becoming a social media celeb is (like the lottery)

probably the best description ive ever heard of social media celebs. 1 caveat is that there are multiple lotteries -

• the first is having rich enough parents that if the venture celebritism fails (which is most likely) you’re not at homeless risk

• being good looking enough + not being toooo disabled in a way that impacts venture internet celebritism

• a few others im not thinking of atm

then finally someone can enter the twitch/tiktok/etc streamer lottery

whereas for reg lottery, you cant boost your odds, aside from buying more tickets

The act of wanting to comodify yourself isn’t capitalist in a literal sense to me (I could be wrong though) as you aren’t literally exploiting other people’s Labour for profit but the conditions and markets etc (such as people selling themselves to sponsors and advertisement companies) is very capitalist and it makes me sad to see people essentially sell their bodies to companies for a chance of escaping economic instability. I find that so sad but so typical of capitalism so I do see your main point OP, self branding while in itself not inherently capitalist is one facet of a cruel and manipulative capitalist

You worded it much better than me