Women on Youtube: Exploring Identity Performances of Female Creators Using Intersectionality and Media Ecology
WOMEN ON YOUTUBE: EXPLORING IDENTITY PERFORMANCES OF FEMALE CREATORS USING INTERSECTIONALITY AND MEDIA ECOLOGY
Alyssa N. Fisher
A Dissertation
Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
December 2019
Committee:
Radhika Gajjala, Advisor
Lubomir Popov Graduate Faculty Representative
John Dowd
Sandra Faulkner © 2019
Alyssa Fisher
All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT
Radhika Gajjala, Advisor
Makeup tutorials, cooking demonstrations, cocktail recipes, fashion reviews: these are the topics dominating the content of some of the most popular channels on YouTube that are led by women. In this project, conceptualizing the ways in which women express their identity through everyday enactments of life in public and at home is examined through case studies of performances from four female youtubers. The platform’s emerging content, new practices of creative control, and distribution are shaping production, consumption, and the conversation about feminism and gender identity. Through the lenses of visual analysis, media ecology, critical feminist media studies, and performativity of gender, the study examines the established ways in which four women on YouTube enact their identities online, picking and choosing which identifiers, qualities, characteristics, and actions are shared in an effort to personify their chosen self.
I first use a critical feminist framework and perform a qualitative visual analysis of
YouTube videos from female YouTube creators. Findings include the setting and negotiating of content templates, collaboration, use of YouTube trending content, revealing intersectional identifiers, using comedic frames, dismantling the male gaze, and catchphrases. Secondly, an exploration and analysis are done on the media ecology of the YouTube Studio. Using
McLuhan’s laws of the media, the Studio is evaluated for the ways that its features amplify, obsolesce, reverse, and retrieve social interactions within the media realm. This is then compared with the values that youtubers themselves contribute to the media ecology of YouTube creators, here called the creator ecology. Findings include a focus on audience metrics such as views, comments, likes, and dislikes, and values of community and creative expression. iv Implications for the project bring awareness to the navigation of the YouTube platform by four women who have participated in the platform within the past ten years through the use of concepts from intersectionality and media ecology. The findings discuss social impacts of the current YouTube ecology including youtuber burnout, navigating changes to channel content, and tensions between the relationships of creator, audience, and the YouTube platform.
Keywords: YouTube, youtuber, youtuber burnout, intersectionality, media ecology, gaze theory v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The inkling for this project started as I was finishing my master’s degree in Oregon in
June of 2011. My friend sent me a YouTube video of a woman making mimosas by pouring just the tiniest bit of orange juice in a bottle of champagne, and then proceeding to drink that bottle of champagne while trying to make pancakes. Hannah Hart’s sixth episode of My Drunk Kitchen spurred me to subscribe to a YouTube channel for the first time, and eventually led to this exploration of female creators on the platform. So – thank you to Kelly Johnson for sending that video my way, and thank you to Hannah Hart for making brunch.
Dr. Gajjala, although our conversations are always brief, they reassure and challenge me for months at a time. Your encouragement to take a multi-faceted approach to research is invigorating. Your guarantee that every project is endlessly complicated by outside factors and finding beauty in that has taught me to embrace the messiness of so much of academia. I also must thank you for your creation of our free-writing digital feminists group just when I needed it.
Thank you to all of the digital feminists for re-instilling creativity in the writing process as I was embarking on this big project.
Dr. Dowd, your patient re-explanations of the sometimes-cloudy world of media ecology have saved me more than once, right up to the very end. Thank you for sharing your way of looking at the world with me. Dr. Faulkner, thank you for your enthusiasm about any idea I ever brought to you. Thank you for your commitment to helping all of us navigate this dissertation process and giving me the tools to create a writing practice and embrace that word practice throughout.
I’d also like to express thanks to Dr. Ha for your guidance, encouragement, and support throughout my time at BGSU, and to Dr. Rosati for your mentorship and willingness to answer questions about all aspects of academia. vi To my cohort, small and mighty, thank you for being so supportive! Laura, Adam, and
Kisun, I’m so excited to see all of us flourish. To my BG friends who always let me know that
I’m invited– Cody, and Aimee especially – thank you for making fun happen.
There are many people who were not in BG but were still integral parts of my success there. My cohort in Oregon – Arielle, Philip, Jesse, Kelly, Allison, Rebecca, Steph, Jaime,
Tomas, and many more. You made grad school so fun that I had to go back, and while I can never replace our time together, my love for being around likeminded scholars and community stewards started with you. To Kimberly’s girls – our trips were the best vacations from studying
I could ask for! My parents instilled in me a love for reading that made coursework just bearable, and I know you are the biggest supporters of me going back to school as many times as I want and endlessly proud. I cannot express my thanks for the many physical and emotional ways you’ve helped me, but mostly thanks for loving and taking care of my dog so much.
Brother, life is way more fun when you’re around. Aaron, I’m endlessly thankful for your ability to support and encourage me in ways I don’t know I need. Prim, my pup, who just wanted me to read journal articles to her sometimes, thank you for all the cuddles. vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO STUDY TOPICS AND STUDY CONCEPTS ...... 1
Theoretical Frameworks……………………… ...... 2
Media Reproduction of Cultural Norms ...... 2
Social Technology Theory ...... 4
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 6
Gaze Theory...... 6
Intersectionality ...... 9
Media Ecology...... 14
Industrialization of Culture ...... 22
Gendered Work in Media ...... 23
Digital Identity ...... 25
YouTube ...... 31
Creator Identity ...... 34
Methodology...... 36
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH STUDY DESIGN ...... 40
Introduction of Case Studies ...... 45
Rationale ...... 50
CHAPTER 4: YOUTUBERS IN THE KITCHEN: MAMRIE HART AND HANNAH HART...... 52
Mamrie Hart & You Deserve a Drink ...... 53
Charlie Sheen’s Tiger Blood Gimlet...... 53
Ya Busted With Tyler Oakley...... 58 viii
Cardi B’nana Freeze ...... 63
Riffing on Format ...... 66
You all Deserve a Drink ...... 74
Hannah Hart & My Drunk Kitchen ...... 75
Butter Yo Shit ...... 76
Birthday Cake Crossovers ...... 80
Hart’s Queer Kitchen ...... 85
Harts in the Kitchen ...... 90
CHAPTER 5: “I DON’T KNOW”: GRACE HELBIG AND LILLY SINGH’S TEN YEARS
ON YOUTUBE ...... 92
Grace Helbig ...... 93
My Damn Channel ...... 93
it’sGrace ...... 97
Navigating Fulfilling Content ...... 103
Lilly Singh...... 106
Females Behind the Scenes ...... 106
The Indian Parent Stereotype ...... 109
Vlogs...... 111
Hiatus Episodes ...... 114
Grace Helbig – “I’m taking a break” ...... 117
Lilly Singh – “I’ll see you soon…” ...... 120
Breaking the Hiatus...... 125
I’m Back? ...... 125 ix
Learning how to be James Charles ...... 127
This Channel is Changing ...... 129
CHAPTER 6: THE MEDIA ECOLOGY OF THE YOUTUBE PLATFORM ...... 133
YouTube Studio ...... 134
YouTube Studio & The Laws of the Media ...... 141
Creators’ Media Ecology ...... 143
Community ...... 144
Creative Expression ...... 147
CHAPTER 7: DISCUSSION ...... 150
Findings ...... 151
Research Question 1 ...... 151
Research Question 2 ...... 154
Research Question 3 ...... 156
Research Question 4 ...... 158
Content Containers...... 159
Collaboration...... 160
Limitations...... 161
Future Directions ...... 163
REFERENCES ...... 166 x
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1 The dashboard of the YouTube Studio ...... 134 Running head: WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 1
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO STUDY TOPICS AND STUDY CONCEPTS
Makeup tutorials, cooking demonstrations, cocktail recipes, fashion reviews: these are the topics dominating the content of some of the most popular channels on YouTube that are led by women. What does it mean that contemporary, millennial, and generation Z women (born since the 1980s according to Serazio (2015)) are broadcasting themselves to millions of followers, demonstrating work that is traditionally attributed to women, and often to housework? Today’s feminism ranges from advocating for equal pay and opportunities to eradicating sexual harassment, to conceptualizing how women express their identity through everyday enactments of life in public and at home. Depending on the situation, medium, goals of interaction, or personal state of mind, the ways, levels, and the number of identifiers that are shared will vary.
This is true for the women of YouTube as well. The platform, its emerging content, new practices of creative control, and distribution are shaping production, consumption, and the conversation about feminism and gender identity. Through visual analysis, a study of media ecology, critical feminist media studies, and performativity of gender, I examine the established ways in which women enact their identities online, picking and choosing which identifiers, qualities, characteristics, and actions are shared in an effort to personify their chosen self. The goal of this project was to get a big picture of the ways that the YouTube platform and creators’ engagement with it is shaping and changing cultural norms when it comes to female performances in entertainment. The project is grounded in social theories of technology including media ecology and the industrialization of culture as well as feminist theories of performance such as gaze theory and intersectionality to examine the performances of female youtubers, and identify and evaluate the creator ecology of the platform in order to find common themes and contributions to society and the way that media portrays women. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 2
I first use a critical feminist framework and perform a qualitative visual analysis of
YouTube videos from female YouTube creators (Wotanis & McMillan, 2014; Brock, 2016).
Through identification of the themes, frames, and any re-enactments of gendered tasks or
emotional work, this project discovers how today’s female YouTubers create, maintain, and
navigate shifts in their identities online. Using Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding model,
communication methods and performance framing using comedic lenses are examined. Findings
include the setting and negotiating of content templates, collaboration, use of YouTube trending
content, and catchphrases. Secondly, an exploration and analysis is done on the media ecology of
the features provided by YouTube for their creators through the YouTube Studio. Using
McLuhan’s laws of the media, the Studio is evaluated for the ways that it amplifies, obsolesces,
reverses, and retrieves social interactions within the media realm. This is then compared with the
values that youtubers themselves contribute to the media ecology of YouTube creators. Findings
include a focus on audience metrics such as views, comments, likes, and dislikes, and values of
community and creative expression. I begin with a literature review of media representations of
“women’s work,” particularly on television, the ways that YouTube as an industry enables creators to publish socially dialogic content, and the ways that YouTube’s media ecology and the women on YouTube contribute to online feminism.
Theoretical Frameworks
Media Reproduction of Cultural Norms
We must begin with the philosophical idea that our culture has normative paths of behavior and expectations for gendered actions. The concept of hegemony originates with
Gramsci (2007) and concerns the ways in which cultural hierarchies are created and maintained through communication in many forms including news, advertising, fiction, interpersonal and WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 3
group interaction, and other forms of media. It is Gramsci who discusses the concept of cultural
hegemony: that those in power control the content of our culture in a way that continues the
process of hegemonic structural creation and hierarchies of certain groups, whether based on
gender, race, class, or other factors.
Women’s place in technology is a marked category – there is a cultural question of where women fit in technological advances, how they will be represented, how they will participate, and how they will contribute to the adoption, use, and other influences of technology (Wajcman,
2007). Digital spaces are a key location for the case study as domesticity, women’s bodies, and mommy ideals are all concepts portrayed and continually redefined through women’s own voices. Through a discussion of media reproduction of cultural norms and characterizations of gender, I will examine the ways that cultural hegemony defines gender in the digital space, and finally, provide some conceptions of how this may serve as a predictor of the ways that women as a gender are characterized in future media.
D’Acci’s 2004 article evaluated cultural models when applied to television. D’Acci used a proposed circuit model to assess how television contributes to hegemony, or articulates new definitions through cultural lenses and concludes that television as a site allows for interaction between other sites, and therefore provides many opportunities for an articulation of ideas, both revealing hegemonic power structures and offering the chance for reinterpretation. D’Acci’s model demonstrated that television’s shaping of cultural norms and representation of cultural topics must be seen as purposeful and not transparent. A critical approach to the shape of womens place in technology, culture, and more specifically YouTube will reveal that the activities, visual presentation, and overall characterization of women on screen is created within WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 4
a larger agenda and with the purpose of setting a tone for the publics expectations of women in
real life that mimics what they see in media.
Social Technology Theory
My second philosophical concept looks at the role of technology on an individual level.
Matthewman (2011) addresses social theory as it relates to technology, identifying a unique area
of study focused on social technology theory. Taking a thematic yet chronological approach
beginning with Marx, Foucault, and Benjamin and moving into contemporary theories of how
technology influences society and vice versa, Matthewman stated that “technologies always
intrude even in supposedly unmediated face-to-face conversation,” and focused on social
construction of technology theory and actor-network theory (Matthewman, 2011, p.173). In an
effort to reflect on the ways that theorists conceptualize technology and society, including media
scholars like McLuhan and feminists like Haraway, Matthewman considered broad themes such
as the material turn, politics of artifacts, the materiality of power, non-human agency, and subjectivity and technology.
Matthewman focused throughout the book on the concept of technologies as material artifacts, able to be charted as inventions and markers of time and evolution. He navigated the tension between the argument that we do not notice how technologies are changing us or affecting us until after the fact, and the acknowledgment that we can see with our own eyes how technology has and is changing our everyday lives, from the way that we buy our groceries to the clothes we wear. As he stated, “the problematization of the clearly demarcated subject/object distinction is also a way of signaling the reciprocity of technology and society, their mutual constitution in interaction,” and the ways that we use technology are not just inventions of things, but disruptions in our ritual discourses (Matthewman, 2011, p.175). WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 5
Matthewman concluded that as we have allowed technologies to structure our worlds,
they also structure us. As we use them to craft boundaries between exclusions and inclusions,
they become tools and subjects of struggles of class, race, gender, nationality, etc. He stated that
“we structure our worlds with technology; we perform our reality with it. Technologies, in turn,
perform us. They are agents of social change and social stability, helping to produce self and
society” (Matthewman, 2011, p.175). While a tech gadget can serve as a status symbol and tool of empowerment for the consumer, it can simultaneously marginalize and keep down those that manufacture it. Matthewman argued that theory specific to social technology needs to develop, because “we should not be separated from them by theory when we are not in practice. They are part and parcel of what it is to be human” (Matthewman, 2011, p.176). Matthewman sees social technology theory moving forward into a space where these theories combine to make sense of this marriage of human and tech.
