Nabila Shahna Dannika

Alicia Calista Sevanya

Josua Eliano
Kevin Maulana
Urvi Annabila

Introduction
There’s a relatively new form of identity linked almost exclusively with the Internet
called the “microcelebrity”. With the rise of the digital era has come a new way of thinking
about online identity: as framed by what people do in the Internet. Andy Warhol once said
that “In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes,” in which he later changed to
“In the future, everyone will be famous in fifteen minutes”. As a social practice,
microcelebrity changes the game of celebrity. The “microcelebrity” have audiences that
desire the “celeb” to speak to them, and the “celeb” expects to have full feedback from the
audiences. These days, we can’t usually guess who is “famous” or who isn’t. Any regular
people can be a microcelebrity by posting their words and images to websites.
There are a number of strategies in which microcelebrities on social media implement
to seek attention and achieve their “celebrity” status. Although in different terms, scholars
such as Marwick (2015a, 2015b), and Garcia Rapp and Roca-Cuberes (2017) content that
immediacy, intimacy, and ordinariness are important qualities of authenticity, one of
microcelebrities’ most important self-presentation strategies. Some microcelebrities disclose
their private information to further build a sense of intimacy. Presenting oneself to be an
ordinary, everyday person also allows microcelebrities to establish trust by being honest with
viewers (Garcia Rapp and Roca-Cuberes, 2017). Although in different terms, scholars such as
Marwick (2015a, 2015b), Jerslev (2016), and García-Rapp and Roca-Cuberes (2017) contend
that immediacy, intimacy, and ordinariness are important qualities of authenticity, one of
microcelebrities’ most important self-presenta-
tion strategies.
Being a microcelebrity means having new opportunities, but with new opportunities
also means new responsibility. In a time of crowd-sourced information, we are responsible
for getting facts straight about the people with whom we feel the need to build strange
familiarity (Senft, 2013). In this paper, we would like to analyze microcelebrities and the
impact they have with their audiences through their personas in the #tokopediabyme
campaign by Tokopedia.
 #tokopediabyme Campaign by Tokopedia
Tokopedia is a technology company based in Indonesia and was founded in 2009 by
William Tanuwijaya. Since 2009, Tokopedia has transformed to what is usually referred as a
unicorn that is very impactful not only in Indonesia, but also Southeast Asia. Tokopedia is an
online marketplace that allows people and business owners in Indonesia to open and maintain
their stores for free. Tokopedia’s tagline is “Marketplace is a Business Model Most Beautiful
in the World.” This simply means that Tokopedia aims to achieve success in the business
marketplace which can only be achieved by creating success for businesses. Tokopedia
serves on website and in app for smartphone user, which makes it very accessible for buyers
to sellers to interact and process transaction (Shona, 2016).
Tokopedia is also known for its creative marketing and advertising technique. They
rarely rely on television advertisement, instead they usually create a campaign for influencer
to post in social media Instagram. One of the examples of the campaign is called
#tokopediabyme. This campaign on Instagram just happened recently on April 2019 and
thousands of users/influencers have posted this campaign to support Tokopedia. Basically,
this campaign aims to show the influencer’s favorite things and products and where to get
them, which is in Tokopedia. Viewers or potential buyers are directed to the influencer’s
profile wherein their favorite things are listed in that site and ready to buy. This campaign
seems to be effective, since influencers are not celebrities, Tokopedia don’t need to spend so
much money on paying them, instead relying on influencers who have the same amount of
influence as celebrities on people to be interested on buying the products.

Theoretical Framework

Semiotics Textual Analysis

Semiotic theory, namely the study of the meaning of a sign. Language is a communication
tool in a community that uses a sign system whose meaning is understood conventionally by
members of the language community concerned. de Saussure (1916) states the sign is a unit
of a marker (signifier) with a sign (signified). In other words, markers are "meaningful
sounds" or "meaningful streaks". So, markers are material aspects of language, namely what
is said or heard and what is written or read. Signs are mental images, thoughts, or concepts.
So markers are mental aspects of language.

Semiotics Textual Analysis by Ferdinand De Saussure is used in this analysis to identify the
signs that contains humblebrag as a self-presentation to capture audience attention seen in the
four elemets in each microcelebrity uploads, which are:
1. Object in the photo
2. Pose or facial expression
3. Space and building
4. Caption written description column

Photos and its description (caption) are link to each other, therefore this analysis will identify
signs, symbol, or languages included in the micro-celebrity Instagram account. In analysing
the photo uploaded in social media Instagram, signs in the photo will be divided into signifier
and signified. Then, the meaning of dennotation and conotation will be searched.

