InstaFame in the Internet age: Who is Bethany Mota, and why is she famous?

Convincing a group of high school students that there is value in a fishing expedition is not simple.

Internet fame, YouTube celebrities and the cult of personality comes to mind in this context when one high school student I am working with as an intern suggested a fun little feature story on the video blogger phenomenon, who gets the “hits” and why we think they’re cool.

“But why stop there?” I suggested. “Why not go for some motivation?”

I think she wanted a cigar just to be a cigar, and while I agree to some extent, and the circle of interns convened around a table in our newspaper’s conference room seemed to agree, I countered that to take the deeper dive and look for some subtext would be fun and teach how to arrive at some unconventional connections.

There’s nothing wrong with flexing a little brain power now and then by looking for the foundations of the frivolous pursuits, although admittedly my suggestions that this student plumb instantaneous Internet celebrity was a little self-serving.

I’ve come one-on-one with Bethany Mota. I’ve never actually met her, and I don’t really know who she is, but I know what she is.

She is an Internet celebrity, a YouTube icon pulling in megabucks for promotional namedropping amid three-minute “vlogs” on how to girl up your life Bethany Mota-style.

But she has transcended mere Internet celebrity, parlaying these clicks, likes and subscribers into another world that conventional celebrities work a lifetime — or at least more than five minutes — to achieve.

Bethany Mota has leapt from the smartphone small screen of buffering YouTube fandom, right into my daughter’s heart … and on her screensaver … and on her back … and on her head.

And I don’t get it.

From a series of inane, home-produced videos that has become decidedly bigger-budget as the sponsorships and sponsorship dollars have rolled in, has sprung forth a clothing and perfume line from Aeropostale, a spot on “Dancing with the Stars” alongside television and movie actors, musicians and sports figures, and countless odd trinkets, baubles and Bethany Mota-stamped propaganda meant to steal our daughters’ wills and our wallets.

Why? What is it about the Internet that can elevate Bethany Mota and countless other vloggers doing “stupid human tricks” to not just cult status, but full-blown iconic epicness on par with the pop culture symbolism of the Brangelinas, the psuedocelebrity of a Kardashian and the deserved-yet-cultivated-and-earned talent of award-winning actors and musicians, writers and thinkers.

What compels millions of youths to find value in a guy — actually dozens of guys and gals — who film themselves playing video games, telling a few jokes and somehow hauling down six-figure sponsorships because they drive clicks?

What is our motivation for rewarding this type of phenomenon, which seems so common today yet few people can justify its existence? Come on, who is going to justify the fame of a kid who pours alcohol all over his body and lights himself on fire? Or the guy who downs a heaping spoonful of cinnamon? Or any number of acts of stupidity that seem to garner more attention than true talent or true life.

Believe me, YouTube, by and large, is not true life; it’s some semblance of reality, as evidenced in the grainy, shaky footage of a homemade production, but existing simply because it can. It’s the self-perpetuating cycle of Internet acts of nothingness; all filler, no substance and we don’t know why.

Is that everyone uploading a video to the Internet? No, of course not. I get it: The Internet, YouTube, Tumblr, an epic rant on Facebook and a series of angry riffs on Twitter embody, in a perhaps perverse ways, the egalitarian world envisioned when the Internet was born.

But it seems to have (d)evolved into granting instant fame to the undeserving, a fame that is fleeting and is far more disposable than anything anyone circling my age (late 20s to 50s) has ever experienced in our lifetimes.

I feel old feeling this way, but back in my day … the sentence before the fall. Oh well.

Back in my day, we heaped obsessive accolades on the undeserving as well. I still don’t understand what I found so mesmerizing about Pauly Shore … the Weeeeezzzzeeeeel.

It might be generational, as each of us grapples with the concepts of why people become famous and who deserves said fame. Still, never before has there been a vehicle that allows fame and celebrity to be built on such flimsy limbs.

Maybe my intern will get to the bottom of it, doing that deep dive I’m suggesting and helping me to understand who and what a Bethany Mota is, and what has she done to my daughter.

This column originally appeared in the Imperial Valley Press, Feb. 6, 2015.

On the Web:

https://www.youtube.com/user/Macbarbie07

https://www.youtube.com/user/PewDiePie

https://www.youtube.com/user/stampylonghead