These philosophical assumptions, that our culture has normed expectations for gendered behavior, that these norms are traditionally hegemonic and are reinforced through cultural media consumption, and that the increased use of individual digital technology requires space to continually negotiate the tension between individual and culture, are integral to the proposed study. The study examines popular cases of women on YouTube: the performances they upload, the identities created, and the resulting contribution to gendered culture online. Secondly, consideration is taken to evaluate the ways that these performances contribute to the media ecology on YouTube, and similarly, the ways that this ecology shapes their performances, though its technical features and inherent biases in assumed use cases. Building on Matthewman’s
theory, YouTube as a platform and site for individual broadcast has both restrictions and potential
tools for rebellion. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 6
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
Gaze Theory
Matthewman cites feminist film critic and theorist Laura Mulvey, stating that the
arguments she made about the ways that technology reenacts and continues the cycle of social
hierarchies signals a foundational example of the critical acknowledgment of social technology
theory before social technology was ever in a part of our daily schedule. Mulvey outlined the
different pleasures that a woman in a film can bring in her seminal 1975 article "Visual Pleasure
and Narrative Cinema." Pleasure in looking, formatted around Freudian theory, provided the
basis for the theory that women are objectified through film in that they are presented in a way
that provides pleasure in looking at them (Mulvey, 1975). Egoist pleasure is when the audience
identifies with the character in the film, viewing the character as a version of themselves, and is
tied to Jacques Lacans mirror theory in children (Mulvey, 1975).
Mulvey further argued that in opposition to male active characters, female characters take
a passive role in the narrative, breaking up the action of the film and not contributing to the
major plot lines (Mulvey, 1975). Their presence is not integral to the film but rather for the
audience to derive further pleasure from the film. This can be exemplified using “conventional
close-ups of legs or a face” as well as the physical focus of a woman’s first shot on screen as
being a pause in the movie, often in slow motion or a long panning shot of a woman’s body,
which “takes the film into a no-man’s-land outside its own time and space” (Mulvey, 1975,
p.256). In this way, the camera mimics the way a male’s gaze might wander over a female body
that it desires, and so launched the phrase the “male gaze,” that Mulvey is well known for coining. The concept of the male gaze focuses our attention on the way that technology might reproduce a hierarchical way of looking at the female body, and in doing so, allows us to WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 7
question how both gazes are inappropriate. Continued theoretical creations like this one are what
Matthewson stated will guide our ability to critically consider the valuable space that technology consumes in our everyday life and the ways in which it reproduces and calls attention to our societal norms.
In light of this establishment of the male gaze in cinema, other scholars worked to bring forward alternative gazes, or to expose further impacts of dominant gazes. One of the most
important gaps in gaze theory was raised by scholars like E. Ann Kaplan, bell hooks, Edward
Said, and others: that the objectified woman was not all women, but a white woman, and posited
that the original study of the male gaze ignored the separate and different objectification of
minority women largely as servants. (Kaplan, 2004; West, 2012). As Kaplan wrote, “It soon
became clear that old secure binaries of feminist film theories were solidly modernist and
Western, and they began to erode” (Kaplan, 2004, p.1243). hooks particularly coined the idea of
the oppositional gaze, which is active work against stereotyped images of minority women in
film and mass media “to critically examine, challenge, and ultimately deconstruct these images”
(West, p.288, 2012).
Analysis of dismantling or resisting the male gaze can be seen throughout feminist
studies today. Moe’s 2015 essay “Unveiling the Gaze,” focusing on the work of belly dancers,
presented the actions as a formerly gaze-imposed area of visual and performance art, but found
through interviews that the dancers themselves found their actions to be in one of three
categories: “1) belly dancing as a refuge from the gaze; 2) belly dancing as a means of re-
envisioning the gaze; and 3) belly dancing as active resistance to the gaze” (Moe, 2015, p.7).
Some work evaluates whether media itself is already working to dismantle the male gaze.
Wheatley (2015) provided an overview of the discussion of whether Mulvey’s gaze theory is WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 8
applicable to television, citing several authors (Ellis, 1982; Fiske, 1993; Flitterman-Lewis, 1992;
Moore, 1998) who believe that the relationship between viewer and content is much more casual
for television, and therefore any establish gaze is not as effective. Wheatley disagrees and
provided examples of their own work identifying purposeful or accidental examples of eroticism
in television, which is accomplished largely through “framing, editing, and the manipulation of
diegetic and non-diegetic sound” (Wheatly, 2015, p.897). This discussion emphasizes that the
gaze is not an interaction between content and consumer, but rather between producer and
product.
Nevertheless, Wheatley concluded through her literature review and research discovery
that images of the erotic are found in many genres and from many perspectives such that
“television is particularly adept at articulating the female gaze and female desire” (Wheatly,
2015, p.898). This continued research is an important step in dismantling the male gaze.
Gaze theory, in recent years, has been broadened to include the hegemonic portrayal of race and sexuality in addition to gender (White, 2017). This distinguishes that the male gaze of Mulvey’s writing is a white heterosexual one and that the gaze privileges those ideals while rejecting any outside perspectives. In light of this, Carver (2009) argued for the term “heterosexual male gaze.”
One large aspect of the male gaze is that it is, as Mulvey stated, imposed through the lens of the camera, which is often directed, written, or produced by a male from a male perspective.
The concept of the male gaze focuses our attention on the way that technology might reproduce a hierarchical way of looking at the female body, and in doing so, allows us to question the ways in which both gazes are inappropriate. This study will continue this work as it analyzes how women performing female-gendered actions are also working within, around, or against the male gaze. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 9
Female youtubers, as mostly sole creators, have more control than ever over their content, including the process of the writing, performing, directing, and distribution. This project focuses on female created videos that portray actions such as fashion reviews, makeup tutorials, cooking shows. These actions are often historically portrayed as actions reserved for women, or as
Mulvey claimed, women’s actions serving to break up the scene’s main action. The work performed by female youtubers, whether it is content about makeup, fashion, food, cocktails, or popular culture, places these previously superfluous actions front and center, and they are curated by a female. I question how these actions might be continuing the current work surrounding gaze theory: do these female youtubers work to resist or dismantle the male gaze? How are these actions reproducing, changing, going against an established and perhaps expected male gaze? Is a female gaze present, either in the practice of established female perspective gazes such as the postfeminist gaze, or in a new form?
While work has been done on the male gaze through video, and a body of research exists that aims to discover the female perspective on gaze, my study contributes to filling the gap of exploring video media wholly created by women. The study focuses on furthering the two key questions regarding gaze theory: inclusion and technological development. Considerations will be made as to whether the male gaze is still prevalent, even if women are the creators of the content, and whether the gaze is more or less present when factoring in other marginalized identities concerning race and sexuality.
Intersectionality
Foundational to understanding networked feminism is an understanding of the feminist theory of intersectionality, initially spearheaded by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989). Crenshaw’s initial use of intersectionality often hinged on a combination of structural intersectionality, WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 10 political intersectionality, and representational intersectionality. Each of these designations represents different forces combining to create or change a unique lived experience for anyone falling into those overlapping categories, which comes along with its own set of common occurrences. Structural intersectionality, for example, is "the ways in which the location of women of color at the intersection of race and gender makes our actual experience of domestic violence, rape, and remedial reform qualitatively different than that of white women" (Crenshaw,
1991, p.1245). Political intersectionality covers how politics of other minority groups within an identity, such as feminism or racism, leave space for a political agenda of the combination of those in women of color (Crenshaw, 1991). Representational intersectionality, then, in this example, is the way that culture creates the identity of a woman of color, particularly in popular culture examples through media (Crenshaw, 1991).
An example of these efforts to celebrate and push for more in current cyberfeminism is found in chapter three of Gajjala and Oh’s (2012) book, in which Jessie Daniels covers the phenomenon of "mommy blogging," chronicling Daniels attendance at three conferences of female bloggers, examining who is blogging, what their goals are, and who is missing from the mommy blogger industry. Daniels identifies that female bloggers have two main goals: community and economic power through profit-making off of their blogs. There is a tension that the same people who provide community online - namely fellow women who identify as mothers
- also provide that economic power by clicking on the site or purchasing through sponsored posts. While providing a sense of independence and accomplishment to the blogger, the blogs also perpetuate gendered stereotypes of women as mommies as their primary identification and household managers when purchasing products targeted to them through mommy bloggers.
Daniels states: WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 11
more salient to my critique here is that such a conceptualization of women’s economic
power situates it firmly within a domestic sphere tied to a heteronormative construction
of gender in which men are breadwinners outside the home and women located within the
household as managers of the household and childrearing. (p.36)
There is also a narrative in mommy blogger culture that to be a successful working stay- at-home mom is better than a successful outside of the home working mom because of the assumed more time with children - a further perpetuation of “having it all.”
Daniels’ second critique of the female blogger industry is the underrepresentation of women of color. Daniels’ analysis includes participant observation from the Blogalicious conference organized by and aimed at women of color. The large discrepancy between sponsors of blogs specifically aimed at women of color and those that are not is a particular focus of
Daniels. Corporate sponsors who participated in the Blogalicious conference were often pushing a marketing campaign aimed specifically at people of color, and markedly missing were the technology companies like Wii that sponsored the other conference Daniels attended. Clearly exampled in this chapter are the issues that Gajjala and Oh set forth in the book: the Internet is both providing a space for women and allowing for the systematic cycle of commodification. This work will be furthered in the proposed study as it explores the ways that
YouTube as a platform does the same work of empowerment and commodification, as well as the ways in which the women who perform on YouTube navigate that tension.
Intersectionality remains an important theory and area of work in feminism, especially as tools like the Internet make it easy for anyone’s voice to be heard. The current work of intersectionality echoes the goal from the beginning: making space for all kinds of feminists, who fit into many categories. As McCall (2005) pointed out, intersectionality began when WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 12
"other" often meant the opposite side of a binary coin: male/female, gay/straight, white/non-
white. However, even these three examples are now categories with many more designations and hierarchies within them. Intersectionality remains contemporary and important because of the space it makes for these subcategories and overlapping of identifications.
A 2013 article that investigated the contemporary uses of intersectionality found that
three basic approaches are taken: analyses of intersectionality at work, a theoretical or
methodological debate about intersectionality and its boundaries, and finally the use of an
intersectional view applied to legal proceedings or political calls to action (Cho, Crenshaw,
McCall, 2013). Cho et al. discussed contemporary use of intersectionality theory incorporation
into other disciplines such as psychology, sociology, political science, and philosophy through
both a central use of the theory as well as more innovative methods. They discussed an emerging
theme in research in intersectionality: how to deal with overlapping identities and the structures
of inequality. This calls back to Crenshaw’s initial uses of intersectionality, combining the
structural and representational in a way that acknowledges the inability to differentiate between
the personal, public, and political in an increasingly digital world.
An identification of holes in the literature on intersectionality can be found in Nash’s
(2008) discussion on “Re-thinking Intersectionality.” Nash offered several spaces where more
work can be done, including pinpointing and exploring areas where oppression and privilege
meet, and studying race and gender as social processes that inform one another before diverging.
These places for future research can be seen not as efforts to further clarify the theory, but to
advance it by leaning into the ambiguity it allows for in its very definitions.
Following the line of contemporary use of intersectionality theory, and in an attempt to
further intersectionality into some of the spaces identified above, this study uses WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 13 intersectionality’s concept of “place for open-ended investigations of the overlapping and conflicting dynamics of race, gender, class, sexuality, nation, and other inequalities,” as the case studies are not just women, they also have overlapping or conflicting identities tied to their race, class, and sexuality that are explored alongside their gender identity and representation (Cho et. al, 2013). The case studies tie into the areas for expansion identified by Nash because of the many identifiers each of these women use to compose their identities on their channels, as well as the inherent privilege in having the equipment, access, and technical and creative knowledge to create content for YouTube.
For example, Hannah Hart, known best for her cooking antics on her YouTube show My
Drunk Kitchen, also often explores and shares experiences surrounding her identity as a lesbian
(H. Hart, n.d.). Lilly Singh’s channel prominently addresses societal expectations as both a woman and the daughter of Indian immigrants to Canada (Singh, n.d.). For these case studies, sexuality, class, and race are all issues that are just as important within their content as their female gender. The performances found on their channels are rooted in not just femininity but in their complex, clashing, corresponding identities. Using the foundations of intersectionality included here, my study includes these pieces of their identity as a frame for their performances on their channels.
The discussion and continued definition of cyberfeminism relates to a larger conversation about what feminism is and is defined by some key components between gender gaps in feminist waves, with issues emerging between expressing feminism online versus in offline communities, definitions of empowerment versus recreation of gendered ideals such as the mommy blog, and an ongoing discussion between feminism and intertextuality. This study furthers this discussion WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 14 and definition as it looks at women’s performances of gender and engagements with traditionally female actions such as makeup, cooking, and fashion tutorials.
