Instagram Excess and Fraud: Exploring the Relationship Between Internet Celebrities, Luxury, and Fraud in Contemporary Nigeria

This chapter examines prominent Nigerian internet celebrities who gained fame on Instagram by flaunting their lavish lifestyles and, paradoxically, retaining large online followings despite legal charges for money laundering and fraud. Through digital ethnography, literature review, and archival research, discussing Hushpuppi’s case will offer insight into how celebrities’ social media narratives reflect and shape Nigeria’s moral economy of fraud and corruption. Social media posts displaying luxury can be interpreted as a response to social pressures on marginalised youth and a subversive act against Nigeria’s postcolonial hierarchies and global structural inequalities. Yet, these posts can also be connected with the emersion of international online networks facilitating illegal cross-border activities. Thus, by analysing the social context of these public digital figures, this chapter will shed light on their strategies for navigating regulatory frameworks, deflecting fraud allegations, and maintaining celebrity status while flaunting luxury lifestyles amidst a neoliberal system bursting with economic uncertainty.