Can celebrities be successful without the paparazzi? It’s an interesting question. Nowadays the two seem to go hand-in-hand. Photographers can earn a lot of money sending photos of celebs to magazines and online publications, while celebs benefit from the exposure and having their name put out there.
Take your career to the next level
Part of being a celebrity is being known and one of the easiest and most common ways for celebrities to boost their profile is by becoming media-friendly, i.e. letting themselves get photographed. The paparazzi won’t just take photos of nobodies, they want photos that they can make money from. To get ‘papped’, you already have to be recognisable enough and your name has to already be out there. With help from the paparazzi, you can take your career to the next level by creating more of a buzz about yourself and advertising your talents to more people.
Becoming famous without the paparazzi
But there are new kinds of celebrities who have managed to become famous without the paparazzi. Most people who become famous on the internet don’t need the paparazzi to become famous, simply because they’re their own photographers. People on social media build up followers by posting content people like, and word spreads from there. Pewdiepie, for example, is the most successful YouTuber, with his videos having been viewed over 10 billion times – that’s just one of the many records he currently holds.
Doing it yourself
There are loads of bloggers, vloggers and other sorts of internet celebrities finding fame online and building careers out of it. Even singers and actors are putting themselves online and building up fan bases. Justin Bieber caught people’s attention by putting videos of himself singing up on YouTube. Some get themselves known and manage to become successful without so much paparazzi attention, yet others owe a large part of their success to the paparazzi.
So are the paparazzi necessary?
So these days it’s possible to become a successful celebrity without relying on the paparazzi too much. Instead of relying on a group of photographers to broadcast your photos, your words and your brand to the world, you can do it yourself via the internet and social media. The paparazzi can help boost a celebrity’s profile and boost their career in turn, but these days you don’t need to be ‘papped’ all the time to be successful.