Media Ecology
Media ecology finds its origins in the 1964 book Understanding Media from Marshall
McLuhan. Media ecology as a theory and a field of study focuses on viewing media as an environment that can affect our perceptions, understandings, feelings, values, and its structure, content, and impact on people. It believes in a symbolic environment that is socially constructed; a sensory world of meanings that shape our views, experiences, attitudes, beliefs. McLuhan’s definition of media is not only digital, not only electronic, not only technological, but rather anything that extends human ability, so media ecology looks at systems of meaning in extensions of humankind (M. McLuhan, 1964). While many of the initial writing and ideas for the field of media ecology came from Marshall McLuhan, research in media ecology was built up in large part by Neil Postman and Lace Strate, and continued on through researchers in the field including Anton (2014, 2017) and Meyrowitz (2001) among others who use the media ecology framework to interpret digital ecologies from perspectives of topics like economics and social protest and change (Cunningham, Craig, & Silver, 2016; Treré & Mattoni, 2016; Thorson et al.,
2013). Media ecology began as a theory about the mediums surrounding and extending our abilities as humans and has continued to be applied, even as digital media extend our everyday actions into cyberspace.
Media ecology is best known for the term “the medium is the message,” and the concepts found within the theory hinge upon this premise (M. McLuhan, 1964, p.7). The medium is the message refers to the concept that media reshape human experience and exert far more change in our world than all of the messages contained within them. Media ecology is not about a WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 15 hierarchy of media, good to bad, or choosing the “right” medium as a channel for your message, it is about seeing inherent different and influence in each medium.
Media ecology also views media as cyclical through the concept of remediation, or when a new medium uses an existing medium as its content. Strate (2014) clarified this through an example:
Writing was invented as a means of recording spoken language, and whether the written
work is a product of dictation or not, the content is speech…and letters in an alphabet
stand for sounds that make up parts of words. The handwritten document in turn becomes
the content of printing…And print in turn becomes the content of electronic
writing…When a new medium is introduced, no one yet knows what its full range of
capabilities are, so it makes sense that the first thing we try to do with it is the same thing
that we were doing with the old medium. (p.54)
This cyclical nature of media ecology can also be found in McLuhan’s (1975) laws of the media, or tetrad. The tetrad identifies ways that mediums change society through the ways in which it amplifies, obsolesces, retrieves, and reverses parts of society. McLuhan stated that he named them laws in the hopes that they would be viewed through the lens of the scientific method, and as such been seen as provable or disprovable and constantly tested. The ways in which media change society in each case exemplified how he believed that they each change society in specific ways in a sort of objective way, rather than viewing media as positive or negative. For example, money amplifies transactions, obsolesces bartering, retrieves conscious consumption, and reverses credit (M. McLuhan, 1975). In each sense, money is influencing these pieces of society, whether it is the way we purchase things, the relationship required between the seller and purchaser, and the place within the society of the conspicuous consumer. McLuhan also WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 16
encouraged discussion, engagement, and challenging of these laws from scientific, historical,
philosophical, sociological, technological, economic, and engineering backgrounds and those
that study within these fields (M. McLuhan, 1975).
Through the influences identified in the laws of the media, we can begin to detect and
understand the biases of a media ecology as well. In the previous example of money, we can see that money is biased toward a transactional approach rather than relational. By obsolescing bartering and reversing credit, trust may become a lesser valued trait in relationships within the
community. In the example of writing and remediation, we see that, on a broad level, as a
medium becomes content, the bias is toward a new way of consuming previous information. In
digital media culture, we can identify a bias in this same way through the continuously upgrading
apps on our devices or the new models of devices released every year. Even before an in-depth
analysis is explained, media ecology allows users to understand that two biases of digital media
are consumption and innovation.
Because of its adaptable nature to be applied to any media form based on McLuhan’s
very broad definition of media, as well as McLuhan’s seemingly prophetic predictions about the
influence that media would have in future society, media ecology continues to be used to frame
research in the media studies field. Several key researchers are working to bring McLuhan’s
original concepts to the digital environments, including Anton (2014, 2017), Thorson et al.
(2013), Treré and Mattoni (2016), Poell (2014), and Logan (2010).
McLuhan’s major point that media is an extension of human function also allows him
to examine his concepts of hot and cold mediums, wherein a hot medium isolates one or fewer
senses while in a cold medium, we as users or audience members have to provide context
(McLuhan 1964). A hot medium acts as an extension of our senses, and allows for less WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 17 participation, while a cool medium requires engagement from the consumer to fill in information. An example of this is the difference between a discussion seminar (cold) and a lecture (hot). You learn more from the seminar because it allows for more participation. While the concepts of choosing between hot and cold when identifying a medium is an oversimplification, it is possible to think about it as more of a spectrum.
Anton (2014) extended the hot and cold medium concept to the digital age, applying concepts like high definition, streaming video, and binge-watching to them to provide an understanding of how mediums can shift from hot to cool, and the role of content within those shifts. Anton focused on timing as an intervening factor of hot and cold and emphasized the spectrum nature of hotter to colder mediums. He explained that while watching live television is a hotter medium, the ability to stream an entire season of a series from Hulu makes it cooler.
While having a film premiere and set times for showings is hotter, being able to choose a showing makes it cooler. While radio is a hotter medium, this is not necessarily because of its content but rather the sensory engagement of the ear. One cannot shut off hearing, even in sleep we can be awakened by a sudden noise. Ears are always listening, and radio fills that space, providing interaction. However, ears are also distracted, or the mind can tune things out, which, as Anton said, makes radio one of the cooler hot mediums. The concepts of hotter and colder media illustrate the key point of media ecology, which is that every media affect our experience of the world around us, each media creates its own environment, and affects us in different ways, engaging our senses and attention at varying levels.
Anton (2017) continued to build upon the basic concepts of media ecology and used the modern state of society to exemplify how media ecology works in action in our current environment where digital and what we would call analog media coexist. Anton’s article is an WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 18 example of the fact that there is a dialogue throughout media ecology regarding whether continuing media expansion is a good thing, particularly newer digital media and its ubiquitous nature in our world. Through specific examples like the clock, social media, and printed books,
Anton showed how mediums create societal organization and meaning.
Treré and Mattoni (2016) discussed and categorized the four approaches to media from an ecological perspective through a review of contemporary media ecology literature. The first is the medium approach, proposed by McLuhan and focusing on the study of media as environments, and of new media or technology as evolutionary rather than additive, allowing an exploration of the ways that new media can make other media extinct or provide survival tactics.
The second is the informational ecology, focusing on a systems approach to the ways that human actions are impacted by technology including relationships, values, and motivations. The third view is the communicative ecology perspective, exploring the relationships between social activities, technology, and the formatting of communication. The fourth perspective is Fullers media ecology renewal, focusing on the materiality of technology and concepts of agency and subjectification through the process. Treré and Mattoni then composed four lessons in the critical use of a media ecological perspective for communication and media research: removing dichotomous language between technologies, attention to media multiplicity, the use of a diachronic perspective with regard to social movement and media, and an awareness of the political and critical nature of media ecologies. The proposed study integrates all of the three identified approaches through an identification of YouTube’s environment, as well as the ways that its design impacts users and the methods with which they may be able to interact with the community, thirdly, through visual analysis, looking at the performances shared through a WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 19 discourse lens to identify the impacts they may have on the ecology, and whether the YouTube ecology and performance frames indicate a sense of agency for the female performers.
Logan’s (2010) book Understanding New Media: Extending Marshall McLuhan worked to completely mirror McLuhan’s original Understanding Media (1964) with its format and way of processing specific media. In the book, Logan stated that YouTube’s platform reminds him of
McLuhan’s phrase “the photocopier made every man a publisher,” only that YouTube makes everyone a broadcaster (Logan, 2010, p.182). He pointed out a few unique things that make
YouTube an interesting case study for the media ecologist, including the social impact of anyone being able to produce content to share with the world, as well as the new navigation of copyright in a space where copyright infringement was previously widespread. A media ecology perspective has been applied to the YouTube platform in a few different ways in previous research.
Poell (2014) used a specific event and the outward efforts of organizers to tag social media posts in an organizational way as an exemplar for exploring social media sites as a media ecology that effects protestors communications, and how the media sites themselves are shaped by “intersecting techno-cultural and political economic relations” (p.717). Through a case study, hyperlink analysis is done to explore the organizational ecology and lead to discoveries about the media ecology. Hyperlink analysis looks at posts on one medium that link to another, such as a tweet that includes a link to a YouTube video. The author found that while the most popular hyperlink interactions were between Twitter and YouTube, the YouTube videos acted as more of documentation and a video repository rather than an organizing force during the protests. Poell concluded that the media ecology of the G20 protests were an effort to share one particular WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 20 perspective of the events, both as they unfolded and after the fact. This perspective focused on the efforts of the organizers, and the brutality of the police force.
Thorson et al. (2013) also argued for a media ecology surrounding specific movements, using various social media. Using Twitter and YouTube as the cooperating media that create a specific ecology, the authors examined the Occupy Wall Street efforts in New York in November of 2011. They used a variety of methods including visual analysis, categorical coding, and cross- referencing tweets and YouTube videos, as well as more quantitative analytical social media methods that look at the number of views, comments, likes, or retweets. The authors found several “stories” within their data, which indicated a broad ecology of social video media in protests including documentation, creating a soundtrack for the movement, or sharing information.
Cunningham, Craig, and Silver used media ecology to examine the economic structure on
YouTube (2016). The authors characterized YouTube as a part of the so-called "new screen ecology," which is made up largely of amateur producers and an advertising-based revenue stream, organized and negotiated through the YouTube platform. The authors described a new addition to this ecology: the multi-channel network and the ways in which these companies are attempting to bridge the gap between YouTubes startup culture and the amateur Hollywood prosumers attempting to use the site to gain fame. The new screen ecology, according to the authors, is created by the players, a mix of app developers for the media platforms and the performers that use the website for entrepreneurial gain. Multi-channel networks, a new player in the ecology, have the potential to negotiate the algorithms and advertising deals necessary to project YouTube stars into other realms of popularity. The ecology surrounding YouTube, according to the authors, is one characterized by instability as use cases for viewing platforms WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 21 shift, creators pivot in order to remain relevant and popular, and multi-channel networks have the potential to either further disrupt or provide a more stable structure.
Media ecology’s ability to evaluate the unique environments shaped by media in society on varying levels has allowed researchers to establish a legacy in the field of media ecology, and it can easily be applied going forward in media studies. Concepts like remediation and the laws of media help researchers evaluate the environments created by media. Remediation is as prevalent as ever, as seen in hyperlinking research by Poell (2014), as users post the same or similar content on several platforms simultaneously or use one platform such as Google photos to back up information to another platform. As Meyrowitz (2001) stated, there are also plenty of opportunities for media ecology to be conceptualized within other disciplines and combined with other theories, so in this way media ecology itself might be remediated. The laws of the media can be used to analyze an emerging media, identifying processes that it amplifies, obsolesces, retrieves, and reverses actions in previous media. These concepts from media ecology allow researchers to see how different features and components create a discourse between media and society.
This study uses these concepts of technology or media’s influence on both society and individuals to explore YouTube as a media environment and its impact on both the cultural and personal level. This is done through an evaluation of YouTube through McLuhan’s laws of the media, an identification of the biases of the platform through its design, and examining the ways that YouTube as a platform may impact gendering, as well as the ways that individual YouTubers are sharing their gender identities through the platform. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 22
Industrialization of Culture
Through communication theories like agenda setting and framing (McCombs & Shaw,
1972; McCombs, 1997), the media has been characterized as a topic generator and influencer of audience attention and perspective. While often limited to discussions of news, media of all content and forms shape public perceptions of societal norms. Havens and Lotz’s (2012) industrialization of culture framework introduces a conceptual approach to media as a business rather than a more neutral approach. By establishing all forms of media as industries, they believe that the reader will be more easily able to understand the process and reason for content creation. This idea extends McLuhan’s (1967) medium is the message concept, framing media and its channels of communication not just as an integral piece of an audience’s reception of content, but as an actor in the creation of content. They argue that even when the main purpose of a media text’s creation is to generate revenue, it also contributes to a cultural discourse. The authors focus on media industries such as television, magazines, music, and video games, establishing each within their practices of economics, industry, organization, regulation, and creativity. Through an analysis of the producing organizations and their effects on society as a whole, rather than media effects of specific audience members, Havens and Lotz establish that media texts create cultural norms through a purposeful development and broadcast of the message to large populations.
Their resulting model, the industrialization of culture framework, is made up of four components and three levels of influence. The components are (1) culture, (2) social trends, tastes, and traditions, (3) texts, and (4) public. The levels of influence are (1) mandate, or the organizations goals, (2) conditions, or larger context for the organization, such as technology available and (3) practices, or the daily actions of the organizations and employees of media WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 23 industries. Each of these seven pieces contributes to the creation and distribution of media texts and the ways that media organizations go about this process. So, the media organizations use the components to create texts that have resulting levels of influence depending on how important the organization wants them to be. For YouTube, an example of this would be the yearly
YouTube rewind video. The video is original content produced by YouTube but features some of the years’ most popular YouTube stars and references to topics in popular culture from the past year. In using current topics and YouTubers, they utilize the first three components, culture, social trends, and texts to address the fourth component, the public. This resulting message uses all three levels of influence: it contributes to the organization’s goals through highlighting the content on their platform and may inspire viewers to seek out additional related content, it uses technology available at the organization through the fact that the videos are shot at YouTube studios in Los Angeles, and the recurrence of the video every year establishes it as a practice of
YouTube as a company.
