Kim Kardashian is my new BFF: Video games and the looking glass celebrity

ABSTRACT

Mobile-based celebrity games are a by-product of a new, more feminized video game industry. Within celebrity games, the player engages with celebrity culture in a variety of ways, often being transformed into their own brand of celebrity. Celebrity games are a form of hypertrophic media, based on the dyadic interactions between the player and celebrity. Within this, one becomes a looking-glass celebrity—an enculturation process by which the celebrity text situates the player as closer to the titular star than the player actually is. In turn, the player uses this position to reflexively construct what the player believes constitutes a successful celebrity. The path to fame, however, is a hollow one, wherein the player can never really lose and never really win.

Notes

¹ The valuation of the hardcore/casual games based on these names is unsurprising, given the politics implied by the words “hardcore” and “casual.”

² One might argue that Hannah Montana is not actually a celebrity game, since Hannah Montana is a nom de plume for Miley Cyrus. However, within the fictional world of the story, Hannah Montana is actually the celebrity name for Cyrus, making these games entirely about celebrity. In these games the player is not attempting to achieve celebrity, but rather gets to live the everyday life of Miley/Hannah, which apparently includes regularly solving mysteries.

³ This game is no longer available for download and was created by Andy Ross, the guitarist for the band OK Go.

⁴ While the Love and Hip Hop game does not use a single celebrity as a point of contact as do all of the other games, we still consider this a celebrity game because of its use of branding, expectation of celebrity, and the fact that it was produced by music channel VH-1.

⁵ However, we should note that this is still a highly curated form of transparency wherein celebrities are typically careful and aware as to what gets presented and what doesn’t. Transparency here ultimately means “perceived transparency.”

⁶ In referencing the “Horatio Alger” myth, we are referring to the turn-of-century novels, written by Alger. These novels typically involved impoverished young boys, seeking fame and fortune. Their success typically culminated in a “rags-to-riches” conclusion, where good people were rewarded for their hard work, hence reflecting core values of the “American Dream.”

⁷ The player becomes the metaphorical casino in that “the house always wins.”

⁸ Once the game actually begins, the body shape can no longer be modified.