Howard Ingham’s recent piece on YouTube star Poppy is exactly the kind of internet cultural criticism I get obsessed over. There are too many interesting passages to quote.
The Question in Bodies #18: I’d Love to Tell You, But You Aren’t Ready for the Truth
…as a narrative construct, Poppy is manifestly not an artefact of television or film; Poppy is of Youtube, and she personifies the intersection between community content, corporate exploitation of the medium and the glitchy bots trying to fool you that they’re human. Poppy is reactive to the viewing public in a direct, swift way, and Poppy’s narrative has developed in symbiosis with her viewers’ comments, reactions, and reply videos. Poppy could not exist without YouTube.