Zooey Deschanel is an American celebrity known majorly for her acting, having starred in a variety of movies and most recently reprising the role of Jessica Day in the comedy television series New Girl. In addition to her acting career, Deschanel has garnered a decent following by expanding to music, immersing herself in the hipster cyber world that is tumblr and co-founding the website HelloGiggles. She has an impressive amount of followers on Facebook (6. 1 million at the moment) that she constantly shares links with to different websites, more often than not being to HelloGiggles.
Her communication with the audience is for the most part fragmented as the majority of it involves her sharing a link that redirects the reader to a specific website where there’s something of interest to her, plus a very short description of her opinion towards the shared link. The depth of her emotion towards these ? links’ she provides is usually limited to ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ for the most part, not really forcing her detailed opinion on what she’s sharing to the audience. The simplicity of her comments on these shared links makes her timeline easy to follow.
Due to this the reader doesn’t waste time fretting over specific points of opinion and instead he/she instantly follows the link, thus fulfilling exactly what the post was intended to do. Deschanel over the years has transitioned from a mere B-list actress, to a positive role model for young women with a little tang of the modern hipster culture in the mix. We have to assume that she is a good actress, it is what she is mainly known for and this becomes clear when observing her Facebook page.
Generally of the variety of links she shares on Facebook, the ones regarding her acting career are the ones that get nearly all the attention. We know they get most of the attention because these posts are the ones that get as a whole more likes and shares than the rest, hinting that her audience mainly appreciates her acting career. But as she already has an immense following because of her acting, the purpose of her Facebook page isn’t solely to augment her already blossoming acting career, but to use the weight behind her acting career to build momentum in the other areas where she isn’t as famous.
Essentially, Deschanel uses her Facebook page as a tool to promote the diversification of her portfolio. One of the many great things about social media is the ability to instantaneously connect with a lot of people. This is especially advantageous for celebrities such as Deschanel as they are allowed to constantly interact with their amassed followers, allowing them to expand their brand and create deeper connections with fans. This is something Deschanel takes advantage of whole heartedly.
Now and again she will post funny (I say funny based on her fans response on the comment section) picture references of her television series, other times she will post screenshots or trailers of one of her upcoming movies, but for the most part the content she uploads to Facebook is mainly from HelloGiggles. HG is a website that constantly publishes articles about news, entertainment, life, pop culture, friendship, careers, style and most important of all female empowerment. Her demographic is mostly female and she appeals to that audience on a regular basis by posting things that she, as a female, likes.
For example, on August 1st she shared a link to HelloGiggles with her own tag that read “!!!! <3” and below it the link itself read “By the way, this baby sloth has a sloth teddy bear”. In all honesty as a female I was drawn to the cuteness of the sloth displayed and the idea of a baby animal holding a teddy bear. The use of exclamation points and a heart is a strategy she uses to incite the reader. When I first read it, all i imagined was Zooey Deschanel excitingly making nonsense sounds as she would in her blog videos or as her character would in New Girl.
Interestingly enough, Deschanel doesn’t follow a specific chronological order, per se. There are times when she’ll post a story that have happened at a time close to the present. For example, on July 13th she shared a post about how it was Malala’s birthday and how she, Malala, was spending her special day overseeing the inauguration of the Malala Yousafzai All-Girls School. Here she is bringing awareness to issues in Syria, she’s helping Malala gain even more internet relevance and of course the link she shared was to HelloGiggles.
Other imes she’ll post really old things like singing a Christmas themed duet with Joseph Gordon Levitt near the holidays. With the speed that news and information travels nowadays, she’s succeeding to stay up to speed with all the new trends that come out. By following a steady speed of content in sync with the rest of the world it is easier for the audience to follow her and captures the interest with events that are relevant on a worldwide scale. HelloGiggles isn’t necessarily the best tool to use to inform yourself as an empowered woman, but regardless it is a pretty good tool.
However, there might be some doubt as to the credibility of Deschanel being an empowered woman herself. If she wasn’t so, would she really be entitled to promote these things? With all this in mind, I would never say she is the most empowered woman in the world, but she is in fact an embodiment of what women should strive to be. In fact, I would go as far as calling her a viable role model for all people that are looking to empower themselves. She has led a very successful acting career and will continue to do so for years to come.
She has a passion for singing and writing music, so much so that it has led her to establish an indie duo called She & Him (alluring to the romantics I see). Her commitment to women empowerment has led her to indirectly advocate a variety of feminist sub movements by being the cofounder of HelloGiggles, one could even argue that she is the face of HelloGiggles. Zooey Deschanel is what grade-schoolers would call an over achiever, although in this case instead of derision it should feel as admiration.
