Conventions of a Webpage Essay: Nicki Minaj Website.

The artist I have chosen is rapper and singer Nicki Minaj. Nicki Minaj is a rap artist in the genre of hip hop and R&B. Nicki Minaj is one of the most successful female rap artists that the music industry as received for a long while since female rappers in the 90’s. Nicki Minaj’s target audience are preferably females aging from 13-30. Nicki Minaj being a female out rightly appeals to females in terms of her style, persona and lyrics. She is an artist who makes the genre hip hop relatable to females through her lyrics and by challenging sexism in a male dominated culture. She has branded herself to be a ‘Black Barbie”. Barbie being a famous worldwide known Barbie doll appeals to many young girls and is seen as aspinrational as Barbie has features that is unattainable. Through the representation of an unattainable, fictional doll. Nicki Minaj being successful has used her artistry to venture onto other projects.

Nicki Minaj is also recognised for constantly reinforcing her femininity with the stereotypical colour of Pink. Nicki Minaj has pink cars, clothes; her website is pink and also her flamboyant wigs. This appeals to her target audience more as pink is considered a womanly colour in today’s society and females are able to relate or identify with her if they see Nicki Minaj sporting pink in all her projects and public appearances. Through this her target audience may see her as aspirational and may also want to do and wear what she does.  Nicki Minaj has partnered up with KMART to produce her own clothing line called the Nicki Minaj Collection aimed at females. She has used her voluptuous, curvy body as her brand in which females desire to have because it is unrealistic and unattainable to achieve if not naturally structured that way. This would encourage her target audience to purchase her clothing as she has modelled her own clothing with a sensual structured body that viewed in society’s perspective as perfect. Her amazing artistry and image was recognized by Mattel and as a result of this was given her own Barbie doll dedicated to her album Pink Friday.

Nicki Minaj has partnered up with beats electronics to produce “The pink pill”. The pill is designed to fill any room with a rich clear sound field that has a power as it does definition. She has promoted her this on her website as seen in the screenshot below. Nicki Minaj appeals to her fans because her fans are familiar with the success of the beats pill and the good quality of it. Nicki Minaj is a successful, female, musical artist which her fans will take into consideration when purchasing the popular product. Nicki Minaj is a musical artist, producing and promoting a musical related product. This captures her audience as they are aware that they can listen to their favourite Nicki Minaj songs on their beat pill. Nicki Minaj has synergised with Beats Company to produce her own beats pill. As well as synergising she has also horizontally integrated by promoting her own version of the pill on her website through the beats company.

Nicki Minaj has also synergised with the Myx fusions company in which she has launched her own brand new fizzy wine, Myx fusions Moscate. She has promoted this on her website as seen in the screenshot below. She has seen the success that Myx has received in the United States and wanted to duplicate it in the UK by also launching there. She is also the co-owner of the company. Due to the success of Nicki Minajs albums she has released perfumes that come with the albums such as ‘Nicki Minaj Onika’, ‘Nicki Minaj Minajesty’, ‘ Nicki Minaj the Pink print and Nicki Minaj Pink Friday.

She has also teamed up with mac cosmetics and has designed an electric shade of pink lipstick for the makeup mogul’s viva glam line. Nicki Minaj teaming up with cosmetic companies’ targets her female audience as women would be attracted to a female, bodied shaped perfume bottle as well as pink lipsticks. Nicki Minaj has channelled her public image of being perceived as a beautiful, black woman into teaming up with companies to produce products which really appeal to her feminine target audience. Cosmetics for women create favourable perceptions. By using this aspect Nicki Minaj is reinforcing her femininity and producing products for her target audience that goes along with the theme of all things girly and ladylike.

Examples of interactivity on Nicki Minajs website is a fan club hyperlink with the options of forum, contest, blogs, campaigns, users and chat. Nicki Minaj audience can interact with any of these contents on her website. “A forum is a medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged.” In the screenshot below on Nicki Minajs website there are different categories such as her tours, fashion and music in which related posts can fall into. A forum on Nicki minajs website appeals to her audience as her fans can interact with each other to post and discuss topics and aspects relating to their favourite celebrity. By this her audience Also they have a common interest which is Nicki Minaj and are using this to interact under different categories of their choice.

A blog is a regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group that is written in an informal or conversational style. On Nicki Minajs website there is a blog section in which fans can upload blogs on the subject of their own choice with other Nicki minajs fans. Every user has its own profile with its views, points, a minor description about themselves and its last seen recorded. In the screen shot below a user called ‘Agen tom’ has his chosen profile photo with a brief description stating ‘Agen tom is from Indonesia. Agen tom has been a member of this site for 2 months. So far Agen tom has earned 211pts and 182 views’.

