Digital Performance of the Russian Beau Monde

Abstract

The rapid development of social media has dramatically increased the influence of public figures on mass culture and transformed the mechanisms through which fame is produced and maintained. While in the era of traditional media stardom was mainly generated by television, the press and the entertainment industry, in the digital environment it is increasingly sustained by permanent online presence, visual selfpresentation and everyday interaction with the audience. This article analyzes the digital identity of the Russian beau monde and the forms of self-presentation through which status, prestige, symbolic superiority and claims to exclusivity are reproduced on social media. The empirical basis of the study is an analysis of the public online activity of 531 individuals selected on the basis of their participation in social, media and government-affiliated events. The study included social media metrics, posts, audience comments and calculated comparative indices of activity and engagement. A total of 8,183 posts published mainly on VK and Telegram were analyzed. The findings show that a specific cluster of high-society celebrities has emerged in the Russian digital space, one in which women dominate and where demonstrative publicity becomes a key form of symbolic capital. Audience reactions to this publicity are ambivalent. Interest in luxury, intimate communication and access to the backstage of elite lifestyles coexists with moral irritation, accusations of hypocrisy, the inappropriateness of excessive consumption, as well as doubts about the authenticity of the projected image. Thus, the digital environment functions not only as a space for producing popularity, but also as an arena for the delegitimization of celebrities.