Maybe I am "too old" but I still don't really understand YouTube celebrities. I understand an awesome video, but I cannot wrap my head around the popularity of some of these YouTube channels. I have an abnormally long attention span (I have sat through Wagner's Ring Cycle), but I get bored after 15 seconds of a makeup tutorial or unboxing video. My little cousins have YouTubers they are obsessed with and maybe it is just an age thing? Furthermore, I have read Spreadable Media twice in the last 5 years, and I am still unsure how virality happens. Especially now, when every other person has a YouTube channel, how do certain ones really take off? When there is (in my opinion) truly compelling television shows, what makes someone tune in to a teenager talking about their day? I am still studying this, because I am oddly fascinated by it.
As a side note, it is really interesting to see how YouTube is influencing "mainstream" television and movies. I used to work as a casting assistant, and I was often tasked with making lists of social media influencers. I would have to mark how many followers they had on their YouTube channel and other social media platforms. More often that not, our office would call them in for auditions - not because of talent - but because the producers liked that they had a builtin audience if they were cast. Also, if it came down to two actors for a role, the producers would look at their social media presence and way more often than not, they would cast the actor with more followers. It makes sense, but I don't know how I feel about it.
I'm fascinated by successful YouTube personalities, even if I can't actually bring myself to watch too many of their videos. I also get bored with unboxing videos and I think I may have too much second-hand embarrassment for the diary-style confessionals. What I find most interesting is the high quality AV setups and meticulous mise-en-scene some of them arrange, particularly on gaming videos.
ReplyDeleteI also have little cousins who were obsessed with certain YouTube stars. They went to see several of them live maybe 4 years ago at age 13 (at a concert? performance? It's still unclear to me what actually happened at this live event). My aunt described the audience as a crowd of screaming teenage girls and their confused parents. I think she compared it a crowd waiting for the Beatles to arrive. I asked my cousins why they liked these personalities and they told me they thought the teen boys were cute, they liked how they had everyday lives like them, and some of them had a slapstick style of comedy they liked. Perhaps it is an age thing, but I also wonder how gender affects which personalities attract which audiences and how young people like my cousins perform their fandom, which didn't seem to have extremely new practices, just new objects.
I stumbled into the world of Youtube about six years ago as I was hunting for tutorials to guide me through dip dyeing my hair, and I've watched various creators pretty consistently ever since. I watch all manner of content - make-up/style, comedy, cooking, lifestyle vlogs, talks shows - I'll even watch game walkthroughs from time to time.
ReplyDeleteI will admit to loving vlogs, which I like to think of as an alternative narrative mode - they're largely formless, meandering, calming in their banality, but they can also be highly stylized and slickly edited. With the proliferation of strains of online content that invite the viewer to accompany the creator during an activity - daily vlogs, walkthroughs, mukbang, unboxings, livestreams across platforms - I wonder whether it might be worthwhile for us to conceive of this narrative mode as constituting its own category, and to regard it not as some incomprehensible trend or some inferior iteration of television, but as a new mode of storytelling.
Just three (or two?) words: para-social interaction
ReplyDeleteThe past few month's I've been watching a-lot of videos by self professed 'beauty gurus'. I was originally drawn to them because I'm interested in doing more drag and I thought I would get and find useful advice (which I absolutely did) but while I was doing that I was really intrigued by how much drama and real tangible influence that some of these beauty gurus have. Some of it's productive, such as calling out the exclusion of women of color by certain make-up brands from some of these influencers such as Jackie Aina and Nyma Tang (Nyma Tang actually does a rely fascinating thing on her channel where she tries on a brands 'darkest shade' to see if it will match her because she has a such a deep dark complexion). Sometimes it's just annoying gossip (such as people speculating what happened between the friendship of Jeffree Star and Manny MUA).
ReplyDeleteIt's just fascinating that by being on Youtube high fashion make-up brands rely on them to help up sell their products. Many cosmetic companies it seems send them 'PR packages' to review new make-up for them to utilize on their channels and give their honest reviews. Sometimes, when they are negative in can result in no longer being on a companies PR List (Such as when Jeffree Star reviewed Kylie Jenner's make-up brush kit that cost $360; which by the way doesn't include tax and shipping costs) other times it helps a brand: Jeffree Star being an example because he interestingly has built such an empire for himself that it seems that if he doesn't like your product, it just won't sell.
I'm just generally fascinated by how Youtube content creators have almost established themselves as being vital for businesses, especially beauty and fashion, where not only do the influencers need these brands, but the brands need them as well. It's all just very intriguing I guess!
Wow! This is definitely an interesting thread of conversation and I love the range of perspectives on YouTube.
ReplyDeleteCall me old, but I never understood this other burgeoning group of social media influencers that have popped up out of nowhere. I cannot wrap my head around the fact that even though when we so many YouTube channels where content creators are putting up original content, there are people who are getting tons of publicity from doing pretty much nothing. After watching that Twitch video in class, I decided to randomly surf YouTube and found a similar slew of YouTubers whose job is to react to other YouTube videos. It's a distrubing yet fascinating trend that's clearly going nowhere and is becoming the entertainment we 'watch'.
Also to add, with the launch of YouTube Red and Facebook Watch, it's very interesting to note this trend of digital and social media platforms turning into streaming platforms that are a mix of pre-digitization and post-digitization era. While content creators can launch their own shows, they have to create pilots, test them, and then get picked up to run on the platforms. HONY has a show because they tied up with Facebook Watch to produce and now YouTube is ordering new shows to air on YouTube Red – http://deadline.com/2018/04/youtube-orders-wayne-action-comedy-series-produced-deadpool-writers-1202374705/
DeleteI'd say this is worth looking into as a new trend in television content and production.
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