, Japan, Europe and Canada also feature independent wrestling.

9. See also the collection #WWE: Professional Wrestling in the Digital Age (Jeffries 2019) for work on the way that WWE specifically uses social media both as part of its globalised business enterprise and as a means of extending its in-ring narratives across multiple platforms as transmedia storytelling.

10. https://twitter.com/CrowleyCarnival/status/1592636981967835139?s=20

11. Charles Crowley it could be argued is part of a lineage of cult and occult characters within wrestling, for example Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts and more recently Bray Wyatt.

12. Or indeed a figure portrayed in a wrestling match, piece of wrestling content such as a promotional video, or even perhaps on a social media platform like Twitter.

13. Persona is constant, character often subject to the specific context of the company. Crowley initially played a villain in Resurgence, whereas at the same time in a different independent company located not far from Resurgence, Good Wrestling, Crowley was presented as a heroic character.

14. This is not novel, see for example the Tiger Mask Japanese wrestling persona which was based on the 1968 manga of the same name written by Ikki Kajiwara and illustrated by Naoki Tsuji (Jager 2022, n.p.).

15. At least not presenting himself as such, indeed the notion of the real here is highly problematic.

Appendix

Wrestling Resurgence promotional video:

https://twitter.com/CrowleyCarnival/status/1581962707946725376?s=20

TNT promotional videos:

https://twitter.com/CrowleyCarnival/status/1638262951600635906?s=20

https://twitter.com/CrowleyCarnival/status/1580218129413656576?s=20

Crowley YouTube video:

A Charles Crowley Production – Generic Faces (2018) – YouTube