Despite the radical shift in his lifestyle, Jackson has grown to love his quiet life in a town of twelve thousand people. He told me, “My chickens are here, I have my river, my best friend and a GF [girlfriend] who is great and now my life doesn’t weigh on the positive and negative criticisms of strangers.” His story illustrates the tensions intrinsic in adopting micro-celebrity as a status-seeking practice. Jackson got to meet many of his heroes, enjoyed getting immediate responses on his internet musings, and ended up working for a well-known internet company (although not making his million). But he also dealt with public criticism, mockery, and epithets like “asshole” and “fat” in his Twitter stream. Jackson struggled between wanting to participate in a community he loved and realizing that the personal attacks, which often come hand-in-hand with the micro-celebrity persona, were hurting him emotionally. Eventually he decided that the benefits of public living did not outweigh this psychic damage and he drew back, to the point of physically relocating away from the Bay Area.

Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, loc. 319