Havens and Lotz also discuss the ways that many technologies have an idealized use case, which they call utopian versions, often with goals of increased democracy in action, and that ultimately the components of the industrialization of culture framework affect the medium to create a version grounded in reality, considering not just each aspect of the framework, but also issues of distribution, digitization, and globalization. These components and the framework of identifying media as industries with such purposeful goals and distribution strategies establish that media do intentionally create a narrative and craft demonstrated cultural norms in their texts.
Gendered Work in Media
Analysis of gender portrayals in media includes varied topics such as television analysis of actions, employment, and family dynamics, as well as the ways users interact with media may WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 24
be gendered through our cultural understanding. In this case, gender is not just the identity of the
character on the screen or person engaging with the media, but rather whether the motions
themselves bring any cultural bias of gender performativity with them. Gendered work in media
can be an intention for users, a performance of an actor or actress, or a discussion of one’s place
and space on a platform.
Watson’s (2008) analysis of television shows from the 1950s through the 1990s focuses
on family dynamics and portrayals of women’s overall role within the family. Much of Watsons
characterizations focus on the corresponding response by the husband, father, parents, or children
of the female character in question and how a working woman might disrupt that order. It is this
counteraction with dominant characters that later is explained as the main reason for womens
plotlines. Watson finds that the nuclear family ideal dissolves between the 1950s and 2000, as
single-parent families of both genders and more dysfunctional dynamics in nuclear families are
portrayed.
Jarrett (2014) applies a feminist perspective to non-productive work in digital media,
using the Facebook ‘like’ button to stand in for all consumer-driven interactions that the digital
sphere relies so heavily upon in order to continue functioning. In placing an action that millions
of people do every day into a gendered space, she illuminates that while unpaid, emotion-based
work may not be inherently gendered, it certainly is within societal norms. She argues that this
so-called non-productive work is only non-productive in the way that homemaking is often seen as non-productive work, in that it is often unpaid and largely unacknowledged. It is not purely exploitative in that it is non-paid labor, but rather Jarrett aims to point out that a lack of monetary
exchange does not mean goods are not exchanged. There is instead a social capital that is created WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 25
and treated as currency in this new digital market, much in the same way that women’s labor that
translated to social status is and was the currency in a class hierarchy.
As the Internet developed and gained popularity, cyberfeminism emerged as a term to
attempt to categorize what feminism would look like online and has emerged into threads
varying from bringing third-wave feminism to social media to endeavoring to create a new
version of feminism for a space where gender cannot be assumed. Today’s cyberfeminism is
addressed through topics like mommy blogs and hashtag movements. Gajjala and Oh (2012)
work toward a discovery of current cyberfeminism, acknowledging that much of the initial
discussion of cyberfeminism was an initiative toward inclusivity and creation of space for
women online when online was a network of 0 and 1s largely dominated by males. Bringing in
current issues of online female self-representation through topics such as health, personal blogging, gaming, and online advocacy, the authors use these contemporary conversations to continue to define what cyberfeminism means. They find that it often means that establishing a
space for females is not enough, and continuing cyberfeminism’s ideals has a few current goals.
These include speaking up for voices that are less privileged and not the celebrated middle-class,
Caucasian, tech-savvy ponytails, but instead figures such as women interested in hardcore gaming, migrant adolescents finding home offline and online, and females finding motherhood independently. This also means identifying places where women’s silent presence is not enough and giving value and priority to their input to better shape spaces for expression.
Digital Identity
The ways in which we create identities and portray them are influenced by the media
portrayals we see and the networks we participate in. As the Internet developed, we first saw a
thrill of an anonymous space to create a persona and be anyone, but as social media have WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 26 developed there is more of a turn to an emphasis on identity authorization and the Internet has become a place where we present our best version of ourselves, interact and continue relationships, and even look to in order to find out more information about someone’s identity through cybervetting. YouTubers have the opportunity to portray a purposefully performed identity.
Sick (2004) drew comparisons between the computer and dreams, bringing forth a metaphor that we embody our dream selves, a fictional but biologically-based version of our identities on the computer. She also compared computers as machines and humans as animals, instigating a similar “if…then” formula to both that implies that anything that comes from a computer must first come from a human as the designer. This bears a connection to the question of identity online as well, that our online identities are made up of pieces of our in-person identities, as hidden as they may be.
Connecting again to the virtual reality as dream state, Sick connected our online selves with real-life selves in a way that validates and questions both - which can be real apart from the other, and which is more authentic? Sick argued that the dream or virtual version of an identity is better synthesized to represent authentic self, however, it cannot exist without the original or non-dream state self. Sick then discussed the process of applying aspects of others to ourselves to try on, whether virtually or offline. This is then called a composite construction, the name taken from Freud. An example of this composite construction would be to enact gender switching between the offline self and online self.
Gauntlett (2008) explored the discrepancies between media representation of masculinity and feminism, and gender more generally, and the ways in which people think about gender and identity versus the ways they enact it. An illustrative point in the introduction stated that while WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 27
surveys show that people no longer believe that women’s place is in the home while the man
works, more people enact that stereotype in their everyday lives. Gauntlett’s eleventh chapter
explored methods for researching identities, including video diaries, drawing celebrities, and
Lego-building. The video diary research, done in 1999 and 2004 by Ruth Holliday, gave video
cameras to participants who identified as LGBTQ+ to document their lives for up to three
months. While the project was viewed as a video diary, the participants were allowed to edit footage as they wanted to create video presentations that best portrayed their enacted identity.
Through these studies in identity, Gauntlett found that participants had a specific identity for themselves in mind throughout the projects, complete with one central idea of something that embodied them, and a sentiment of how their identity related to broader society.
Gajjala (2014) identified a gender binary in the digital leisure space: image-forward, emotion, and craft-based sites like Facebook and Pinterest are characterized as feminized while discussion thread based sites like Reddit are identified as for men. On a second level, Gajjala pointed out that these are both westernized, white washed versions of binary, while women of the
Global South are characterized as needing freedom from oppression and handouts of opportunity through sites like Etsy and Kiva. For the westernized woman, the digital space is work, play, and increased ease of living while it is imagined that for the subaltern woman, the same space is mysterious, sacred, and difficult to gain access to except for desperate hope in a change of status.
Gajjala called for researchers and communicators to be cautious with the rhetoric used when applied to subaltern populations and women alike - why is it that the digital space, which has not been a saving grace for the white male, is expected to be so for women and subaltern populations? Why do we continue the narrative of populations that must both be saved and save itself, when what we identify is merely a different perspective? WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 28
Dobson (2016) focused on self-representations by girls and young women on social
media that are often critiqued for being vain or self-centered and argues that these practices are
actually self-preservations when viewed through a post-feminist lens. Dobsons postfeminism ponders whether seemingly sexist representations of women hold different meaning when they
are self-representations, and argues that these enactments “are politically significant in terms of
what they reveal about negotiating the conditions of postfeminism and femininity in
contemporary techno-social mediascapes” (Dobson, 2016, p.2). Dobson does clarify that self-
representation is not entirely straightforward, as the pressures to create content that sells or is
popular still requires attention to structures of power and influence on the content creators.
Dobson evaluated what she considered to be ‘wild’ or ‘risky’ behaviors in online MySpace
profiles, including sexting, overtly sexualized images of others and themselves on social media
profiles, textual and transitional definitions of self on their profiles, and video content that
present a lack of self-esteem, physically or emotionally. She concludes that these actions are
limited representations of the women who create them, influenced by a complex set of norms to
be sexy but not slutty, confident but not narcissistic, and so forth.
Dobson argued that within debates between postfeminists and others about whether overt
sexuality and a hyper heterosexualized self are feminist, what is lost is that the agency of
sexuality needs to be the goal. Focusing on hiding sexualities is antifeminist on the one side,
however, a mimicking of the heterosexy male gaze with the argument that it has been reclaimed
is no more a valid argument. The concern, Dobson stated, is that:
we need to make space for the possibility of legitimate sexual attention-seeking, and for
experiences of sexual agency rather than only victimhood, in the way we discuss girls WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 29
and young women’s sexual media practices and representations and the way we address
young people about sex and media. (p. 164)
Dobson believed that we should be focused on how women hold agency over their sexuality, and
Dobson finds that to be in the mundane, everyday ways that women can establish an identity as sexual beings. Her argument is that social media culture perpetuates the promise that power and wealth come from visibility, but that visibility for women also means judgment, surveillance, and exposure and "it is also important to keep in mind that digital visibility and self-exposure does not only promise, and sometimes produce, power and value for girls and youth women themselves, but is itself a product, and a vital source of profit for social media companies”
(Dobson, 2016, p.163). Participation in social media and the projections of heterosexy are evaluated, and used for profit by the social networks while being surveilled by society.
In an essay about mommy bloggers, authors Brittney D. Lee and Lynne M. Webb seek to understand how mommy bloggers self-identify in terms of content and labels. The authors
establish that blogging has increased in popularity as it does require a financial investment to
begin, bloggers establish a community, in this case of other of women, and many mothers now
look to the Internet to find resources on parenting. Mommy blogs have increased readership as
they appear to paint a grittier picture of everyday parenting, especially when opposed to some
portrayals of motherhood on television. The authors conducted a survey of women who
identified as blogging about their family, and found two categorical self-placements: those who
blog specifically about their family and topics affecting their family, who the authors call
‘Family-Focused Bloggers,’ and those who blog about a broader range of topics that may not directly impact their family, deemed ‘Family-Plus Focused Bloggers.’ WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 30
Szostak (2014) analyzed video responses to the amateur documentary "Girls on
YouTube," which attempted to discuss a proposed representational problem on the video network site where male vloggers dominate the population and popularity of YouTube. The author assumed that the discussion of the gender divide is present and prevalent, and questions, in light of the coded responses from female users of YouTube, whether YouTube is a public sphere within the definition of Habermas, and attempts to determine potential reasons for the gendered use of the site. These issues are then used to explore whether YouTube and new media, in general, are providing a new outlet for female perspectives or whether it is skewed towards a patriarchal hegemony.
The author pointed out that the documentarian, Benjamin Cook, interviewed female vloggers in his documentary, and used the video to attempt to encourage more female participation. The original video highlighted some issues that could be hindering to an increase in female vloggers, including pressure to be physically attractive, a perceived harsher rating curve compared to male vloggers, and a difficulty achieving a balance between content creator and feminist representative. At the time of writing the author counted more than thirty video responses to the documentary. Two exemplars were chosen for analysis, both created by women
YouTubers, including the most viewed response which largely positioned itself in support of the documentary and a more contradictory response that was more satirical in nature.
Based on these responses, Szostak concluded that female YouTubers will need to acknowledge stereotype and rating curves that are not in their favor but can utilize tools to counteract them, although no specific tools are mentioned. The author defined Habermas’ public sphere as one that allows free and equal expression for all and acknowledges that the sometimes hostile tone toward female vloggers may not allow for that, but that it may have “moments of WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 31 public sphere,” particularly citing the documentary and ensuing conversation as one of those moments. The author proposed that YouTube may be more of a network model, particularly when considering conversations that oppose the mainstream discussion of the site. The author ends with an optimistic perspective regarding the amount of support for current and potential female vloggers working toward a “feminist public space.”
As individuals, and women, in particular, navigate the Internet in order to find a place, empowerment, and community, struggles remain and are reproduced from offline spaces into online media. Sexuality, feminism, profession, and identity creation are all concepts that are found in both spaces, but solutions are not applicable to both arenas, especially as virtual spaces allow for a distillation of characteristics, both physical and emotional.
YouTube
Like many Silicon Valley startups before them, YouTube launched with a technical purpose, not a social one: to solve the problem of easily sharing video, in any format, regardless of size (Burgess & Green, 2013). The site’s three founders, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed
Karim left electronic banking site PayPal to start the venture, which launched in April 2005
(Burgess & Green, 2013). The ability to easily upload an unlimited number of videos and share them via a simple link, along with a straightforward interface, helped YouTube stand apart from competitor startups, and just over a year later, in October 2006, YouTube was purchased by
Google for $1.65 billion (Sudjic, 2015).
Jean Burgess and Joshua Green document the social rise of YouTube in their 2013 book
YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture. Despite gaining the attention of Silicon Valley early on with a popular TechCrunch article just months after launch, it wasn’t until the winter of
2005 that a traditional media piece placed on YouTube proved the potential for its spreadable WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 32
media. In December, a digital short from musical comedy group Lonely Island played on
Saturday Night Live. The music video, entitled “Lazy Sunday,” was uploaded to YouTube and
gained five million views before being taken down after a copyright complaint from NBC
Universal in February 2006 (Burgess & Green, 2013). By current standards, five million views in
two months is paltry- by 2012 the fastest circulated video was Invisible Children’s Kony 2012
campaign video, which saw 70 million views in four days (Jenkins, Ito & boyd, 2015). But the
Lonely Island video “demonstrated the potential of YouTube as an outlet for established media to
reach out,” and established a precedent for YouTube as a threat to traditional broadcasting
(Burgees & Green, p.3, 2013).
Beyond its spreadable media potential, YouTube built aspects of social media into its
platform which helped it become more than a storage site for video. For users, both creators and
viewers, “YouTube evolved into a medium that could be used for almost anything, rather than a
specific language that could be used for only one form of transaction” (Sudjic, 2015, p.460). In
his 2010 book, Watching YouTube, Michael Strangelove discusses just what it is that set YouTube
apart and makes its content so consumable. Strangelove argues that YouTube is the new social
space, one where issues like racism, sexism, homophobia, religion, and politics, can all be played
out from many perspectives in the same way that audiences once processed through watching
news, documentaries, movies, and television shows. Amateur video makers are shifting the way
that we communicate, according to Strangelove, who invokes Harold Lasswell’s model of
communication to say that YouTube invites a “transformation of who is saying what to whom”
(Strangelove, 2010, p.9).
