Girl with one hundred million subscribers

How Selena Gomez became the main star of Instagram and was on the cover of Time

The September release of Time magazine was entirely dedicated to the main modern heroines - by the formulation of the publication, "women changing the world." The number came out with 12 covers, on one of which was a 25-year-old actress and singer Selena Gomez, and on others-Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey and Oceanographer Sylvia Earl. In the same month, Gomez appeared on another sign cover-the anniversary issue of the Business of Fashion, dedicated to the young heroes of pop culture. Medusa tells how Selena Gomez became the face of a generation and the main young pop star of the planet.

“Selena Gomez changes the world? I missed something? ”,“ Changing the world with a selfie?! ”,“ Sorry, but the girl did not do N-and-h-y-oh, ”-the Twitter users reacted to the appearance of Selena Gomez on the cover of Time magazine. At the same time, 34 more heroines did not fall on the cover, including Serena Williams, Aretn Franklin and Madel Olbright. As many noted, against their background, 25-year-old Gomez looks somewhat lightweight-not to mention the fact that Hillary Clinton and Serena Williams, unlike Gomez, do not need to represent people of different generations.

Who is Selena Gomez?

Even if you can’t remember who Gomez is and how it looks, you most likely heard one of its main hits - an unnecessary and obsessive Love You A Love Song song. Only on Yutyuba the clip looked at her almost half a billion times. Well, or the duet of Gomez with Charlie Put, from which since mid -2016, one and a half billion views have been gained. Maybe you even saw the children's TV shows “All Top-Top” or “Wizards from Waverly Plays”, who glorified the very young Gomez in the middle of the zero (and for which she received several awards “Kids Choice” and “Teen Choice”). At the age of 20, Gomez played Harmoni Korin in the “Accerable Vacation” - an independent drama about a short but bright teenage riot with James Franco as a golden -toothed bandit.

In addition, Selena Gomez put a collection of sportswear for Adidas and just signed a contract with Puma, produced the Netflix series “13 reasons why” (together with her mother, who used to be her manager) and became Louis Vuitton's face. She has 53 million readers on Twitter, almost 62 million on Facebook, and the record 128 million on Instagram (that is, more than anyone, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Beyoncé, her former boyfriend Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian). Selena Gomez is simply the most famous of all modern young pop stars.

The editors of Time was not in vain called her a trendsetter: Gomez not just the first on the planet crossed the mark of one hundred million subscribers in the main social network of the millennials (this happened in September 2016); These millions are a ready -made target audience for anyone who will conclude a contract with a Gomez. So, the recent Gomez alliance with the American brand of clothing and accessories Coach led to the fact that the number of subscribers at the brand increased by 50%, and after the first bag of Selena Gomez for Coach, the cost of the company increased by 2%. It is not surprising that Gomez is also the most expensive celebrity on Instagram: according to Business Insider, the cost of one post in her account is 550 thousand dollars.

Another Disney star

In the key (and most sentimental) moment of the “Rided Vacation”, three young torn -offs in colored balaclavas and with machine guns in their hands dance around the white piano, on which James Franco plays the hit of Britney Spears “Everytime”. Among them there is no heroine of Selena Gomez - she prudently fled home to a bloody interchange - but this speaks about the actress even more than if she were there. Like Britney Spears, Selena Gomez was a small star of Disney TV channel (and before that she performed at Texas fairs, sang songs with the purple dinosaurus of Barney and even flashed in the third “spy children”)-and did not hide that she admired her senior colleague. As the media noticed , Gomez in many ways “mirrors” the career of Britney Spears: also at 20 years old, she interrupted from an innocent teenager to a sexy young woman and directly said that she was equal to her concert shows. But, unlike Spears, Selena Gomez had never moved away from the role of the image-positive pop star-and even in the “elongated holidays” did not fly off the coils. Probably, she did not have such a need: as her adult colleagues noted, Selena Gomez always distinguished much more balanced and self -confidence from other young stars of Disney.

In an interview with Business of Fashion, who called her the main millennial in the world, Selena Gomez said that faith in herself was the result of sound education: her mother constantly reminded her that she should not be the best in the world, but who she is. At the same time, Gomez, as well as other children-star children, had to grow up and sort it out at the sight of the cameras. “To get into show business at the age when you are trying to realize yourself is abnormal. I will not wish anyone to anyone, ”Gomez admitted in an interview with Instyle. Perhaps that is why the young actress was not immediately able to “become herself” and go out onto the music scene. The first three albums (one of which included Love You Like a Love Song) Gomez released literally with the support group-as part of the Selena Gomez & THE SCENE pop team. Since then, each summer has come the next dance pop-hit with her participation; But her own songs, on the contrary, do without all the superfluous: both Bad Liar and Fetish are a truly good minimalist pop.

Despite the fact that Gomez is habitually called the "singer and actress", she has not yet been too lucky with the movie. Despite the fact that in her filmography there are more than two dozen items, she has not yet got a big movie - except for the failed comedy “Poor Behavior”, which did not even reach the cinemas and immediately went to the DVD. “Accerable Vacation” were a bold and spectacular course (the film was assigned a hard age rating R), but still single; After the film was released, the Association of Women Critics, engaged in the support of women in the cinema, was awarded the entire girlish acting ensemble of the film with the prize "Actresses who urgently need a good agent."

