Celebrity (South Korean TV series)

These days followers don't just mean random strangers, they can be your potential source of income. Celebrity, a south korean series tries to bring up the dark, glamor life of the so-called influencers. From the series, we can learn that anyone can be an influencer or celebs. There’s always some certain formula to be famous but behind those glamor life, something needs to be sacrificed. Celebrity is a South Korean series released back in 2023. It starred Park Gyu-young who plays as Seo-Ari & Kang Min-hyuk as Han Jun-kyung, the male protagonist in the story.

Seo-Ari was just a regular hard working girl in the cutthroat world of seoul. She isn’t quite active online and apathetic about it. However, one day her co-worker and friend talked about the recent online feud between instagram influencers. Somehow, Seo-ari started getting intrigued about it and she eventually met up with her old friend, who happened to be a famous influencer in South Korea. Behind expensive clothing and lavish lifestyle, apparently some members got their riches to maintain their lifestyle by committing crimes. For Seo-Ari climbing the ladder of these socialites, she learned that there are some formulas to it and she ended up streaming her experiences to the world. That being influencers has some type of formula.

The web of plot in this series is quite intricate because their story isn’t quite linear. It involves many characters and each of them comes with a set of stories that in the end goes back to the main character. What is intriguing about this series is the social commentary that attempts to explain the influencer phenomenon. While this series was released a while back, watching it in 2024 is still relevant. It doesn’t matter when instagram isn’t relevant anymore but there’s tiktok and youtube where such things happen.

As seen in the series, the way to get famous is to leech off someone famous. Somehow Seo-Ari was lucky because she already had a friend who was famous and in the circle. She is also stylish which sets her apart from just regular folks. It was in time when money eventually fixed her appearance and made her look even more stylish. In the end, she gained influential friends that ended up posting about her and that’s how she got her followers through exposure. I think that you can learn from her. These days, people reach out/engage with famous people so that others can also see their presence. Who knows people would start following you and you can become a celebrity overnight?

In celebrity, it was also discussed that this lavish lifestyle isn’t quite easy to maintain. Some sell their body to afford the expensive wardrobe and style. While they are not necessarily from a low-income background, it isn't enough to leisurely afford spending money whenever they can. In turn, they do whatever they could afford such a life while keeping that part private and only showcases their curated life. It somehow shows us that whatever we post in social media isn’t necessarily our actual life. I wouldn’t even trust anyone who told me it’s their raw life because in the end, anything we post is still filtered as we wanted to be seen in a certain way even more so when money is involved.

The series also shows that such life is quite fragile. While often we only see the good parts, these people's lives are filled with drama & troubles at every corner. Unless you’re pretty strong-minded and willed, think twice before you let K and M numbers of followers invade your privacy and space.

I wasn’t convinced when this series was released. I am not a fan of Park Gyu-young and rarely enjoy her series. I think a lot of her series lacked emotion and she has this arrogant aura about her. It felt the same in this series. It’s why it took me a while to check out this netflix series that was pretty famous and popular during its time. When I was convinced to check this out, the story turned out pretty intriguing. It’s one of those series that you didn’t expect to have such intriguing plots. What I also like about this series is how the story resonates with our daily life and something can be tried. I think the formula everywhere when it comes to becoming famous or well-known, is by networking with established influencers and being in their circle. By being in a certain circle, it could unlock money, power and sometimes leeway of doing things just like the common sayings “ Rules for thee and not for me” where often among these circles it’s just how it works.

Celebrity is certainly a recommended watch. It’s eye-opening and inspiring especially if you want to move up the ladder and become famous. You see, being famous can be one of your ways to make more money and elevate your life. Perhaps you might want to check out how it’s done. Celebrity has the cheat codes for you 😉

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