Week Nine
Research on computer-mediated communication has commonly pushed forward a binary, black-and-white ‘real life’ vs ‘online’ discourse (Lange 2009, p. 72). The positive effects of the creation, uploading, and sharing of a YouTube video has been buried amongst the notion that online communication is supposedly lacking in a way that face-to-face communication is not.
This week hones in on the concept of ‘networked visuality’; the way that as a network, we communicate visually: through snapshots and images. The rise of social media platform Snapchat has made networked visuality a common thread linking our communicative practices.
One of Snapchat’s key affordances is its ephemerality - the fact that the image we send through a snap lasts for up to ten seconds (Herrman 2014). There is no way for recipients to comment on a Snap, or ‘like’ it. This is a key feature of networked visuality - instead of the selfie or video being a piece of media that people communicate ‘around’, they are solely communicating <i>through</i> the Snapchat video or selfie.
If you had told me about this form of communication a few years ago, as a teenager, I’d have likely laughed and imagined that you had gleaned the concept of Snapchat through a movie or a TV show. But our current reality is one rife with imaging communities; communities where people create content of the visual, aural and haptic variety, in order to communicate directly to people.
Whether this method of communication pales in comparison to offline communication is an opinion that has been explored ad nauseam. This week served to move beyond this discourse, and onto an exploration of the kinds of ways digital imaging serves to draw audience members and content creators together.
In this week’s first reading, Lange discusses 'videos of affinity’ on YouTube. She deems these videos as the types that are made in an attempt to establish a connection with people (Lange 2009, p. 71). They can be 'amateur’ type video blogs, complete with a shaky handheld video camera; yet they can also be professionally made and dispersed to a large audience (Lange 2009, p. 71).
As I was poring through Lange’s reading, I immediately thought of popular Australian YouTube makeup blogger Lauren Curtis. Curtis’ YouTube channel boasts over three million subscribers (Lauren Curtis 2015), and I happen to be one of them!
Curtis’ videos are largely 'professional seeming’ in nature. The lighting is normally close to perfect, there is often a soundtrack or voice over accompanying the video, and Curtis’ camera is trained directly in front of her. She does however, often film and upload videos of affinity. They’re usually titled 'Follow me Around’. Her most recent video of this type, uploaded in December, is called 'Follow Me Around: NEW MAKEUP STORAGE, SEEING OPRAH, ROAD RAGE!’ (Follow Me Around 2014).
The title of the video, 'Follow Me Around’, immediately brings to mind the idea of following Curtis around as she goes about her day. This arguably helps to make audience members feel as though when watching the video, that they are placed in the role of 'Lauren’s friend’, following her around and having a casual chat as friends would.
The video begins with grainy footage of Curtis, makeup free, freshly awoken. She mentions that it had been a while since she had done a video of this nature, and that it was 'well overdue.’ Evidently, Curtis perhaps figured that to retain and form new connections with her followers and potential audience members, it was important to film a video of affinity, to perhaps remind audiences that despite her increasing fame, she is still a real person who isn’t in makeup all day, every day
.
Curtis even references a pimple on her chin, which further serves as an attempt to engage her viewers. Curtis makes a living creating makeup tutorials for her audience members; many of which perhaps want to wear makeup to help them feel better about themselves. By showing her audience that her face isn’t flaw-free, Curtis affiliates’ herself with her audience, assuring them that she is just like them.
Curtis also reorganises her mounds of makeup products during her video. This is an act that is a bit of an inside joke for a large amount of her audience, as she often complains about the extensive amount of makeup she owns and how difficult it is to sift through it all.
Like many videos of affinity, this act also ensures that Curtis’ video lies in the intercies of her other work (Lange 2009, p. 71) - viewers may be amused by the video, but they will also be reminded of who Curtis is, and the makeup tutorials on YouTube that have made her so successful.
Whether the creator of a video of affinity is a well known YouTube celebrity, or a relatively anonymous person whose video receives five views, one fact remains clear: connecting and communicating with people in potentially meaningful ways is no longer relegated to the 'offline world’. Images, whether still or moving, are now used as immediate tools in the act of communication.
We don’t just post an image on Facebook and wait for people to comment on it, we communicate directly to our best friends or YouTube subscribers by looking straight through a lens and speaking to them, as if we would in person. There’s something a little intriguing about that, isn’t there?
REFERENCES
Follow Me Around 2015, Lauren Curtis, December 7, viewed 29 December 2015, http://youtu.be/IMUHgjlbJmA.
Herrman, J 2014, 'Meet the Man who got inside Snapchat’s Head’, Buzzfeed, Jan 28, viewed 29 December 2014, http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/meet-the-unlikely-academic-behind-snapchats-new-pitch#.wkJqPKPxla.
Lange, P G. 2009, 'Videos of Affinity on YouTube’, The YouTube Reader, National Library of Sweden, Stockholm.
Swinburne Online 2015, 'Week Nine: Visual Communities and Social Imaging’, MDA20009 Digital Communities, Learning Material on Blackboard, Swinburne University of Technology, Teaching Period 3, September 14, viewed December 29 2015.