After that, the case went in the way: Gomez played in the drama about the financial crisis “Reducing Game” (where she had to explain what wealthy debt obligations are), and then in the pretty, but optional Sandensian drama “Basic Principles of Good” with Paul Radd and the film adaptation of Steinbeck James Franco (however, failed). As they say, her best role is still ahead, but the course is already outlined: right now, Selena Gomez is starring in the new Woody Allen film and dreams of playing with David O` Rassella and David Fincher.

True, kind, generous

In the column Vogue “73 questions” Gomez tells about himself in three words: faithful, kind, generous. Another word that Gomez often uses (and the media addressed to it ) is “sincerity”. “With such a way of life, you need to be sincere and open-because this work involves a great distance: you are often distant from people,” said 21-year-old Gomez in an interview with Instyle. Instagram allows her to reduce this distance: the actress, like her fans, uses social network as a diary. In her account there is a place not only for new filming, clips and selfies from social events. Gomez can suddenly delete all his subscriptions, because “revised my circle of communication”, and tries to get rid of “negative influence”, can teach the life of a former boyfriend (yes, this is Justin Bieber) in his comments or delete his sharp or too personal posts (which then find themselves in an account with the speaking name @selenadeletedposts ). “Gomez is associated with hundreds of millions of people of such sincerity and vulnerability, which was impossible to imagine in most heroes of my childhood,” explained the founder and chief editor of Business of Fashion Imran Amed.

“Today I feel especially fake, divorced from myself and my music. I never thought that my work, my wardrobe or video define me. I never lied, always honestly showed who I am, but I need to rethink some aspects of my life and creativity, ”Selena Gomez wrote on Instagram on July 23, 2016, and deleted four days later; Like any diary, @selenagomez has torn pages. The singer could be called an ordinary young girl in search of herself - if not all the same millions of subscribers and their far from always a positive response. “Everyone thinks that I am a good girl,” she admitted in an interview with Billboard, admiring the courage of her colleagues like Miley Cyrus. “I was condemned even for hints of what they did.”

She is really mercilessly criticized in the case, and not: for the Hindu pattern on the forehead that aroused accusations of cultural appropriation, for a picture from the mosque in Abu Dhabi, where the singer shows an ankle, for a post in support of a gases and even for contacting a white house asking him not to cancel a help program for immigrant children. Even when Selena Gomez looks extremely sincere, this is doubtful-as happened with the clip of the singer Bad Liar in May 2017. On the eve of his release, Gomez laid out a sad photo with a medical bandage on her hand and a yellow bracelet with the inscription “RISK” on Instagram; She was immediately suspected of operating the image of a person in depression. In fact, the bracelet was real: his singer was given the day before in the hospital.

The danger of falling

At the end of 2013, Selena Gomez canceled part of the tour in support of her first solo album Stars Dance to “spend a little time alone with you” - as the media wrote , in a rehabilitation clinic. Representatives of the singer hastened to say that this was not connected with drugs and alcohol, and the tabloids immediately connected this with the recent parting of Gomez and Justin Bieber, who met and diverged for a couple of years. Only two years later, in an interview with Billboard, Gomez talked about what she did not advertise in 2013: she was sick with lupus. Due to the disease discovered, she had to cancel the performances-to take courses of chemotherapy and rehabilitation, including psychological. “Most of all I wanted to say to everyone: you can’t even imagine what you are talking about,” the singer admitted. “And I was furious because I felt the need to make excuses.”

In the same 2015, Gomez had to go to rehab again: because of the lupus, she developed depression and anxiety, panic attacks began. Gomez told Vogue that three months of group therapy helped her to cope with the disorders of the psyche - and, according to the publication, this frankness makes her a new generation of girls breaking stereotypes and a taboo for discussing mental health. The same “Risk” on the Gomez bracelet in the recent “Bad Liar” video is part of the phrase “Fall Risk” (that is, “The Danger of the Fall”), which are given to patients with lupus, risking fainting.

On September 14, 2017, Selena Gomez posted a photograph on Instagram, where she lies on a hospital bed next to one of her closest friends, actress Franius Rice: due to the complications caused by lupus, Gomez was required to transplant the kidney. A friend gave her her own, and a week later she showed a scar from an operation in a photo from the gym. “You probably noticed that I was not visible part of the summer,” Gomez turned to fans. “Soon I will be ready to share with you everything that I had to endure in recent months.”

Since then, she has only one post on her Instagram - the news that the singer became the face of Puma, but they continue to report to her life daily tabloids and glossy sites. And if it were not for the songs, films and millions of subscribers, all this would sound like news from the world of ordinary people: Gomez went after the operation to the gym, without warning, she jumped to the New York Film Festival to hug her friend, actress Dakota Johnson, and the next day she flew to Toronto-to spend the weekend with her new boyfriend, the musician of The Weeknd. Perhaps it is this simplicity and humanity that bribes its fans; To a direct question about the reasons for her popularity in social networks, Selena Gomez herself sincerely replies: “I don’t know.”

Artem Makarsky