How Roxanne is taking over the world!
How this fictional celebrity is uniting teenagers all over the world:
Hana Hassan.
As the sun slowly sets, its beams light up the marble floor of Roxanne’s apartment.
“Wow! Time flew by so fast,” she says to a webcam smiling curtly. Tens of thousands are watching her live stream. “Thank you for the coins, AnniSTAN!”
Everything about Roxanne is fictitious. Her smile, her apartment, her words are all manufactured by hundreds of employees under GY entertainment. Every day her appearance and every word are designed and planned.
Roxanne is one of GY entertainment’s most ambitious projects yet. The entertainment company rose to fame for experimenting with avant-garde ideas of entertainment which were overwhelmingly unsuccessful. Born in 2015, Roxanne is their first breakthrough artist, with over 6 billion views on Youtube, and 25 million Twitter followers.
The idea of a fictional pop idol isn’t exactly new, but Roxanne is turning it on its head. Virtual J-pop icon Hatsume Miku is documented as the first “idol” to explore this idea. Hatsume Miku gained fame internationally and remains popular today, recently becoming an internet meme. Video game League of Legends has a K-pop group, KDA, out of characters from the game to promote skins inside the game.These two examples were both created to promote a product not a brand; Hatsume Miku a voice synthesizer, and KDA a video game skin set. KDA and Hatsume Miku are both also inspired by East-Asian “idol” culture, emphasizing a good image, and usually are quite conservative. Roxanne focuses on gaining attention through her storyline. She has a crafted tragic past, and many characters try to sabotage her musical career; she is an underdog. The character Noah is her ex-boyfriend who is now her stalker, and is plotting her downfall.
Roxanne is also inspired by this culture but focuses more on gaining fame similar to how celebrities such as Miley Ciras, Kim Kardation, and Jae Park did: scandals. Her company has created a universe where she interacts with characters whose only existence is to serve as plot points for her controversies. She has gotten into dating scandals, messed with drugs, and said some very not politically correct statements. This isn’t an accident by the company though, these crafted controversies only penetrate more interest in her and her universe. Her fans eat everything up, creating fanfiction, theories, and music for Roxanne.
The main interest in Roxanne stems from her scandals and Instagram. She only has a few songs released and the ones released aren’t particularly amazing. The song Obsession is a synth heavy song with repetitive riffs and over-auto tuned vocals. The lyrics to the song are repetitive,with the majority of the song being the word “obsession” repeated over and over again. Controversies create fan speculation and extreme amounts of fan engagement that has made her win awards such as Billboard's Top Social Artist, an award focusing on fan interaction. Another element that makes people so intrigued with her is her Instagram account. There Roxanne posts photos of her outfits and photography, often inspired by real-life examples. There she inspires many people to buy similar outfits and do makeup inspired by hers. Her Instagram is also filled with posts to add to her aesthetic. People often use “Bad Bitch” to describe her, a term popular on the internet that means a person who is cool and risky with their actions. Fans can use her “vibe” to create personality traits and interests for her, increasing the fans engagement level.
“Thank you for watching this live stream.” She rubs her eyes. “I should get to sleep.”
With that, the live stream blacks out, and the now moonlight ridden apartment disappears for a few hours. Tens of thousands now stare at a blank screen now, where Roxanne used to be, waiting for the next exciting move from her.