Strangelove states that it’s YouTube’s origins outside of Hollywood that endear it to be an
alternative to television (Strangelove, 2010). The challenge of YouTube and its amateur video WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 33
content bring new meaning to what it is to be a content creator, and “amateur video production
may also bring in its wake new ways of thinking about the political implications of mass
creativity that have not been wholly incorporated into market institutions” (Strangelove, 2010,
p.176). These new ways of thinking and alternative methods also challenge a hegemonic culture
of television and the conversations it typically facilitates. However, the new versions of these
conversations that occur on YouTube may also be controversial, critical, and off-putting to the
advertisers that YouTube wants to attract to become profitable.
YouTube research, according to Arthurs et al. (2018), ranges from a so-called biography
of the platform to a discussion of the ways that YouTube is changing consumption of video when
compared to television, computational analysis of the platform to predict popularity, and teaching
digital literacy skills in the classroom. The authors categorize current YouTube research into four
themes.
The first theme is participatory culture and user-generated content. The articles in this
theme use case studies, often political situations such as the Arab Spring or protests at Standing
Rock, as evidence that user-generated citizen journalism has come into popularity and provides
an alternative perspective from a newscaster in front of a scene during the evening news. Articles
discuss various technology that allows for expansion of user-generated content, such as
inexpensive web cameras, live broadcasting, and drones. The second theme is YouTube as a
hybrid commercial space. This theme discusses the ways in which YouTube is a revenue generator. Articles in this theme explore the unique market of YouTube largely through methods of observation and case study, as ad revenue numbers are not easily attained for a quantitative
analysis. The third theme is vlogging and YouTube celebrity. Studies in this theme typically use
case study as their method, evaluating a range of issues including factors in creating so-called WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 34 micro-celebrity, transgender identity, and feminism, these papers usually focus on between one and three case studies to explore specific content within the beauty and vlogging genre. The fourth and last theme is the ‘mystery of the algorithm and digit al methods of research. Using methods like data scraping and cluster or social network analysis, authors study the patterns of interaction among similar videos in order to work backward to find the algorithms logic.
This study’s area of research is found within this perspective of convergence of emerging and traditional media through its focus on YouTube as a media emerging from two media industries: television and social media. Engaging with YouTube as a budding social media ecology, I draw upon McLuhan’s foundational principles of media ecology, and Cunningham,
Craig, and Silver’s (2016) examination of YouTube as a media ecology. It was Cunningham et al. that first conceptualized YouTube as a convergence between Hollywood’s television industry and
Silicon Valley’s new media one. This projects adds an exploration of YouTube as a unique media ecology that enables creators with a unique autonomous production and control over all creative decisions from initial idea to production, editing, and distribution, as well as explore the potential designs of the platform that limit creativity and agency.
Creator Identity
In her 2016 article, Chen articulates the unique opportunities of YouTube for creating a digital identity. Focusing on the contrasting dynamics of YouTube as a fantasy-driven place where content creators can fashion an identity that may or may not resemble their offline personality, YouTube can be a place to have the freedom to express oneself uninhibited or minimize one’s identity into key positive characteristics. A lack of corporeal physical interaction allows the content creator to establish “new designations of gender, physical form, and unlimited WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 35
symbolic materials,” which is continually created through their YouTube content while
concentrated control of any information disclosed is exercised (Chen, 2016, p.235).
Chens study focused on emerging YouTube personalities in Taiwan and was able to
conduct interviews with content creators about the ways in which they shape their digital selves
and conduct a coded analysis of the resulting YouTube content. The study created a three-stage
model for forming a digital self and parasocial relationships on YouTube: “digital self
construction, digital-self presentation strategies, and parasocial relationships that emerge” (Chen,
2016, p.241). Construction of the digital self focused on personal interests and goals (e.g. becoming a magician), gendered stereotypes (e.g. long hair and slim body figure), and cultural considerations (e.g. adapting America’s Next Top Model to Taiwanese culture). Digital-self representations strategies were coded into four categories: basking (comparing oneself to a celebrity figure), mystification (creating distance between digital self and offline self), self- promotion (touting abilities and accomplishments), and gender-switching (creating an online identity of a different gender, often to emphasize a playful nature of digital self). Parasocial relationships on YouTube were measured by views and comments which added up to perceived social influence. Chen concluded that digital selves are created and presented in an ongoing and mediated way, and often seen as a freeing space to present an idealized version of ones personality, with the goal of achieving fame.
Molyneaux et. al. (2008) explored female vloggers and their audiences through a three- part analysis: a content analysis of the vlogger and their motives, visual analysis of video content, and audience analysis through analysis of views, comments, and a YouTube viewer survey. They categorized video content into five categories, which included personal (e.g. video diaries), public (e.g. commentary about the news), YouTube (e.g. responding to or asking a WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 36
question of other content creators), technology (e.g. product demonstrations), or entertainment
(e.g. comedic sketches). Half of the analyzed videos fit into the personal category, followed by a quarter of the videos containing entertainment, fifteen percent were in the YouTube category, seven percent concerned public matters, and five percent were technology related. Gender differences were found in the number of vloggers (mainly male), the number of views (average of 166 for males, 6,797 for females), and content (female vloggers were in the majority for personal and YouTube categories, male vloggers populated the remaining three categories). As users, women were less likely to comment on videos, post a video, or visit YouTube as frequently as the men polled, but they still identified as part of the YouTube community. The authors concluded that vlogging is a part of the social digital space, and the female voice is an important one that could be used for empowerment.
Methodology
Researchers who investigate topics that are similar to mine and model philosophical tactics that approach their topics with curiosity and care for a changing world and the media that is activating that change. Tara McPherson, Henry Jenkins, Donna Haraway, Marshall McLuhan,
Roger Silverstone, and danah boyd each influence the ways in which I approach media, conceptualize my inquiries and write an analysis. Haraway (2006) and boyd (2012) see the large- scale change that is possible with media acceptance and also warn of the potential to exclude or exploit sensitive populations, particularly women, children, and minorities. McPherson (2009) and McLuhan (Strate, 2014) emphasize the systematic social change that can take place with the introduction of a medium and examine the ways that new and emerging platforms adapt from those that came before. McLuhan’s concept of remediation, where new media “incorporate other media as its content” rings true for most of the emerging media that I examine, as well as directly WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 37
supports my understanding of YouTube as an extension of television (Strate, 2014, p.54).
McPherson’s work on the digital humanities encouraged academics to move beyond the concept
of “publish or perish,” to include a variety of media in their work, add a practice element to their
scholarship through engaging projects, and to push the concepts of who has access to or is
benefitted by their work (McPherson 2009).
Silverstone’s (1994) study of the television and his resulting theory about its place in our
lives began with its ubiquitous nature, and our emotional ties to it, conscious or not. Silverstone
stated that, similarly, television programming is cyclical all around, from broadcast schedules to narrative arcs to yearly programs like the Super Bowl. Silverstone believed that audiences are
feeding back into this television mediated cycle by capturing their own lives on screen, using the
example of "weddings, which increasingly are being video recorded, are therefore being
overdetermined as ritual by their incorporation into television culture" (Silverstone, 1994, p.21).
This extension of the ontological cycle hints at the current constantly documented and mediated
world which is experienced both through in-person reality and social media, including broadcast
personal video on sites such as YouTube. Silverstone predicted that as television as a medium
grows, audiences will consume more: more devices, more channels, more software, and with that
will come “a politics of access and equity a politics that broadcasting perhaps took for granted”
(Silverstone, 1994, p.176). Silverstone’s conclusion that while welcoming more and more media
into their homes, audiences become more reliant on those that control content became ever
clearer as television moved from the box in the corner to the screen on our lap. His theory that
media consumption has become an intimate piece of our life, both in schedule and in practice, is
one that applies even more nearly twenty-five years later, and can easily be used in my own
research about YouTube and other emerging media. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 38
Jenkins’ (2006, 2013) concepts of convergence culture, spreadable media, and transmedia
narratives are foundational to my research. Convergence culture begins with the idea that
creating unique online content outside of the traditional broadcast or film are designed to engage
users who are already online and make a connection and sustain contact between weekly
episodes and are an example of convergence culture that is already in motion between television
and online media (Jenkins, 2006). Transmedia narratives, the idea that one narrative is told in
many pieces over many different mediums, takes this interactive approach and further engages
with it, assuming that consumer fans will purchase and engage with all kinds of media including
video games, films, television shows, YouTube videos, in order to understand a complete
narrative (Jenkins, 2006). Jenkins, along with Sam Ford, and Joshua Green (2013), extended the
concept of transmedia narratives and examined the shift from linear broadcasting to participative,
online, shareable, spreadable media that crosses the boundaries between distinct mediums as it is
shared and even contributed to by millions.
The use of media ecology is grounded in the concept of a sort of techno-optimism as new
technologies emerge, whether it’s “the Internet,” or Pinterest, or massive multiplayer online games. In addition, there seems to be a pattern where a platform emerges, and there is a conceptualization for how feminists can use this space for advancement (Wajcman, 2007). This
study uses the framework laid out by Cunningham et al., viewing YouTube as a convergence of
Hollywood’s television and Silicon Valley tech company. Understanding YouTube’s media
ecology will reveal the ways it amplifies, obsolesces, retrieves, and reverses the culture it was
created from and contributes to in order to create its own unique ecology, biases, and discourses.
This study also ponders how the women of YouTube utilize this potential agency over
their work to create and portray their gender identity. This draws upon previous work done by WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 39
Watson (2008) and Humphreys (2016) that analyze the ways in which gender was portrayed in television. These studies look at ways in which media technologies and gender overlap to create modes of performing gender through specific actions or characteristics. My study builds upon these studies by analyzing the actions and situations of female YouTubers in their videos. Similar themes are explored, including interactions with other personalities on screen, actions performed, clothing and set design, and situational plotlines.
My study also contributes to the body of work started by Chen (2016), Molyneaux,
O’Donnell, Gibson, and Singer (2008), and Szostak (2014) which is specifically centered on issues of identity and gender on YouTube. My study uses visual analysis on YouTube, as previously seen in Molyneaux et al. (2008) and Wotanis and McMillan (2014), with a focus analysis for themes identifying the ways in which YouTube personalities enact their identities.
The combination of identifying the media ecology of YouTube as a platform that enables the expression of creators who have complete control over their content, identity and gender representations as well as performing a visual analysis on the final product will extend the field of convergence media studies. Using established methods of examining gender portrayals
(Watson, 2008; Humphreys, 2016) and applying them to a platform where creators and users are sharing and consuming new content every day will allow for a continuation of the field of feminist media studies, as well as a more detailed conceptualization of YouTube’s media ecology. Focusing on the creators rather than the audience reception acknowledges a uniqueness of the YouTube platform. In this way, I approach the women of YouTube with a curious and critical perspective. One that I relate to as an audience member but analyze as an academic. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 40
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH STUDY DESIGN
As we consider the creation of gendered identities, we see that the mass adoption of
social media allows us the opportunity to re-enact, adapt, or confront mediated representations of
identity as seen for decades in media such as television. Women, in particular, face a complicated
web of performance expectations and opportunities as they have direct access to broadcast their
chosen characteristics online through a carefully constructed digital self, whether they
acknowledge the process of selection or not (Alcoff & Potter, 1993). This research on performed
identity looks at the ways in which gendered actions are reframed on YouTube, through a
combination of feminist theory, media ecology, and visual analysis. Because feminist media
research requires looking at more than the content in order to gain a larger contextual cultural perspective, including industry production and distribution, more than one method and specific
framework are required (Hesse-Biber, 2013).
The study will include a multilevel examination of the YouTube Studio as a platform
(broadly) and the ways in which female youtubers (specifically) are using the site as creators
(Cresswell, Plano Clark, Gutmann, & Hanson, 2003; Creamer, 2017). YouTube is a platform that
appears to provide unprecedented control for creators, and for traditionally marginalized groups
such as women, this could mean that new discourses are being created, or a subtle change in
ideology is presented when it comes to women’s performances (Hesse-Biber, 2013). In using
media ecology to evaluate the platform and its allowances, encouragement, and biases toward
creators, as well as evaluating the female youtuber’s performed intersectional identities, the study evaluates whether these discourses or changes in control are theoretical or already in practice. The focus is on the researchers analysis of the YouTube platform and the performances available from the female creators chosen as case studies. This study will not attempt to provide WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 41 an analysis of the audience reception and response or achieve any insight into the behind the scenes perspective of the creators themselves.
Visual material, especially that which is widely disseminated through social media, is now an important indicator of the way that social culture is constructed and the ideals that are shared throughout society, and this study looked at the YouTube media platform through a socio- cultural and visual analysis view, separately as well as together (Rose, 2001). First, a visual analysis of YouTubers’ content was done, particularly with attention paid to gendered actions.
Second, a critical analysis of the YouTube platform was done using a media ecology framework, through a study of the history and functions of the site. The discussion allows these two pieces of analysis to come together to find themes between the way the platform creates an ecology and the ways it is used by creators. The research questions, then, are:
RQ1: What characteristics of the YouTube platform ecology give and limit control by content creators?
RQ2: What actions do they participate in that may be traditionally female-gendered?
RQ3: In what ways do the women enact a gender identity throughout their videos?
RQ4: What additional frames are added, such as satire or performed skill, to enhance or reclaim actions typically implemented as a part of domestic life?
