Article:

Zwischen Trash und Transzendenz. Zur kollektiven Produktion von lächerlichen Stars auf YouTube

The article seeks to interrogate the relationship between mockery and fame in digital media by analyzing the Italian case of YouTube trash stars, namely ordinary people who become famous because of their being ridiculed online. In digital culture, ridicule represents one of the main driving forces of content circulation. In the last few years many of the most successful viral phenomena have originated from the collective mocking of common people's «bad performances». In the Italian YouTube landscape, these practices of networked derision have given rise to a group of unusual micro–celebrities, labeled by users as «trash stars» and considered simultaneously as bizarre freaks, ridiculous fools and venerable icons. Using data collected during a two-year digital ethnography of the Italian YouTube community, this study aims at analyzing this phenomenon, interrogating the peculiar junction of elevation and abjection that lies at its basis and the processes by which networked publics participate in the construction of such personalities.