In order to understand social media, and the influencers that go above and beyond to stand out, build their audience and establish their brand, we have to look at the other culture that paved the way to influencers as we know them today. And it’s celebrity culture. Both share the insatiable hunger for an idealized image, but also the need to deliver substance and make it interesting for the viewers.

So Bored Panda reached out to Claire Sisco King, the Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Vanderbilt University who happily shared some very interesting insights into the over-the-top world of celebrities and influencers.

“Celebrity culture has been a significant part of popular media in the United States since the early 20th century. Its origins can be traced in large part to the Hollywood star system,” King told us. “By the 1920s, film studios had developed a system for crafting star images—from the stars’ names to how they dressed to the types of film roles they played. Studios relied on their own promotional departments as well as fan magazines to create these images and make them familiar to audiences, promoting fan attachment to the stars,” she explained.

It turns out that for decades, “most of this publicity remained largely positive because it was heavily controlled by the film studios, offering highly calculated views of celebrities’ personalities and private lives.”

But all changed with the advent of tabloids by the mid-twentieth century, including radio shows and magazines, King said. That’s when the attention to gossip and the more salacious aspects of celebrities’ personal lives increased. “Often this coverage was out of celebrity control; but, at the same time, celebrity has become dependent on the gossip industry because it drives audience interest and fascination,” the professor said.