The women of YouTube create videos that contribute to the discourses of their channel, the YouTube platform, and broader society. These women are also in a constant negotiation with their audiences, the platform, and society about their multifaceted identities: as digital content creators, entrepreneurs, women, members of their race, sexual orientation, physical location, family history, and many other identifiers. The ways in which they perform this intersectional identity for an audience within the YouTube platform is the focus of the visual analysis of four WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 42
case study channels each led by women. It is necessary to use a qualitative method of analysis
because applying meaning to creative work produced by another is inherently interpretive
(Hansen, 1998). The visual analysis was first done in a tiered method on episodes from each
channel, first identifying whether performed content falls into a tradition of actions attributed to
the female gender, second identifying the topic that the episode or performed action fits into
(some examples may be fashion, makeup, cooking, sex). Third, an identification of the type of
framing that the action is found within: whether the episode or action is performed in a manner
that might be satirical, comedic, genuine, etc. The result is an analysis of the ways in which
female creators portray themselves, their work, and particularly their gender within the YouTube
ecology, and the ways that these performances may work within or again the existing structural
and social biases of the platform. This is interpreted through Stuart Hall’s (2007) existing
structure of encoding and decoding, and whether the performances are dominant-hegemonic,
negotiated, or oppositional.
Using Stuart Hall’s (2007) process of encoding/decoding, and his three-hypothesis model for analysis, I determine whether each YouTuber is performing from a dominant-hegemonic, negotiated, or oppositional position when it comes to their gender identity. Though these terms and this form of analysis has previously been used to analyze audience response, I argue that it can easily be applied to an analysis of the author performance just as easily, particularly in the case of a sole-authored production such as the YouTube videos used in my project.
A dominant-hegemonic performance operates from a place of a normative reading of any gendered actions and would be read as acting within gender norms from a genuine goal. A negotiated performance of women’s work recognizes that their performance “acknowledges the
legitimacy of the hegemonic definitions to make the grand significations (abstract), while, at a WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 43 more restricted, situational (situated) level, it makes its own ground rules–it operates with exceptions to the rule” (Hall, 2007, p. 486). This might be a performance of, for example,
Mamrie Hart, making a cocktail in a kitchen as a nod to housewives, but doing this while trashing a male popular culture figure for cheating on a female popular culture figure (M. Hart,
2018a). This is both a nod to the hegemonic dominant culture of women making classic martinis and women commiserating about their relationships over drinks, as well as a negotiated meaning of commenting on the relationship of people she does not personally know. An oppositional code performance will be one where the YouTuber performs a reproduction of a dominant code in an oppositional manner. For example, Grace Helbig may perform the actions of a fashion review of a red carpet at an awards show, but the commentary may be satirical and therefore oppositional
(Helbig, 2018). Choosing to examine only the final output of the YouTuber’s content continues the examination of the conversations that YouTube creates and facilitates, and allows the final product to be a contribution to the context that YouTube as a platform can provide.
Once a cohesive understanding of the main content of each channel was established, outlier videos or changes in content style or identity were analyzed. Looking for specific changes such as location, episode content, guest stars, or discussion style, these performances were compared with earlier establishing episodes in order to discover the alterations in identity. All analyzed episodes were then considered as cohesive whole for the show or channel and the ways that the creator has shifted their identity through the years they have been on YouTube.
Next, work was done to identify the makeup of the ecology of the YouTube platform as it relates to creators. Examination of the YouTube platform for creators, called YouTube Studio, using a media ecology framework in order to discover the ways that the platform enables and/or hinders creators on the website addresses the first research question. A description of the WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 44
information and functions provided for creators, as well as specific terminology and placement is provided, followed by an analysis of the values that this platform projects for youtubers.
Prior analysis of YouTube from a media ecology perspective has focused on either the
shifts in business models (Cunningham, Craig, & Silver, 2016) or the ways in which use of
YouTube contributes to an ecology of protest for social change (Poell, 2014; Thorson et. al,
2013; Treré & Mattoni, 2016). These studies have, following in the tradition of the media
ecology field, placed the current studies in dialogue with previous studies, based on legacy
industries of media production and distribution and protest for social change, respectively.
YouTube’s Studio for creators is also evaluated through McLuhan’s laws of the media, or
tetrad. The YouTube Studio platform is studied through the ways that it amplifies, obsolesces,
retrieves, and reverses parts of society. For example, in his book Understanding New Media,
Logan (2010) places YouTube within the medium of movies, which also contains the video
camera, the VCR, DVD, and Blu-ray player, iMovie, and movies on the web. Within this
categorization, Logan defines the content of YouTube to be moving images, music, and the
spoken word, therefore focusing on the senses of sight and sound. In his evaluation of the tetrad,
he states that “movies enhance entertainment, obsolesce live theater and vaudeville, retrieve the
spectacle, and reverse into television and an art form” (Logan, 2010, p.179). This study does its
own evaluation of the creator ecology of YouTube through McLuhan’s laws of the media. This
grounding of the YouTube creator ecology adds a frame to the visual analysis as it provides a
context to the space in which the case studies work. The visual analysis is also then evaluated as
it relates to, interacts with, and alters the environment of the platform in which it lives,
particularly the ways in which the structure and biases of YouTube allows for agency of the WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 45 creators who use it, the cultural values that creator performances add to the ecology, and the ways that creators navigate their intersectional identities within this ecology.
Introduction of Case Studies
There are many channels on YouTube that perform gendered work with a new media twist. For this project, four channels are used as case studies, each channel with more than a million followers, regular video posting, and headed by a female YouTuber. The case studies were chosen as the sample for this project because of the authors familiarity with the work of each of the creators already, and their longevity on YouTube. Each of these women bring a lightheartedness and yet sincere nature to their characters as they address head-on and often tongue-in-cheek the journey of being a woman on YouTube and in broader society. They have each been chosen as exemplars for specific reasons, which will be discussed within each case study description. As a group, all of the women have been on YouTube for several years and began their channel as a creative outlet with complete control over the content and production.
Each woman has garnered attention for their channel and content and has branched into other performance opportunities while maintaining this more personal-professional outlet. The group represents professional females, in their early thirties, but with a diversity of familial and professional backgrounds. Three of the four case studies, Hannah Hart, Grace Helbig, and
Mamrie Hart are collectively referred to as the “holy trinity” of YouTube and compromise a friend group that is personal and professional, often embarking on professional projects together on platforms other than YouTube and appearing on each other’s respective channels (Dry, 2016).
Hannah Hart achieved YouTube stardom when her series "My Drunk Kitchen" started in
2011, wherein Hart cooks a dish while drinking, assumingly increasingly more drunk as the video goes on. Harts YouTube star dom led to two cookbooks, a memoir, and a food tourism WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 46
show on the Food Network called "I Hart Food" (Oulton, 2016; Durken, 2018). With about 2.5
million followers and over 321 million all-time views, Hart continues her series “My Drunk
Kitchen,” but also posts other content such as videos with other youtubers, traveling vlogs, and livestreams, and was announced as a host for an unscripted show produced by Ellen DeGeneres for the Ellen Digital Network in April, 2018 (H. Hart, n.d.; Spangler, 2018a). Personally,
YouTube led Hart to use her channel to discuss her homosexuality and announced her
engagement to her girlfriend Ella Mielniczenko in July 2018 (Durken, 2018).
Mamrie Hart (no relation to Hannah) uses her background as a bartender to create videos
for her channel’s series “You Deserve a Drink.” In each episode, Hart picks a celebrity or other
figure in popular culture who “deserves a drink” based on reports in the news. Hart, often
emanating a retro housewife vibe, creates a cocktail with a pun-filled name based on the person within popular culture that she is cheers-ing to. Hart has pivoted her online success into two best- selling cocktail recipe slash memoirs and has co-written two movies.
You Deserve a Drink, or YDAD (pronounced why-dad by Mamrie Hart), launched in
2011 and the channel now has 1.2 million subscribers and 259 videos, organized on the channel’s homepage by playlists for types of liquor used, such as “Gin for the Win,” or “Tequila Trouble”
(M. Hart, n.d.). Hart began her YouTube channel as an outlet to make bartending fun when in reality working as a bartender was paying her bills (Dry, 2016). She credits YouTube with helping her gain traction in more traditional entertainment settings as well as encouraging her to keep writing new content because “the thing about YouTube is you’re a one-person production company” (Dry, 2016). Harts most popular videos are those that feature crossovers with other
YouTube creators and include visits from YouTubers like Tyler Oakley, Miranda Sings, and the other two members of the so-called YouTube "holy trinity," Hannah Hart and Grace Helbig (M. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 47
Hart, n.d.; Dry, 2016). Hart’s channel was chosen for this study because of its longitude, its
formulaic style, and its goal to bring demonstration as well as popular culture callbacks into the
content. Her mix of discourse about popular culture or current events and performance of
creating a cocktail, often in a kitchen, make this a visual space for analysis of performativity of
the topical goals of this study.
Grace Helbig’s comedic channel often takes current YouTube trends and puts a satirical
spin on it, including monthly “favorites” videos featuring favorite cosmetic products, fashion reviews of red-carpet events, and video diaries. Helbig’s YouTube channel, with over 2.8 million subscribers has led to two New York Times bestselling books, a “self-help” book for Millennials
(Grace’s Guide: The Art of Pretending to Be a Grown Up) and a style guide (Grace’s Style: The
Art of Pretending You Have It), a late-night television show on E!, and a podcast (Not Too Deep) with over 100 episodes (Sun, 2018; Helbig, n.d.). Helbig is known as a comedian and was named one of the most influential people on the Internet by TIME magazine in 2015 (Staff, 2015). Her comedic and often satirical style in her videos frequently involves taking ideas from popular
YouTube videos and recreating them in her own way that often results in a channel of content where it seems that Helbig does not take herself very seriously (Helbig, n.d.).
Helbig, a 33-year-old, heterosexual Caucasian female from New Jersey who lives in Los
Angeles, posts content that might feature a monthly video of beauty and fashion favorites,
fashion reviews from a recent awards show, or an attempt at cooking, all done with Helbig’s traditional “awkward older sister” style (Helbig, n.d.; Kavner, 2014). Helbig has also referred to
a line between her public persona and a private one, making statements such as “It’s always been
important for me to be a real human being and share personal moments…but then make sure I
have a life that exists offline for myself,” therefore studying her videos for performances of WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 48
gender can be expected to also be a part of this distinction between private and public (Feeney,
2016).
Lilly Singh (a.k.a IISuperwomanII) hails from Canada but incorporates her Indian
heritage into many of her videos, conveying struggles of growing up with overbearing parents as
she impersonates them in her most popular series “The Parent LOLs” and “Parents React”
(Singh, n.d.) Singh has been on YouTube since 2010, her channel has nearly 15 million subscribers and over 3 billion all-time views, and she was listed in Forbes’ 2017 list of the top 10
YouTube earners ("The worlds highest -paid YouTube stars 2017", n.d.). Singh has been on numerous lists of the top women on YouTube and represents a woman who consistently
represents her multicultural upbringing on her channel (The top 20 female YouTubers have 205
million subscribers, 2018).
Singh is the only member of this case study who has a production team and regularly
posts vlog-style content. For these reasons she is both an outlier and of particular interest for this
study. Her vlogging content follows its own template but is placed on a separate channel from
her produced sketch comedy videos. The two-channel format and presentation of both characters
as well as an assumed more transparent Singh allow for additional insight into her intersectional
identity performance on the platform.
The study contains three chapters of analysis. The first is the analysis of Mamrie Hart and
Hannah Hart’s identities as portrayed through their posted videos. Both Harts’ channels are
associated with taking place in the kitchen. Mamrie Hart focuses on popular culture and social
commentary while sharing a personally developed cocktail recipe through her show You Deserve
a Drink while Hannah Hart focuses on following a food recipe she found while drinking a pre-
made drink. The second chapter of analysis is on Grace Helbig and Lilly Singh’s channels, WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 49
focusing on their portrayed identities on their more broadly comedic channels featuring skits or
YouTube trends. A combined analysis of their channels will allow an exploration of their
identities as comediennes and cultural contributors. Both creators also put their channels on
hiatus at the end of 2018, and their discussions surrounding their breaks from YouTube is
included here. The third chapter is an examination of the YouTube Studio as a media ecology, an
evaluation of the YouTube Studio through the laws of the media, and an analysis of the ways that
the case study channels contribute to the creator ecology. The resulting findings discuss
YouTube’s ability to facilitate cultural conversations and examine the discourses contributed by
its creator features and the case studies’ performances on the platform.
Previous work on performing identity on YouTube has focused on developing identity
(Chen, 2016) or comparing response to male and female youtubers (Wotanis & McMillan, 2014).
This study extends the identity work already done by focusing on the end performances of several women on YouTube, using the foundations created and conclusions found such as that identity development is a process (Chen, 2016) and that youtubers use “a variety of performance
strategies that mock traditional gender roles and stereotypes yet simultaneously reinforce them,”
to examine the ways that these performed identities and gendered actions reflect an intersectional
identity and influence the discourses in the YouTube media ecology (Wotanis & McMillan, 2014,
p.921).
Limitations of the study include the interpretive nature of the analysis itself. The scope
and timeline of this study did not allow for interviews with the case studies themselves, which
would provide an additional entrance into the identity performance work that is done, as well as
an opportunity for the interpretations of visual analysis made by the researcher to be discussed. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 50
Rationale
This study contributes to a limited body of work that uses a feminist critical perspective
and media ecology to YouTube and the female performers on the platform. It builds upon the
work done on gender and YouTube as a contributing platform to social justice movements
respectively and provides conclusions about the ecology of YouTube for the creators who
contribute content, as well as findings about identity work done on an intersectional level by the
women who create for YouTube. This will allow for further research on other identifying groups
on the platform, analysis of audience reception to these performances, response from the creators
themselves, and discussions of other platform ecologies and the agency they provide to content
contributors.
The wide range of videos included in each channel set the study apart as a unique
complete channel analysis that includes the nearly ten years that each creator has contributed to the platform. In total, approximately 250 videos were consumed during the visual analysis so that
exemplars and pivotal moments from each channel could be identified. The discourses emerging,
particularly surrounding LBTQ+ content, community collaboration, and youtuber burnout, offer
a distinctive insight into the current relationship between creators and their platform. This study
sets up future research in each of these areas, as well as opportunities to build upon its own
findings through examining the relationships between creator and audiences, and audiences and
the platform.
The uncommon utilization of media ecology and gender identity theories for grounding in
this research results in a multi-level analysis. The findings offer insight into the ways that
creators are empowered and limited by their distribution platform, and demonstrations of the
ways that they use the platform to embody their creative identity. This provides a more holistic WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 51 view of the ways that YouTube and its creators are contributing to culture and shaping new and existing norms. YouTube will reach its fifteenth year in 2020, and this study provides an in-depth look at its current state and the ways that it may be shifting, particularly for those who have fostered their career on the platform. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 52
CHAPTER 4: YOUTUBERS IN THE KITCHEN: MAMRIE HART AND HANNAH HART
Mamrie Hart’s show, You Deserve a Drink and Hannah Hart’s show, My Drunk Kitchen,
make up the first two case studies. In order to gain a broad understanding of both Hannah and
Mamrie’s shows, visual analysis was done on the first episode, the episode with the most views,
the most recent episode, and exemplars of important moments in development in the channels’
identity. This provides an opportunity to view their original vision for the shows, the example
that most people have seen, and the current state of the shows. Attention was paid to the
dialogue, topics, fashion statement, shot framing, and set design or environment. The episodes
were chosen using YouTube’s sort features to sort by oldest, newest, and most popular. In my
analysis on You Deserve a Drink, I discuss the ways that Mamrie Hart spent years working within a carefully constructed a template for episodes and performance identity and the ways in which 2019 has brought more flexibility to both aspects of the show, and focuses on creating more uplifting and collaborative content. My Drunk Kitchen provides an example of an
accidental professional youtuber. From the viral sensation of Butter Yo Shit, coming out as a
lesbian on YouTube, to purposefully cultivating pride content as an advocate. Throughout the
past eight years, Hart’s identity performances in her kitchen have navigated an emerging identity
as a lesbian, increasing celebrity, and success as a foodie. Emergent connecting themes from
these analyses include a heavy emphasis on collaboration with other youtubers, a performance of
critical analysis of their own content, choices around cursing, creation of a clear show template
from the first episode, and an increasing flexibility within that template over time. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 53
Mamrie Hart & You Deserve a Drink
Charlie Sheen’s Tiger Blood Gimlet
Hart’s first episode of You Deserve A Drink was posted on March 13, 2011, with the title
“Charlie Sheen’s Tiger Blood Gimlet” (M. Hart, 2011). The three minute and thirty-second video
opens with Hart in a belted sundress and long hair half up, sipping on a cocktail and standing
behind a table decorated with a striped tablecloth and a bouquet of flowers. The table also
contains barware including a silver cocktail shaker, a glass cutting board, a paring knife, blue
mixing bowl of ice, a partially empty bottle of Seagram’s gin and a bowl of assorted citrus fruits.
The first thing that Mamrie Hart ever says on You Deserve a Drink is "mmmm," followed by
pretending that someone has just walked in on her sipping her drink: "Oh hey!” she says, with a
wave (M. Hart, 2011). “Welcome to You Deserve a Drink,” while the words appear on screen to
her left in a retro tiki-bar style font in baby blue.
While so far, Hart has set up an idyllic picture of coming into a woman’s home to find
her dressed up and making cocktails, this visage dissipates when she introduces her featured
popular culture icon of the day in her next sentence: “Who do I think deserves a drink this week?
Charlie Sheen, that batshit crazy motherfucker” (M. Hart, 2011). This is said with a pleasant
smile on her face that would fool anyone watching without sound on. Hart has, in just twelve
seconds, established an essence for her show: part classic cocktail, part ladies book club after all
of the bottles are empty. The rest of the episode alternates between comedic one-liner puns about
Charlie Sheen “ApocoSIPS now!,” and the cocktail recipe instructions “gin actually bruises if you shake it really hard, and it will affect the flavor of the gin” (M. Hart, 2011).
This first episode uses three shots: the previously described further back shot of Hart behind the table, a close up on Hart’s hands anytime she is cutting something (the lime, blood WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 54
orange), and a third, middle-range, shot of Hart’s portrait as she shares quips about Sheen. The
jump cuts to the close-ups of Harts hands are jarring in their transitio ns and lack of stability. In
contrast, Hart’s headshot framing feels the most natural because the other two views seem
unnaturally close up or far away.
In this first episode, Hart strikes a tension between conventional and subversive. The
visual shots are representations of this, in the contrast between being too far or too close, and she
shines in the middle shot filled with one-liners, cocktail in hand. The faraway shot shows a
neatly decorated and arranged table, Hart’s hair neatly pulled to one shoulder, while the close-up
shot, featuring unmanicured nails filled with blood orange juice remnants and the action of
cutting seems to be the flip side of this. Hart’s bartender character wants to please, to educate, but also to set you on edge a bit with her off-color jokes and gossip. From the very first episode,
Hart lets her audience know that she is not the perfect housewife preparing a martini for her husband, she’s your best friend who is a little uninhibited, the one who will say “it’s five o’clock somewhere!” with a wink and a jiggle of her cocktail shaker.
There are several aspects of the video that are gendered, with the set and Hart’s appearance primary among them. The set contains flowers in pink water, a tablecloth with multicolored stripes in blues and greens, and a wicker bowl full of fruit appearing to be blood oranges and limes, a frosted glass cutting board, gin, plastic bowl of ice, and silver cocktail shaker. The components needed to make the cocktail (fruit, cutting board, gin, ice, cocktail shaker) are obviously functional, while the flowers and tablecloth, as well as wicker basket holding the fruit, are decorative. These decorative elements indicate intentionality to dress up the table in the long shot during the episode. It is noticeable that Hart, a bartender by trade at the time, did not decorate her set to appear to mimic a typical bar, but rather a home, decorated WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 55
purposefully rather than plainly. The flowers in pink water and tablecloth particularly invoke
what could be called a female touch, and the wicker basket rather than having the fruit lining the
cutting board indicate a method of design over function.
Hart wears a blue patterned dress with a red woven belt, and her hair half up and half
down. This styling genders feminine because of the dress but also because of her hairstyle
choice. The hairstyle is out of Hart’s face, so she can focus on making the cocktail, but still
partly down, and pulled to one side to show off her long hair. Her dress is belted, which creates
an hourglass appearance but also keeps the loose-fitting dress from getting in the way as she works on the cocktail. Hart’s appearance indicates that she wants to portray functional femininity through her dress and hairstyle.
Two actions in the episode are coded gender neutral or potentially non-feminine: cocktail making and cursing. Cocktail making is portrayed in popular culture by all genders and therefore was coded as gender neutral. Cursing, while not classified by gender in popular culture, has been categorized as unladylike, and I argue its use in this episode is purposefully used as an opposition to Hart’s set design and appearance. The cursing is an auditory conflict with the visuals of the episode.
Five main topics were identified in this episode: Charlie Sheen’s work, Charlie Sheen’s public image, cocktail making, drinking puns, and explaining the show. Hart often combines the drinking puns and Charlie Sheen’s work to make puns about drinking that play on movies that
Sheen appeared in, for example: “Know how to hold your liquor, you don’t want to be drinking like The Rookie” (M. Hart, 2011). The drinking puns are also combined with jokes about Charlie
Sheen’s public image at the time in the same manner. For example, she explains that she named the cocktail a “Tiger Blood Gimlet” because of Sheen’s claim that he is “made of tiger blood and WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 56
Adonis DNA” (M. Hart, 2011). These drinking puns and references to Sheen make up about half of the episode and establish that the content of You Deserve a Drink will be to infuse popular culture references with comedy while creating a cocktail.
Cocktail making is the main action of the episode, broken up by the previously mentioned puns/jokes. Nearly all of the cocktail making takes place in the long shot, but some actions, such as showing the ingredients needed and slicing the fruit, are done in the super close shot. Hart narrates the steps needed for the cocktail, as well as educates the audience through facts, such as:
Now what you might not know, is that gin actually bruises if you shake it really hard, um,
and it will affect the flavor of the gin. So instead of shaking it like a normal martini, you
just wanna wiggle it so it doesn’t bruise. (M. Hart, 2011).
These facts, along with the instructions for making the cocktail, provide education to the audience and a purpose other than comedy for the show. They also give Hart validity in her mastery of cocktail making and differentiate her from women sitting around drinking straight martinis or wine while gossiping.
The last identified topic in the episode is the explanation of the show format. Hart welcomes the audience at the beginning, and provides context that the show will be weekly and will feature a different popular culture figure each time through the sentence “Who do I think deserves a drink this week?” (M. Hart, 2011). At the end of the show, Hart provides further format information when she describes that YDAD has a built-in drinking game, and the viewers should make the featured cocktail, and then go back and watch the episode, drinking every time she makes a pun. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 57
Through the identification of these topics and the established tension between Hart’s
appearance and visual design of the set and some of the content of the episode, three frames were
found for the episode: comedic, instructional, and nonconformist. The comedic frame is
evidenced by Hart’s puns that combine references to Sheen and drinking, the jump cuts between
shots, and her encouragement to use the puns as a drinking game for her own show. Hart’s
choice of puns as comedy instead of straightforward jokes about Sheen or drinking signal a
lighter form of comedy. Puns are shorter to set up than other jokes, and make the dialogue seem
more off the cuff than if Hart attempted a more late-show style of monologue about Sheen. The
instructional frame is established through the topic of cocktail making. Education in cocktail
making is clearly a priority of YDAD for Hart, as she did not choose to just open a bottle of wine
to toast to the celebrity of the week. The nonconformist frame can be seen clearly in the first
twelve seconds, where the audience’s first impressions of Hart are a young woman with styled
hair in a dress standing behind a decorated table sipping on a pink cocktail, followed by a smile
and wave, immediately countered with the image of Charlie Sheen and her appraisal of him as a
“batshit crazy motherfucker” (M. Hart, 2011). Hart’s performance establishes her as a polished
young woman with a streak of profanity and pop culture references.
The first two frames come together in the third frame - through making puns in most of
her show including the title of the cocktail she instructs the audience in, Hart creates a character
who builds tension between education and rebellion. This creates a narrative that fits into Stuart
Hall’s negotiated code. Hart acknowledges the hegemonic stereotype of a woman making her husband a cocktail when he comes home through visual cues such as her dress and set design, but she creates her own rules to it when she curses, makes many jokes about being drunk or drinking to excess, and breaking up the actions of a housewife with cuts to different actions. She WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 58 also establishes her own rule in adding instructions about how to make a cocktail. The housewife appearance and set that she establishes are not consistent with a woman telling someone how to make a drink or educate them about types of drinks or liquor. In these ways, Hart’s first episode creates a formula for three-part comedic tension for the future of You Deserve a Drink: what will she wear? What will she make? What gossip will she be serving up?
Ya Busted With Tyler Oakley
Hart’s most-watched episode has over four million views. When compared with the other videos included in this analysis, which typically get between 100 thousand and 200 thousand views, this is an unusual number of views for Hart and is probably due to the fact that it is part of a crossover with YouTube star Tyler Oakley. YouTube crossovers are common, and usually involve two or more YouTube creators filming multiple videos together, one for each of their channels. This is also the case with Hart and Oakley’s video, which was posted on March 13,
2015. Oakley has 7.4 million subscribers, and in 2015, his average video received around a million views. Collaborations between youtubers increase the awareness of each youtuber by exposing each other’s audiences to new youtubers. Then, both creators upload the videos and promote each other and the videos they created on the other’s channel.
Though Hart opens the episode with her now-signature introduction: “Hi, welcome to
You Deserve a Drink, I’m Mamrie Hart,” she soon states that this is a very special episode with guest Oakley (M. Hart, 2015a). Instead of making a drink, Mamrie introduces that this episode is subtitled “shit to get off my chest,” and will feature Hart and Oakley modeling and demonstrating sports bras that have an insert that can hold an entire bottle of wine and has a plastic straw attached to it. Hart states that in this nine-minute and ten-second video, the two will drink "kinda Edward forty-hands style, until we’re done, and we’ll check in every five minutes to WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 59
get something off our chests” (M. Hart, 2015a). In this way, the episode is set up as two friends
drinking with the excuses of novelty drinking accessories and confession-style conversation.
Hart and Oakley are both wearing black crewneck sweatshirts with two skeleton
illustrations on them and the words “Who wore it best?” Hart’s hair is down and her makeup and overall styling are casual. They both place the black sports bra on top of their sweatshirts, and later in the episode, Hart wears black Ray-Ban style sunglasses while Oakley adds aviator-style sunglasses as they act out play scenarios where they are mall cops. They are sitting in a living room and behind them, the environment is set with a small globe, a red candle, a stack of colorful books, a green vase, an ampersand sculpture, and a painting of a purple calla lily. This is the only shot in the video.
