Twenty-five years ago, The Truman Show hit screens around the world. A bitter satire of a society of entertainment without qualms, Peter Weir’s film starred Jim Carrey in the role of Truman Burbank, an ordinary man who became a reality TV hero without his knowledge. A blockbuster heralding the great unpacking of social networks, which resonates today with the meteoric rise of Kenza Benchrif, whom young Internet users know under the pseudonym of Poupette Kenza. At 22, married and mother of two children, her name prances every evening at the top of trends on Twitter, and she is currently the most followed Frenchwoman on Snapchat, where she has more than a million subscribers.
Every day, facing the camera, Poupette does her hair, dresses, prepares breakfast and sometimes affirms her desire to practice her Muslim religion more rigorously. Poupette reveals the tax audits launched on all of his companies which force him to spend hours with his accountant. Poupette has to manage a mattress infested with bed bugs, pierces her pimples or shows the unvarnished reality of postpartum depression, crying hot tears while cooking, the piercing cries of her youngest child in the background…
Free-wheeling exhibition or well-conducted marketing strategy? Kenza Benchrif has, in any case, been able to transform her life into a telenovela 2.0 with the sole power of her phone, unlike reality TV candidates who, as a general rule, go first to the small screen in the hope to then embrace the career of influencers. In constant dialogue with her fans – whom she calls her “puppets” –, the young mother posts videos continuously (between twenty and thirty snaps per hour), and responds to hundreds of messages every day. From the corridors of French high schools to hair salons and other manicure institutes, we comment on the latest escapades of Poupette and her family galaxy.
A young seamstress living in the Paris region, Derya discovered Poupette Kenza thanks to her sister-in-law. “She has taste, she is beautiful and stylish, she has everything going for her. I find her spontaneous and natural, she has a way of being that inspires confidence, with gentleness. Just her name, Poupette, is too cute. » A capacity for seduction which can be explained, according to Catherine Lejealle, doctor of sociology specializing in new technologies : “The mainspring of the influencer today is proximity. Poupette Kenza is a kind of good friend who really resembles the young women who follow her, who has all the best plans and shares them. »
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