From smartphone to silver screen

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Famous, for six-and-a-half seconds

THE conceit of a new film, “Airplane Mode”, is clever enough. Put some of the biggest stars of YouTube, Vine, Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram on a plane to Australia without internet access. Faced by a few hours without the views, loops and likes that connect them with the outside world, madness follows. But will their millions of young fans follow the digital hotshots offline, to the cinema?

Over the past decade each new social-media platform has given rise to a subculture of celebrities, worshipped by teenagers and children but largely unknown to anyone else. Once YouTube was the main stage for this new type of star. Now every platform has them, including an array of new apps unfamiliar to grown-ups (ask a child about musical.ly, for example). Through projects like “Airplane Mode”, which recently finished shooting on a budget of more than $2m, these digital stars are trying to convert their massive online followings into mainstream fame.

The numbers alone make that seem a reasonable ambition. The low-brow escapades of these digital luminaries have earned them each...Continue reading