This appeals to Nicki Minajs fans, as they are able to communicate on a diverse level in which they write about various aspects concerning life and others fans are able to absorb what they read and some of the fans can possibly relate. The users section is where all the users who have account are stored on the website. This would appeal to her audience as they see the amount of fans they can interact and share the common interest of their favourite celebrity. The chat section is assembles on the website for the different users to chat amongst themselves and interact. This appeals to her audience as they share a common, mutual interest and Nicki Minaj has fans worldwide in which a live chat provides easy communication for.

This is Nicki Minajs headline tour photo which is the most prevailing photo on her website as it is the header of the website homepage. It is also portrayed as a panning slide with the companies she’s synergised such as Myx and Beats. In this photo Nicki Minaj is wearing a Native American peacock feathered war bonnet. She is naked with minimal underwear such as a red thong. Native American war bonnets were important ceremonial regalia worn only by chiefs and warriors. Nicki Minaj wearing this feathered headdress indicates that she is a strong, dominant female ready to make her stamp in the music industry as well as the world. This appeals to her fans, as they would absorb her choice of outfit as something to aspire to. Her audience would feel like they are being appealed to as in today’s society females are seen as the less dominant gender. This Native American headdress seen on the audiences favourite celebrity would have the audience feeling empowered and motivated. This headdress represents her as an artist as she is currently one of the most leading female rap artists in the music industry of today

Nicki Minaj is naked in this photo with a red thong and red lipstick. Her body waved black hair is laid to cover her breasts. Wearing red lipstick and a red thong is perceived as sexually appealing. Red is a resilient colour which symbolises love, danger, power, sex and desire. Nicki Minaj is naked with a courageous, sultry look as she is not directly looking at the camera. This long shot illustrates Nicki minajs entire figure as she is known for having a curvy body. This photo represents Nicki Minaj as she embraces her body by confidently displaying it for her fans to see. She shows that she is fearless as well as sexually appealing to her target audience of females as well as her secondary audience of males. This photo has aspects that her audience can decipher and absorb such as her sultry fearless look and her stern body language. These aspects represent Nicki Minaj as she is known for being confident and assertive. This is evident in her lyrics as she has stated she is a “boss ass bitch”. This photo appeals to her audience as they see Nicki Minaj as sexy and attractive. She embraces her body and sexuality which encourages her audience to do the same.

On the screenshot above Nicki Minajs logo is titled ‘My Pink Friday’ which is a play on the sentence ‘black Friday’. This logo represents Nicki Minaj as she has indicated that her favourite colour is pink. Pink is also a ladylike, feminine colour in which she reinforces in all of her projects such as her album pink Friday: Roman Reloaded and the Pink Print. Her logo represents her as the colour pink represents woman. Her artistry, star persona and public image is all about representing woman and bringing a unique, feminine touch to the hip-hop and music culture. Her logo appeals to her audience because the word pink has a different, thicker and classier font type as well as the word being in a baby pink colour. This appeal to her target audience as females are generally enticed to the colour pink and are able to find identify when they see her logo.

On Nicki Minajs website there is a range of social networking sites that Nicki Minaj uses such as twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Myspace, and newsletter updates. Social networking is what majority of people partake in around the world. This appeals to Nicki minajs audience as they are most likely to have accounts on the social media networking sites and are excited to be a part of Nicki Minajs social media accounts. This would appeal to them, as they are able to keep up to date with Nicki Minaj about her events, ventures, projects and feelings announced by the celebrity herself. These social media hyperlinks are an easy way to access Nicki minajs personal social media accounts. The links being visible on her website helps her build and retain her solid target audience.

On Nicki Minajs website there is a navigation bar called media which contains three different examples of multimedia content such as photos, videos and music as seen in the screenshots below. Nicki Minaj having various multimedia content appeals to her audience, as her fans are able to see her various alter egos in her music videos and photos. Nicki MKinaj is known for having many alter egos which influences her style in the way she sings, raps and dresses. Her alter egos are Harajuku Barbie, Cookie, Female Weezy, cookie, roman Zolanski, Martha zolanski, Point Dexter and Rosa. In each of these alter egos contains a different persona. For example Harajuku Barbie is one of NIcki Minajs prominent alter egos in which she accentuates the qualities of an imaginative, fun, coquettish girly girl-fashionista that loves all things pink. This is also the muse who ignites the transformation of Nicki's performances as an R&B/Pop singer and future Rock Star Icon. Fans are able to see Nicki minaj shown in many different lights ion her multimedia content such as her being cookie in an interview or her being female weezy with her blonde dreadlocks in a photograph. Fans would be appealed to as theres a variety of options to be entertained by on her website.