Recently, for a long period of the 20^th century, social media is becoming a huge barrier for ordinary people to become a celebrity due to many strict rules of some entertaining platform, for example: Youtube, Facebook, Instagram,… Truly, getting into showbiz or popularity and fame is not an easy thing for ordinary people in this new age.

The beginning of Internet revolutionized this perception in the early 2000s. For the first time in the history, people could evade the entertainment industry’s strict rules and turn themselves into celebrities through the use of social media: they became micro celebrities. Micro celebrities do not gain limited or cult followings through traditional media. In fact, they are people who gain a cult or mainstream following due to viral internet distribution. Andy Warhol once said that “In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes”, which then he changed to “In the future, everyone will be famous in fifteen minutes”. Truly, everyone now can become famous in a short time without any special abilities. A micro celebrity can get fame through no talent or his or her own effort. Let’s take Kim Kardashian as an example. She was first notice by the media as a friend and a stylist of Paris Hilton, but then gained more attention after the sex-taped filmed in 2003 with her ex-boyfriend Ray J is published online. But actually now, she is a big and well-known person and becoming a huge brand for her own around the world with some shows.

Whilst the internet has become a great distribution stage, it is argued that the person doesn’t just preserve a steady stand on that stage; they manage their online self with the sort of care and consistency normally exhibited by those who have historically believed themselves to be their own product: artists and entrepreneurs.

The music industry is now emerging as a global phenomenon and attracting a lot of interests from people and the music lovers. In every music business, digital disruption play an extremely important role to help the business develop and go up. Just a flick through, many people think that the term ‘disruption’ refers to something that have a bad impact on the music industry. But actually, it only have bad influences on the business if you choose to ignore it or try to fight it. So what is the real meaning of digital disruption? Digital disruption is the modification that happens when new digital technologies and business models involve in the value proposition of existing goods and services. In some specific context, digital disruption now has some influences on the music industry. So far, in my opinion, digital disruption is a need and also it has some great impacts for some record companies, musicians and music fans. According to “The Music Industry: Music in the Cloud” by Patrick Wikstrom, there are three dimensions of change for this ‘new music economy’. The first dimension is ‘Connectivity vs. Control’. In the old music economy, the network organized by music companies and music listeners had a moderately low level of connectivity. In fact, the weak connections come from individual members of audience. Recently, the influence of physical allocation and mass media reduce significantly and Internet media is now beginning to replace and improve as a new type of connectivity between music companies and the audiences. Now, the capability to upload is theoretically accessible to everyone connected to the network. The second dimension is ‘Service vs. Product’. Let’s take Spotify, one of the biggest music stream platform in the world.  In the new music economy, we have to accept that music is now no longer a product in CD, disc format. Now, instead of that, we access the music via a subscription service in return for a monthly or yearly payment, and it is quite easy to notice that unlicensed downloading has decreased significantly around the world. After years and years, Spotify is showing us a very interesting example of a big change: the move from product to service. And the final dimension is ‘Amateur vs. Professional’. Perhaps one of the biggest differences between a professional and an amateur musician is “showing up”. In the past, the role of the creative artist is the most respected and admired in the music industrial ecosystem. Céline Dion is one of the most powerful brands that appeal to millions of fans all over the world. But now, as we can see, many musicians have their own studio and record their music and then get their fame, for example, Lil Pump… The increased connection of network combined with various kinds of music production tools enable ‘non-professionals’ to create, remix and publish content online.

Nowadays, time is passing faster and faster, technology is growing day by day. Though, photography still play an extremely important role in this information age. People take billions of picture everyday to please their pleasure, such as: puppies photos, their workplace or just simply their breakfast meal. Mr. Wim Wenders believes that the images are becoming more and more real and alive, but also they are more dead than ever. Some people might agree with his idea, however, in my opinion, photography is not dying. In contrast, photography is emerging unexpectedly as all the images now are talking pictures. Besides of entertaining needs, the images can also talk and express the feeling and what the photographers thinking in their head. Susan Sontag explains photography in comparison with Plato’s Cave where reality is bounded to only what inside the cave where the dark side of real world reflect only some pieces of truth. Nowadays, images and photos are also parts of the truth, but they just express a small piece of the entire thing and more importantly, they show only one person or one photographer’s ideas and perspectives. So that, in my opinion, photography is just reborn and starting to emerge in the new digital age and we just only see the beginning of what photography take us to. In the modern world photography as Susan Sontag explains has become many things; photography now is an art form of social right, a defence against anxiety, and also a tool of people’s power. Maybe some people think that images nowadays is not really the notion of reality because someone may fix it. But I think it is still express some of the real sides from the photo.  Even though it might not be obvious, every image imposes the viewer with some certain reasons. It is the viewers job to know and understand that images just show one side of the truth. Therefore, it is important that we remember not to let an image determine our reality or be our only source of information.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton