Untitled

[lauraruesch]

Week 13

http://www.nj.com/monmouth/index.ssf/2014/10/nj_penn_state_student_threatened_to_kill_everyone_in_student_union_building.html

Yik Yak is a new social media app that allows individuals (or "yakkers") to post anonymous status updates (or "yaks") that can be up/down voted, and commented on by fellow yakkers. This app shares the same "ephemeral" quality that 4chan possesses where old yaks are deleted to make room for new yaks. It is furthermore similar to 4chan's /b/ board in that it typically offers "the freedom to say anything without the obligation to suffer consequences" (Dibble 84). In the particular instance represented by this article, one individuals life was forever changed when his IRL identity and online identity were connected, much like Poole's life changed when his IRL identity and his online "moot" identity were linked. 

[lauraruesch]

Gender and YouTube as a Career

YouTube as a video-sharing site is host to a number of vloggers who create specific online identities for themselves, and who interact with viewers in many different ways. One of these vloggers is Hannah Hart, curator of the YouTube channel MyHarto, who makes weekly videos on topics ranging from cooking and style, to travel and other random parodied topics. The specific series from MyHarto that I would like to focus on is called My Drunk Kitchen (MDK) and features and inebriated Hannah Hart hosting a parodied show on how to cook while you are drunk. I argue that Hannah’s performance of gender not only creates a particular identity that is challenged by the hegemonic norms of YouTube viewers, but also plays a crucial role in her success after monetizing her channel.

In her videos, Hart performs gender in a variety of ways. Her performances of gender are largely implicit, which Wotanis and McMillan define as, “patterns of speech, behavior and appearance that are not directly labeled as male or female conventions” (Wotanis & McMillan 2014). Hart’s most notable medium for performing gender is her personal style. She uses her appearance to perform either femininity, by styling her hair and wearing make-up, or to perform masculinity by leaving her face natural and dressing in menswear. She furthermore uses specific patterns of speech and tone to convey femininity when discussing various topics. In her episode MDK Ep. 6: Brunch? Hart uses a feminine tone when she says, “Ew, my nails are just disgusting” as she parodies the things women talk about as they make brunch.  This acts to highlight the ridiculousness of the statement, but also reinforces specific gendered stereotypes. More broadly, the overall concept of Hart’s YouTube series also hints at the specific gendered stereotype of the “housewife”. It seems typical that a woman would have a cooking show, yet she is able to counteract this norm with the mocktorial tone she utilizes when discussing cooking, and by becoming sloppily inebriated, a characteristic that is not distinctly feminine.

                Not surprisingly, Hart’s videos herald a plethora of comments ranging in type. But with just a few scrolls through the comments on several videos it becomes clear that the comments on Hart’s videos reinforce the presence of “cyber gender harassment” on YouTube which Wotanis and McMillan define loosely as targeting  a performer in terms of gender (Wotanis & McMillan 2014). Some of Hart’s comments target her for violating the hegemonic style categories for men and women; as one commentor wrote, “Why do women always want to be like men?” (EmilioSantrias).  These types of comments reveal the ways that individuals are evaluated in terms of normative standards, and illustrate the viewer’s role in “policing the behavior and representation of girls in terms of gendered norms” (Wotanis & McMillan 2014). Another style of video comment that is apparent on Hart’s videos forcefully pushes her into the role of the sex object. As another commentor writes, “Hey Hannah you should get drunk qnd let me lick your asshole” (Organgeoctober). The content of this comment may be considered sexually explicit because it “suggests that the value of the performer is in her status as a sexual object or potential sexual partner for the viewer” (Wotanis & McMillan 2014). Both categories attempt to place Hannah in a particular place in the hegemonic gender schema.

