#analyticalresponse1

[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

[williamsbrandan]

Facebook: Liking vs Friendship (Analytical Response 1)

            Today, we are all attached to some social media outlet.  No matter which outlet you use, every click or tap of a button is very important as it contains more information than you might expect.  When you like something on Facebook, you are giving out a bit of information to whose ever page or status you are liking.  If it is a friend, you are saying that you feel connected to this person in some way based on the status or photo that was liked.  When it is a fan page, you are turning yourself into an advertisement for all of your Facebook friends to see, especially since Facebook shares with others what you liked when you liked it via news feed updates.  We use likes to help present ourselves in whatever way we chose online.  The corporations we like then provide us with more opportunities to like more pages and we become walking advertisements.  For this analysis, I looked at my own Facebook profile and went back to look at all the things that I liked over the years.

            On my own profile, I noticed many pages within my likes that were not even active pages.  Many of these pages did not even mean anything; they were just random quotes and statements.  Some of them include “I Hate Homework” and “If I get 1000 likes I’ll shave my head” and trivial statements and more.  For my first year or so on Facebook, those were the pages that I liked.  Although a good number of those pages have disappeared, some of them are still there, posting spam and troll pages all over my news feed.  The pages that are not spam pages however are very commercialistic.  Those pages include my favorite TV shows and networks (mostly NBC) and companies such as 7-11 and Buffalo Wild Wings just to name a couple (there are many more).  This is the image of myself that I let others know about.  I am selling these corporations to all of my Facebook friends like a commercial would.  While people who make commercials make a ton of money for them, I do not make any money.  Also worth noting is that my news feed on Facebook is, at times, similar to that of Mathew Honan, author of “I Liked Everything I Saw on Facebook for Two Days.  Here’s What it Did to Me”.  Honan performed an experiment via Facebook that involved literally clicking the like button for everything that came across his news feed.  Honan (2014) commented that his feed “became about brands and messaging, rather than humans with messages” (p. 3).  I tend to scroll through my news feed very often and it is becoming scarcer to find the people who are my friends and what they are doing on the internet.  When I do see a friend appear on my news feed, it tends to be accompanied with an advertisement about something they like and a place that they went to.  Despite this, there are ways that Facebook has made it easier to keep up with your friends.

            While Facebook has this reputation as a giant commercial, there are ways to get in touch with your actual friends (there may still be some commercials on the side though).  Facebook also has many lists which you can use to categorize your friends.  For example, there is the “Close Friends” list which will put the friends of your choice into a group that is easy to access and will only give you updates regarding those specific people.  I personally have found that very helpful in keeping in contact with people I actually consider close friends because I am the one who created that list.  I see this as a shift in power between the user and Facebook itself.  Facebook controls what I can and cannot see, but the close friends list in my choice.  Also on Facebook are groups, which allow people with similar interests or people within the same community to come together and socialize.  Boyd (2008) describes these groups as a way to “provide opportunities for always-on access to peer communication, new kinds of authoring of public identities, public display of connectedness, and access to information about others” (p. 5).  I agree with Boyd here and many of these definitions Boyd provides are my reasons for being in Facebook groups.  I use these groups to enhance my involvement in face-to-face interactions, but I also learn more about people through their Facebook profile.

            In conclusion, Facebook, for me, has been a tricky thing to navigate through.  While liking can and does lead to increased advertisement, it is not all necessarily negative.  We want advertise ourselves in some ways.  As long as we can maintain friendships, which Facebook does allow ways to do so, especially through groups and lists, which have strengthened my social media experiences.

  References

Honan, M. (2014, August 11). I Liked Everything I Saw on Facebook for Two Days. Here’s What it Did to Me. Retrieved October 20, 2014.

Boyd, D. (2008, January 1). Friendship. Retrieved October 20, 2014.

[natashakothare]

Analytical Response 1

                Social media is a term that has been incorporated into every individual’s vocabulary. In this new age media society we are programmed into constantly having the urge to update our profiles and post online any and every activity that we are participating in. There have been many different types of social media networks, such as Xanga, and Myspace, but the most commonly used website today is Facebook. Facebook is an online social networking service that allows individuals of all ages to connect and share their lives on the internet. I too have a Facebook account. The most alluring part of Facebook is the ability to connect with many different types of people. I have moved seven different times in my life so far. The only real way I get to communicate with people from my childhood is through Facebook because I do not live by these individuals any more. The Rutgers Class of 2017 is a huge class, and the Facebook group “Rutgers Class of 2017” allows me to get to know many of the individuals who I am graduating with. As individuals in an electronic and technological world, we “frequently use social media as additional channels of communication to get to know classmates and turn acquaintances into friendships” (Boyd Friendship) which is what I do through the Rutgers group.

On Facebook it is common to write on each-others walls to communicate with your friends as opposed to having a private messages. Wall to wall conversations are popular because individuals want others to indirectly know what’s going on in their life.  Boyd believes that “one of the ways in which social media alter friendship practices is through the forced—and often public—articulation of social connections. From instant messaging “buddy lists” to the public listing of “Friends” on social network sites, teens are regularly forced to list their connections as part of social media participation” (Boyd Friendship) and through that participation we learn about others without directly seeking this information.

Another social media site that was very popular was Myspace. On Myspace, there was a feature that Facebook does not have called the “Top Friends List” where Myspace users could rate their close friends from 1-8 and make that rating public where everyone could see. This Friends List was your tool to finding out if your friend was mad at you or who someone’s best friend was. This “feature quickly became a social battleground as participants struggled over who should make the list and, more important, who should be in the first position” (Boyd Friendship) and thus caused many rifts in friendships based on the Top Friend ratings. When I was an avid Myspace user I would regularly check my friends Top Friends to see if I was part of their list and if my number changed or if I wasn’t on the list anymore it implied that my friend was upset or mad at me or there was another issue in the friendship. Myspace Top Friends became such an issue that I would make mine private so that no one would know who my top friends would be but I would still  update my Top Friends List so that I would know how I felt about my friends. Although that seems silly, I would use my private Top Friends List to express my feelings about my friends and where they stood in my life.

            A very large part of social media is your image. The “profile picture becomes the most important because that image is repeated in the News Feed whenever an action is taken; it functions as a visual symbol of your online life” (Sarachan 55 Profile Picture Right Here Right Now) and it is seen by everyone who comes into contact with your online profile(s). The image that is portrayed through your profile picture is a depiction of the person you want others to see you as. As the woman who came in as a guest speaker in class showed, her profile picture was her sitting on the couch with her dog. She wanted others to see her as an easy going woman who loves her dog. Other individual, such as Trevor Martin the YouTube Apple Store dancing sensation, like to make their profile pictures more dramatically staged. My photo is a posed photo of me smiling at the camera. Other individuals who I am friends with have candid photos they had taken by others, or photos that they took with their webcam, or photos that were just taken in their bathroom with their iPhone. The image that is portrayed through your profile picture is the first impression you give to others.

            Social Media has taken over the population and more and more individuals are logging on. This trend seems to be picking up at a very rapid rate.

    Works Cited:

Boyd 2008 Friendship

Sarachan 2010 Profile Picture Right Here Right Now