{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","title":"Curation in the Age of Platform Capitalism  The Value of Selection, Narration, and Expertise in New Media Cultures","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781032023007","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","id":"d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","uuid":"d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","title":"Curation in the Age of Platform Capitalism  The Value of Selection, Narration, and Expertise in New Media Cultures","normalized_title":"curationintheageofplatformcapitalismthevalueofselectionnarrationandexpertiseinnewmediacultures","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781032023007","isbns":["9781032023007","9781032023014","9781003182801"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":177,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Curation%20in%20the%20Age%20of%20Platform%20Capitalism%20%20The%20Value%20of%20Selection%2C%20Narration%2C%20and%20Expertise%20in%20New%20Media%20Cultures","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406/search"},"page":{"printed_page":89,"pdf_page":99,"physical_index":99,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"e2fdbf33bfb97d9cb54219aa544c298a0461ea4bf196b205372212c7257f819d"},"chapter":"CURATION IN THE AGE OF PLATFORM CAPITALISM","content":"Demna’s persona is also performed via Balenciaga’s Instagram account (14.3 million followers) and the Instagram account @demnagram, an account controlled by the fashion enthusiast Saba Bakhia, a “Demna supporter”, and in turn “supported by Balenciaga” (that is by Demna himself). Balenciaga and Bakhia are platform curators, insofar as they organize the representations of the brand and of Demna in Instagram (insofar as Demna is the public face of Balenciaga). The Balenciaga account has the unorthodox strategy of updating all its content in each new collection (instead of preserving previous posts in its timeline) so as to highlight each new collection for a certain period of time. In its permanent stories section, it promotes activist causes, such as the women’s movement in Iran or the Ukrainian war eforts, while this activism extends to incidents, among others, such as Balenciaga leaving Twitter as soon as Elon Musk became the owner of the platform, Demna dropping his long-term collaborator and buddy Ye (Kayne West) after the latter made a racist statement against Jewish people and Demna calling for the US citizens to vote for Biden in the American elections of 2020. The @demnagram account performs a diferent side of Demna: apart from photos related to his design, it regularly features inspirational quotes attributed to Demna. For instance, in the description of a post on Balenciaga sneakers there is Demna saying, “do not listen to anyone telling you what to do and how to do it. The only thing, you should listen to is your heart, it will always bring you to right places in life” (Demna quoted in demnagram, 2022a) or “I don’t like that luxury is always intended to communicate that you’re rich […] I’d rather wear a bag that doesn’t make me look like the rare bourgeois bitch who can aford it” (Demna quoted in demnagram, 2022b). These inspirational quotes register the luxury designer as a guru or life coach (about which we will see in more detail in Chapter 6), crafting a persona that spreads over pretty much anything that is associated with neoliberal creativity today. In the next section, I turn to another instance of banal luxury, which is the Vetements Instagram account and in particular the use of selfies.\n\n4.4 Highbrow Selfies in Vetements Instagram\n\nVetements, similar to Balenciaga, except even more defiantly as a result of its explicit orientation toward youth cultures, stages Instagram atmospheres that are cool, revolting, and transgressive. The brand excessively deploys internet meme aesthetics and, as per Demna’s spirit, reverses common perceptions of beauty and elegance in luxury fashion (Skjulstad, 2020; 2021). The Instagram activity of Vetements taps into platform connectivity, inviting “audiences to participative action, tweaking, DIY practices, controversy and debate as part of the brand’s persuasive techniques for agenda setting, thus situating itself in the center of discursive activity” (Skjulstad, 2020: 188). For instance, prior to launching an online “secret project” in July 2021, Vetements published a post in their @vetements\\_uncensored calling their followers to “Join Now or Fuck Of”. This not only transgresses the customer-oriented paradigm, in which customers are treated with respect, but it turns to its complete opposite by telling them to “fuck of”. Via such daily managed controversies, the fashion design collective taps into internet cultures and meme logics, with hilarity and transgression being encoded in their digital mediations (also often into their garments and apparel).\n\nAtmospheres of Banal Luxury in Digital Warhol Economies\n\n89","previous_page":88,"next_page":90}