                YouTube presents an interesting environment when thinking about the convergence of work and play. Viewers visit the site in their leisure to watch entertaining videos on virtually any category of their choosing. However there are some who have made YouTube their career. With the option to now monetize a channel by allowing ads to play over videos, YouTubers are now able to make money from clicks they receive on their videos.  Hannah’s videos appear, at surface value, to be simply videos of her having fun and being silly, but the presence of ads on virtually all of her videos tells us otherwise. Hart has made a career out of her channel. In his article The Labor of Fun: How Video Games Blur the Boundaries of Work and Play, Nick Yee discusses how, “video games are changing the nature of both work and play…work and play are starting to become indistinguishable from each other” (Yee 2006). The same can be applied to YouTube. While viewers may use it as a site for leisure, that same viewer may be using the video sharing website to create a career and make a living. Because Hart uses her YouTube channel as a career, it makes sense that she would engage repeatedly and methodically in the types of gender performances previously discussed. When Wotanis and McMillan discuss the significance of the gender performances of Jenna Mourey they explain, “Her on-screen behaviors, mode of dress, style and cadence of speech, and video content have become patterned over time and therefore expected by viewers…these performance strategies allow Mourey to trademark herself” (Wotanis & McMillan 2014). This type of trademarking is seen in Hart’s My Drunk Kitchen series too. It is of paramount importance for Hart because it gives her viewers a reason to return, which in turn amplifies her career earnings through clicks.

  References

Wotanis, Lindsey, and Laurie McMillan. (2014). “Performing Gender on YouTube.” Feminist Media Studies,  1-3.

Yee, Nick. (2006). “The Labor of Fun: How Video Games Blur the Boundaries of Work and Play.” Games and Culture 1.1, 68-71.

[lauraruesch]

Week 12

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ellievhall/inside-the-online-world-of-the-women-of-isis

The women presented in this article use social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Kik to engage in ISIS related activities and dissent. They use these platforms because they are the easiest to use and the most widespread. Much like the way that social networks created a far reaching group of rioters that converged in Edinburg in 2011, the social media platforms that are utilized by the women of ISIS have also created far reaching networks of supporters and provide direction to those wishing to make the pilgrimage to ISIS controlled territory.

[lauraruesch]

Week 11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc

This video displays the ideas of parasocial interaction and intense admiration presented in Making Monsters: Lady Gaga, Fan Identification, and Social Media. While Chris Crocker is not engaging in conversation with Britney, this video displays the ability of social media to function as a platform on which to display these intense feelings of love, closeness, and friendship. This video also exemplifies the concept of an imaginary relationship whereby Crocker has developed "intense identification" with a celebrity.

[lauraruesch]

Week 8

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-hanley/why-journalists-should-fe_b_6037410.html

This article echoes many of the sentiments discussed in Cote & Pybus' article. Author Brian Hanley discusses the ways in which social media users engage in immaterial labour, by posting newsworthy stories which in turn detract from the traditional role of the journalist. He also discusses the ways that social media users rely on their newsfeed to disseminate information and determine what the social media audience sees as legible and valorized. Hanley lastly makes an argument that the convergence of the social and media world's has produced a new kind of audience which fits Cote & Pybus's description of audience as "a dynamic, productive composition of bodies," in this case, based on their ability to both consume and create newsworthy stories. He argues in favor of the audience commodity when he claims that "since digital media is abundant beyond measure, we share the responsibility, as journalists, to promote only the content that we deem worthy of our audience's attention". In this sense, journalists are vying for the attention of the social media community to do a service for them.

[lauraruesch]

YouTube as a Post-Feminist Celebrity Space

YouTube as a Post-Feminist Celebrity Space

            “Broadcast Yourself” is the slogan that greets visitors of the social media site YouTube. YouTube encourages individuals to post videos with virtually zero limits as to what the content of the videos should include. This results in a vast array of heterogeneous user-generated content. While individuals use YouTube to disseminate many types of information, each video provides the viewer with information that can be used to create an identity for, or give attributes to, the creator. One YouTuber in specific, Jenna Marbles, seems to use YouTube to craft a very particular image of herself.  Jenna is a YouTube comedian who produces largely solo comedy videos that satirize everyday things and activities that are relatable to a large audience. In her video “My 200th Video,” Jenna thanks her subscribers and viewers for helping her get to where she is today, apologizes to those who have gotten bored of her over the years, and sends an overall message of empowerment about following life’s path and having faith that all will be alright. While watching this video, it became clear that Jenna is engaging in practices of both celebrity and Post-feminism.

