Despicable public personas: Dynamics of infamy in digital culture

This introductory essay frames the special issue Despicable public personas: Dynamics of infamy in digital culture by examining how platformized and polarized media environments are reshaping the relationship between public condemnation, visibility, and fame. Its first section traces a shift from “polarizing celebrities” to “celebrities of polarization”, arguing that digital culture has intensified a move from figures who are hated because they are famous, to figures who become famous because they are hated, and further toward personae whose despicability is anticipated and strategically mobilized. The second section revisits Gary Alan Fine’s account of reputational politics and extends it to contemporary platform culture, identifying five key factors in the making of despicable public personas: new reputational entrepreneurs, spectacle, architectures of visibility, spectatorial practices, and strategies of vice-signalling. The third section develops the case of Fabrizio Corona as an emblematic example of these dynamics, showing how a figure once framed as a scandalous villain can survive condemnation, reposition himself as commentator and moral entrepreneur, and turn stigma into narrative capital. The essay concludes with an overview of the articles included in the issue.