Is bad publicity better than no publicity?
On 12 June 2018, Bryan Le, also known as ‘RiceGum’, an Asian American Youtuber, posted a vlog travelling around Hong Kong. In the vlog, he makes fun of local people by asking if they have dog on the menu, touching their hands inappropriately and forcing them to eat his unfinished food. This video has immediately led to heated criticism. Online commentaries condemned his behaviors as “disrespectful and culturally insensitive”, while RiceGum defended that he was just making stereotype jokes. Although the video turned out being removed by YouTube and he made a video apologizing for his behaviors, it is worthy to note that he has successfully earned extra views, attention and media coverage as people commented his behaviors from the video. The problem arises from this example is that, in the context of internet celebrity, bad publicity might generate positive results.
Why would bad publicity be not totally harmful but even beneficial to internet celebrities? I argue the major reason being that it allows him/her to grab people’s attention and become famous in a short time. Burden (2002) suggested that in competitive elections, bad publicity could help the candidates as negative news are more likely to capture attention and enable people to distinguish them than positive news. This is applicable to influencers who need to compete for people’s attention on social media (Couldry & Markham, 2007). Thus, being recognizable and unusual might be crucial for an internet celebrity. Also, research from Stanford Business stated that increased awareness induced by bad publicity may remain, while “negative impression fades out overtime”, showing that attention and fame could last longer than negative impression brought by bad publicity. For instance, The Economist found that bad reviews had increased the sales of books by authors who are lesser known. To add on, KFC even share and promote social media posts that complain their fries, indicating that negative publicity could be a strategy to gain popularity.
However, this does not mean that bad publicity is always beneficial. We should note that the positive effect of bad publicity is limited to specific situations in which people were unfamiliar with the person or had little information about the news (Burden, 2002). For instance, KFC uses the bad publicity of their fries for promotion as fries are not their popular or signature food, so they do not risk losing customers. In other words, for internet celebrities who are already widely known, they might not benefit from negative news.
On the other hand, bad publicity could cause a raft of repercussions that the celebrity might lose followers, money and future opportunities. A case to illustrate this is that after YouTuber Logan Paul posted a video showing a man committing suicide in the forest of Japan, he was criticized widely for his insensitivity to suicide victims.
YouTube decided to suspend the advertisements on his channels, which means a sharp cut of his income. More importantly, his role in a number films were terminated due to his negative image, showing severe attack to his career. Therefore, I contend that people should think again whether bad publicity is a good strategy for internet celebrities in search of attention and fame.
Stay tuned,
@influ_blogger x
Abidin, C. (2018). Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame Online. Emerald.
Burden, B. C. (2002). When Bad Press Is Good News The Surprising Benefits of Negative Campaign Coverage. Press/Politics,7(3), 76–89.
Couldry, N., & Markham, T. (2007). Celebrity culture and public connection: Bridge or chasm? International Journal of Cultural Studies,10(4), 403–421. doi:10.1177/1367877907083077