            Jenna begins her 200th video by telling her viewers, “I wanted to take you to one of my favorite places to share some thoughts with you…I have food to eat, a roof over my head. You put those things there and I don’t really know why”.  Marwick and Boyd discuss celebrity as a performative practice, whereby “celebrity is maintained through mutual recognition of power differentials by fan and practitioner, and maintenance of one’s fan base through performed intimacy, affiliation and public knowledge” (Marwick & Boyd, 2011). In this beginning statement of her video Jenna is clearly performing celebrity by acknowledging the power differential that has been created through her fans elevating her success, by bringing her fans intimately close when she “takes” them to her “favorite place”, and by sending this message of thank you out as public knowledge. This can also be viewed as an attempt to brand oneself. As Banet-Weiser discusses, branding oneself is “a practice deployed by individuals to communicate personal values, ideas, and beliefs using strategies and logic from commercial brand culture” (Banet-Weiser, 2011). Jenna illustrates humble values in her opening statement when she takes the time to thank her viewers for her success, and later in the video demonstrates her own personal value by encouraging her fans to continue following her because “I will always be here”. Much like a brand-name product that you would buy at the store, Jenna markets herself as a product available for reliable consumption. However it is not only the content creator who has power in the celebrity-fan relationship. Marwick and Boyd cite Goffman’s idea of symbolic interactionism as an important part of performing celebrity whereby, “individuals work together to uphold preferred self-images of themselves and their conversation partners, through strategies like maintaining face, collectively encouraging social norms, or negotiating power differentials and disagreements” (Marwick & Boyd, 2011). In the case of YouTube it seems that symbolic interactionism would take place in user comments on “My 200th Video”. While these kinds of comments are not conducive to interactive conversation, they do “create a continuous dynamic between consumer/user and producer,” and provide a platform for Jenna Marbles to maintain her celebrity (Banet-Weiser, 2011). Furthermore, these weak ties which do not facilitate two-way interaction can none the less still be considered an important form of “social capital” (Lewis & West, 2009). For the viewers, commenting on videos is social capital because it allows them to potentially contact a celebrity, and for the celebrities these videos function as social capital by providing proof of their success and popularity.

            Additionally, it may be argued that Jenna Marbles engages in Post-feminist practices during the creation of her videos. Dubrovsky and Wood discuss the idea of female identities online and explain that, “Postfeminism implies that women self-representing online is empowering and gives them agency over their identity-making” (Dubrovsky & Wood, 2014). During her 200th video, Jenna takes the time to define her identity when she says, “I’m just Jenna. That’s all I can ever be. Nothing special at all”. Although viewers may prescribe their own identities to her that attempt to discredit her agency, Jenna’s creation of these videos by herself signals her agency in her public identity. Much like the way Dubrovsky and Wood discuss Miley Cyrus’s awareness of her online performance as authenticating, Jenna’s acknowledgement during the video that her fans may be getting bored of her because she’s “just Jenna,” gives credit and value to her videos as authentically representing her identity. (Dubrovsky & Wood, 2014). This authenticity contributes just as much to branding oneself as does the performance of celebrity. Because Jenna creates an authentic and reliable identity through post-feminist practices, Banet-Weiser argues that “she is encouraged to be a product within a neoliberal context; she authorizes herself to be consumed through her own self-production” (Banet-Weiser, 2011). This is particularly important when considering YouTube, because a successful “product” not only garners many views and comments on video posts, but also can lead secondary consumption by companies wishing to advertise their products through her product.

  References

Banet-Weiser, Sarah. (2011). Branding the Post-Feminist Self: Girls’ Video Production and YouTube.

Dubrovsky, Rachel E., Wood, Meghan M. (2014). Posting Racism and Sexism: Authenticity, Agency and Self-Reflexivity in Social Media, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 11:3, 282-287

Lewis, Jane. West, Anne. (2009). ‘Friending’: London-Based Undergraduates’ Experience of Facebook. New Media Society. 11:7. 1209-1229

Marwick, Alice. Boyd, Danah. (2011). To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. 17:2. 139-158