Charisma

Definition

"A quality, coming from a person rather than from an office, that inspires intense loyalty and devotion; often has religious significance, linking prophet and followers."

Origins of the Concept

The term is Max Weber's, adapted from the Greek kharisma ("gift of grace") and its use in Pauline theology. In Weber's typology of legitimate authority, charismatic authority is one of three pure types alongside traditional authority (legitimacy from custom and inheritance) and rational-legal authority (legitimacy from rules and office). Its defining feature is precisely the one the definition names: it belongs to the person, not the position. A charismatic leader is followed because of what they are held to be, not because of an office they hold or a precedent they embody.

Weber's crucial observation is that charismatic authority is inherently unstable. It arises in crisis, it depends on continued demonstration — the prophet must keep prophesying, the leader must keep winning — and it cannot survive the death of the person unless it is converted into something else. That conversion he called the routinization of charisma: the transformation of a personal following into an institution with succession rules, offices and doctrine. Every church, party and company founded on a personality faces this problem.

Charisma Online

Networked media have made charismatic authority cheaper to acquire, easier to measure and much faster to lose.

Different platforms select for different varieties. Some reward sustained expertise, some reward reliable entertainment, some reward the appearance of unguarded access to a private self. What they share is that the authority is personal and portable in principle but stranded in practice: it is measured in followers on a specific service, and it is subject to the ranking decisions of that service.

Brands can accumulate charisma in the same register, and can accumulate enough to outweigh that of many individuals. The Old Spice campaign of 2010 is a useful case: a transmedia effort in which the character responded to fans directly through YouTube and Twitter over a period of days, connecting the charisma of a brand to an audience of adoring followers. Individual charisma at scale is equally documented — Justin Bieber's following ran to hundreds of millions, and Lady Gaga's authority over her audience during the same period was close to devotional. She is best understood as a producer of charisma rather than a recipient of it.

Routinization on Platforms

Weber's succession problem reappears in a new form. Personal followings are increasingly converted into institutions — production companies, labels, agencies, product lines, subscription businesses — precisely because charisma held personally cannot be inherited, insured or sold. The recurring difficulty is that the conversion tends to destroy the thing being converted: the perceived directness and unmediated quality on which the following was built is exactly what an institution removes.

Related Reading

• Status
• Internalization of moral code
• Ambient Intimacy
• Meme
• Extended Avatar