Planning Theory

This theory is found by Charles Berger, aimed to explain the process of each individuals in
planning their communication behavior (Littlejohn, 2012). Human does not only involve in
communication activities just because they want to but because they want to fulfill their
goals. The humblebragger arrange or plan the message in form of words, pictures or specific
symbols wherein the aims is for people to pay attention to this person. The existence of social
media Instagram made its user expresses their personality through their uploaded photos with
sentences and description as their caption. In uploading a photo on Instagram, people can
express their feelings freely to fulfill their own satisfaction. For instance, uploading about
their activity, their stuff, places or even themselves in a form of photos. These photos will
eventually be interesting when the uploads have messages and meaning to secretly use this
opportunity to ‘brag’ to others.

Analysis
1. Micro-celebrity and #tokopediabyme
Social media nowadays such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, have
enabled both famous and non-famous people to distribute content widely and reach out to
audiences. Social media has transformed interactions with celebrities that feel personal
(Marwick and boyd 2011a). Social media enables micro-celebrity, a self-presentation
technique in which people view themselves as a public persona to be consumed by others
using strategic intimacy to appeal to followers, and regard their audience as fans (Marwick
and boyd 2011b, Senft 2008; Senft 2013). The micro-celebrity practitioner may have a very
small number of followers, but is able to inhabit the celebrity position through the use of the
same social technologies used by
musicians, athletes, and actors. Such micro-celebrities might include fashion or food
bloggers; activists; or simply Twitter users who treat their followers like valued fans.
Micro-celebrity is a set of practices and a way of thinking about the self which is
influenced by the infiltration of celebrity and branding rhetoric into day to day life, rather
than a personal quality. The process of using social media for audience development and
outreach distinguishes micro-celebrity practitioners from their subcultural counterparts. Much
contemporary social media encourages users to compete for attention and status, encouraging
self-promotion in a variety of ways including micro-celebrity (Marwick 2013a).
Tokopedia using micro-celebrity to promote their new program on Instagram called
#tokopediabyme, which provide a place for those micro-celebrity selling their stuffs or
similar. Tokopedia gain lots of attention of their new program by one micro-celebrity
promotions on Instagram. One micro-celebrity approximately get thousands of likes, which
mean they get thousands of attention all by one person. The use micro-celebrity for
promotions is easier because of social media, also easier monitoring the impact than using
conventional media because of the likers of one Instagram post, and a lot cheaper.
Among influencers (including micro-celebrity), selfies are most prolific on Instagram
and mediated via smartphones. Young people are increasingly reliant on smartphones for
leisurely connecting to the Internet (Galambos & Abrahamson, 2002). In 2013, Instagram
was reported to be the “fastest growing media application among mobile-savvy users” (Aw
Yeong, 2013) and has been used extensively by Influencers to curate taste displays, publish
advertorials, and wrestle for followers (Abidin, 2014).
Good selfie-taking skills comprise the ability to capture a well-framed digital self-
portrait and the ability to edit the selfie to maximize “likeability”—using the number of
“Likes” on a post as a way to quantify its popularity, and thus the potential to monetize
audience reception through this measure of attention on-screen. In fact, good selfie-taking
skills are such a prized asset that influencers have been recognized for their craft through an
expanding base of followers and an increasing number of sponsorship and advertorial
engagements in the form of “product placement” selfies.
In this paper, we analyse top three micro-celebrity with 100k and more likes on one
#tokopediabyme post in their Instagram account. All of those micro-celebrity assessed having
a good photo-taking skills so they gain more likes. The most straightforward picture-post
advertorials are when micro-celebrity publish overt advertising content, prominently
displaying the featured product in a picture accompanied by information from the company.
Micro-celebrity that participate on #tokopediabyme event displaying their own
product, because the event was only to provide place to sell their second-hand and similar
stuffs. Tokopedia did not have to send them the product because those micro-celebrity use
their stuffs to interest their followers about the event. Along with the picture, they put
information about the event and using hashtag (#tokopediabyme) to ease search on
Instagram.

References
Abidin, Crystal. (2016). “Aren’t These Just Young, Rich Women Doing Vain Things
Online?”: Influencer Selfies as Subversive Frivolity.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2056305116641342. Retrieved May 8th
2019.
Marwick, A. (in press, 2015). “You May Know Me From YouTube: (Micro)-Celebrity in
Social Media.”

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