The Hard Work of Being a F an Account

Welcome to another edition of Cyberbits—a bi-weekly column on all things internet culture, from TikTok trends to random corners of Reddit to secret online subcultures. I send out Cyberbits in between working on longer essays like these:

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Anna, a high-school student based in Europe, spends anywhere between 30 minutes to 5 hours on her phone each day. Much of it is on Instagram. But she’s not liking pictures and posting selfies—she’s running two fan accounts for the TikTok star and online personality Addison Rae. Her accounts total nearly half a million followers: @everythingaddison has 236K followers, @addisonsnapchats has amassed 226K.

For Anna, the accounts she runs are part fandom, part artistic expression. The “edits” she refers to are her photoshopping skills: images she uploads have been manipulated to evoke a particular vibe or aesthetic. Often photos are combined or collaged together. Some edits are faux encounters—for instance, to our knowledge, Addison has never been photographed with the actress Zendaya. But on Anna’s fan account, you can find a meeting of the two celebrities. She’s done the same with other stars, superimposing the TikTok creator with artists like Billie Eilish, plus Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj. 

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