Stardom as mythology of the digital age: hyperculturality and Rosalía's "El mal querer"

Abstract

Stardom is a paradigmatic example of contemporary mythology. Through their function as semiotic-cultural and somatic-emotional receptacles, the stars serve as referents and mirror of the social collective that engenders them. Within digital communities and through interactive technology, celebrity liturgy, fan rituals, and the symbolism of this massive secular religion reach its zenith. Our first goal is to analyze the parallels between stardom and religion. To do this, we will place idols in a theoretical framework and describe the transformations that digital fan communities are undergoing. Our second objective is to interrelate the transmedia phenomenon of Rosalía's album El mal querer with the notion of "hyperculturality" proposed by Byung-Chul Han. We will expose how the conceptual universe generated by the Catalan artist reflects the transformations that identities attend in the globalized, hyper-connected and digital culture. The article concludes by developing the idea of ​​stardom as modern mythology and the importance of interactive digital technology in the transformation of online audiences. Likewise, the global and intergenerational dissemination of Rosalía's work is symptomatic of the non-fundamentalist model of globalized culture, as well as the prominence of the traditional, the consumption of the aesthetic-cultural and the active role of audiences in the configuration of contemporary cultural identity.