The look and feel of this video is much less formal than Harts first episode. From the attire of sweatshirts, sports bras, and sunglasses to the living room location to the actual drink, which only requires a corkscrew, the episode exudes a comfortable, silly, and tipsy night on the couch with a friend. The tension between the sundress and cursing is not present, replaced by a makeup-free face. However, the socially acceptable but wild friend persona still persists, as evidenced by some of the conversations between Hart and Oakley.
At the beginning of the episode, Oakley admits that the last time he was on the show, he hit the car of their mutual friend Grace Helbig, who is usually behind the camera during YDAD filming. Hart is quick to point out that Oakley hit the car before he started drinking. There are also several points throughout the episode where Hart brings the interaction back to the stated format, whether reminding Oakley they are supposed to be making confessions “Wait, I don’t
think we got anything off our chest!” or following the continual fake narrative that they are mall
cops “What was Midnight’s crime?” (M. Hart, 2015a). These reminders that Hart is running a WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 60
show, or is a public figure with responsibilities, either to advocate for responsible driving, or
follow the format of the episode, call back to the informational parts of the first episode, and
remind the audience that Hart is as much a responsible adult doing a job as she is a fun and
carefree friend.
While the format of this episode does not follow the format established in the first episode, Hart introduces it as a special episode with a different format. Her explanation recognizes this episode as an exception to the typical format of YDAD rather than setting a precedent that this episode and others may become a normal part of what YDAD entails. Hart creates an expectation in the introduction that future episodes will be within her established format of cocktail recipe plus jokes, centered around one figure from popular culture.
Although much of Hart’s appearance and set in this video are coded much more gender- neutral, the sports bras that both Hart and Oakley wear on the outside of their sweatshirts bring up discussions of gendered dress and expected behavior. The sports bras themselves are traditionally attributed to female-identifying persons, of which Oakley is not. Oakley is out as gay on YouTube and in his online persona across platforms, however, crossdressing is not a normal part of his content. Oakley even states in the video that it is the first time he’s ever worn
a bra (M. Hart, 2015a).
It is notable that Oakley and Hart are wearing matching sweatshirts, which are gender- neutral in color (black) and design. The skeletons on the sweatshirts also can be coded as a reference to the fact that despite gender, everyone is the same on the inside. Hart makes a reference to the sweatshirts at the beginning of the video, claiming that Oakley “stole” her look and asking, “does this skeleton make me look fat?” (M. Hart, 2015a) This comment is a reference to a common women’s dialogue trope that women ask men if certain pieces of clothing WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 61
make them or their butt look fat or big. Their matching attire signal to the audience that even
though Oakley puts on a sports bra, he and Hart are co-conspirators in making this video, and his
wearing a sports bra is not sexualized at any point during the video. Instead, Oakley and Hart
spend more time discussing how the bras look like bulletproof vests and character playing as
mall cops.
The sports bras themselves are designed to hold an entire bottle of wine and are,
according to Hart, called “The Wine Rack.” They work similarly to a backpack that is designed
for water but is specifically marketed to hold wine. Targeting women with novelty drinking
accessories is common and contributes to a socio-cultural norm that women “need” alcohol to
deal with their lives.
Topics in this video include the various scenarios that Hart and Oakley envision in their alter egos as mall cops, rapping in the shower, puns about the bras, and announcing their
collaboration on an upcoming episode of Hart’s web series Hey USA. Oakley mentions early in
the video that he thinks the bras look like bulletproof vests, which spurs much of the video’s
content to be Hart and Oakley discussing the adventures they could have as mall cops, including
catching someone stealing earrings from the discount jewelry store Claire’s, discovering
someone going through the salad bar at chain burger restaurant Ruby Tuesday without paying for
it, and arresting a cat named Midnight for using a Le Creuset at Sears as a litter box. Despite
Hart’s statement at the beginning of the video that they would confess things to “get something
off their chest,” this mall cop scenarios are the bulk of their dialogue. When Hart says that they
haven’t confessed anything yet, Oakley replies “I don’t think we really have to” (M. Hart,
2015a). WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 62
One confession that Oakley does make is that he went to the mall with his brother when
they were younger so his brother could get his ear pierced. His brother wanted to be a rapper at
the time, and Oakley said that he heard his brother freestyle rapping in the shower. Oakley and
Hart then make up a few rhymes they might say in the shower, such as “Wash, rinse, repeat,
don’t forget to scrub your feet” (M. Hart, 2015a).
The only component of this video that follows the typical format of YDAD is that Hart and Oakley make puns about their sports bras throughout the video. The title of the video itself,
Ya Busted, refers to what they might say to their assailants as mall cops. Oakley and Hart also refer to themselves as “breast friends,” and at one point Oakley says that Hart is “really milking
it” (M. Hart, 2015a). These puns resemble the cuts to jokes that Hart performs in her solo
episodes where she has one specific cultural icon she jokes about. In the case of this episode, the
focus is the novelty bras.
The final topic is the main reason for Oakley and Hart’s collaboration, which is to
announce that Oakley will be the guest on the first episode of Hart’s summer travel show Hey
USA. Hey USA was a two-season show on the Astronauts Wanted YouTube channel from 2014-
2015 (HeyUSA, n.d.). The first season featured Hart and Grace Helbig as cohosts. They traveled
to several cities in the United States and their itinerary in each city was determined by input from
social media comments. In the second season, Hart hosted alone with a special guest each
episode. Hart announces that Oakley will be the first guest host, and they spend a few minutes
discussing that they are anxious to find out where they will be going.
Frames for this episode include comedy, nonconformist, and collaboration. The first two
frames remain the same from the first episode: Hart and Oakley make jokes and laugh
continuously throughout the episode. It is clear that although the action does not follow the WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 63
template for a YDAD episode, Hart’s main focus on her channel is comedy and that focus is
continued through this episode. The second frame is nonconformist. Although in the first episode
Hart exhibited this frame through a tension between her styling and content, this time the frame
is embodied by Hart and Oakley in their challenge of gender expectations in clothing and the
challenge of the episode to the traditional YDAD format. In wearing matching gender-neutral
sweatshirts and an overall more casual look and setting, Hart challenges the persona of a girly
girl with dirty gossip that she establishes in normal YDAD episodes. In wearing a sports bra
made to hold wine and encouraging Oakley to wear it as a functional item instead of an
unmentionable layer underneath clothing, Hart and Oakley act as physical challenges to gender
expectations for men and women. The last frame is collaboration. Collaborating with other
youtubers is popular on the platform, as mentioned earlier. This collaboration is lighthearted and
ends with a promise of more content, in both the promotion of the video the two made for
Oakley’s channel and the upcoming episode of Hey USA.
This episode and its content again fall into a negotiated performance according to Hall’s
encoding and decoding model. In this case, Hart is negotiating gender expectations as well as
negotiating the terms of her own show in performing outside the template that she created.
Cardi B’nana Freeze
Seven years into her show, Hart now has a new logo at the beginning of her videos, including a Y-shaped martini glass for the Y in “You,” but she still opens the videos with a welcome and self-introduction. In an episode called Cardi B’nana Freeze, Hart’s environment for this video is a modern white kitchen with window panel cabinet doors, subway tile backsplash, two kinds of soap on the sink, a paper towel roll, a glass standing bowl of lemons, the bottom of a blender, an opened bottle of red wine and two black and white vases visible in WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 64 the immediate background, with three more unopened bottles of wine visible in a wine rack (M.
Hart, 2018c). Behind her and to the right are a painting of PeeWee Herman and three Catholic prayer candles. In the far background, a long yellow dress and some pants are hanging up. The overall aesthetic of this set is much more casual, placing the action in the kitchen where contemporary cocktail making typically happens at home, and lacks the formal dressing of the set in the first episode. This makes the set seem unstaged, as if Hart is in the middle of her day and just making a quick refreshment.
Hart is dressed in black cut off shorts and a white crewneck t-shirt that she later states that she is selling in an effort to raise funds for continued financial support for Puerto Rico’s hurricane relief. The shirt has black block lettering that says, “If you like piña coladas & continued support,” and features a line of palm trees also printed in black ink. Her hair is in a ponytail with her bangs side-swept. Hart’s makeup features a gold shimmery eyeshadow and her signature winged eyeliner with pink lipstick and blush. The main shot is much tighter than the one found in her original video, and the supplies for making her drink are not visible unless she holds them up. Also visible often throughout the video is the halo light that illuminates Hart’s scene, reflected in the glass cabinet doors behind her. The secondary shot for Hart’s puns and quips is nearly identical to the main shot, just a bit closer and angled to the right.
Hart’s drink this episode is dedicated to Cardi B, a female rapper. Throughout the video,
Hart raps, makes puns about the singer’s recently announced pregnancy, and also shares facts about the rapper. One of the most obvious differences from the first two videos is that in the middle of this six-minute and thirty-four-second episode, Mamrie does a simultaneous double advertisement for Audible, an audiobook company, and her second book, I’ve Got This Round. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 65
She continues her fun female friend persona as she does this sponsored message in the form of a
faux phone call to Cardi B herself, interspersing sound bites from Cardi B into the advertisement.
The kitchen location, along with Hart’s more casual leaning stance in the secondary shot,
contribute to Hart’s continued embodiment of the friend. However, this characterization seems to
continue a casual version of her identity rather than the more formal, housewife-esque version of
the character found at the beginning of the series. Hart’s clothing choice and location in the last
two episodes analyzed indicate that her YouTube identity is less one of the indulgent but
educational bartender friend and more of the girlfriend, sitting around chatting over drinks. Hart
still instructs the audience on how to create the drink, but no longer offers information about the
best way to prepare it, instead, focusing on the many variations or substitutions for the drink.
The main gendered topic in this video is Hart’s repeated mention of Cardi B as a
successful female. She refers to Cardi B’s empowered womanhood throughout, using terms like
as “a first-time mom and successful career woman,” and stating facts like that her single Bodak
Yellow was the longest-running #1 single for a female rapper (M. Hart, 2018c). Topics in this
video include discussing relationships surrounding Cardi B such as her significant other, a
member of the rapper team Migos, and her manager, who was suing her at the time. Hart also
discusses that Cardi B used to be a stripper and mentions a couple of times that Cardi B is on
maternity leave. During the promotional content for Audible and Hart’s book, Hart does a sketch
pretending to call Cardi B to tell her about Audible and her book, using sound bites from Cardi B
as supposed “reactions.”
This episode is an example of the way that Hart has continued the template that she
established in the first episode of YDAD. She follows the style of recipe interspersed with jokes
or puns, all centered around a theme of one person in popular culture. The frames in this video WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 66
are female success and comedy. In keeping most of the content about Cardi B’s rise to fame and
not her impending child, Hart opposes what the assumed topic of conversation would be when
she started the video by saying that Cardi B deserved a drink because she is pregnant. The
content of the video is more of a celebration of Cardi B’s unrivaled success and rise from being a
stripper to flourishing rapper than it is a celebration of Cardi B’s choice to procreate. Hart still makes jokes and puns throughout the video, but they surprisingly lean more toward self- deprecation than quips at the expense of Cardi B. For this reason, this episode falls into Hall’s oppositional code. Hart states that she will be talking about the rapper’s pregnancy, but instead spends much of the episode celebrating other accomplishments, and Hart comes off only as positive toward the musician in contrast to her first episode where she makes fun of Sheen, calling him “batshit crazy” (M. Hart, 2011a).
Riffing on Format
Hart’s most recent videos range from the true YDAD format to being YDAD only in name, but following more of a game show format in content. On April 10, 2019, Hart posted a toast format video titled LAWYER KIM KARDASHIAN (A toast!) (M. Hart, 2019c). The toast format of her videos, of which this is only the third one since the first in 2015, involves Hart performing a “stream of consciousness toast to whoever I think should be toasted that day” without showing a recipe (M. Hart, 2015b). In other words, the videos include the jokes from the typical YDAD format but not the instructions on how to make the drink. In the first two episodes with the toast format, Hart still discusses what she is drinking and that it is a cocktail. The first video features a lemon drop martini and the second a pumpkin tea mixed with Bailey’s Irish
Cream and walnut liqueur (M. Hart, 2015a; M. Hart, 2015b). In all three toast videos, Hart is sitting on a coach rather than standing in the kitchen or behind a table/bar. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 67
In this episode, Hart raises a toast to Kim Kardashian, who recently announced she is
going to law school. Hart is sitting on a grey leather couch in a sweatshirt that reads “Lady of
Leisure,” with her hair up in a bun and bangs down. She refers to this look when she says she is
“straight from the gym” and mentions that she washed her bangs in the sink while showing the
strap of what may be a sports bra or bralette. Hart’s chipped peach nail polish is visible
throughout the video, which is shot from the chest up in one shot with jump cuts. Behind Hart is
a blue camouflage print throw pillow, blue walls, a tall house plant, and a window with a bamboo
shade pulled down. Although in other toast episodes Hart has a cocktail and describes it a bit, in
this episode, she is drinking sparkling wine or champagne, and her only reference to the drink is
at the end of the episode. When Hart normally states the instructions for the YDAD drinking
game, Hart says “make whatever is closest to and easy to do” before the instructions to rewatch and drink whenever she makes a “terrible pun about Kim Kardashian” (M. Hart, 2019c).
This video represents Hart’s increasing flexibility with what constitutes an episode of
YDAD. The YDAD title card is not present, but Hart does do her normal introduction “Hi and welcome to You Deserve a Drink, I’m Mamrie Hart,” and mentions that she has not done a
YDAD in a while (M. Hart, 2019c). The video was posted on April 10, 2019, and it had been about a month since her last video and was only her third video for the year so far.
Hart gives a disclaimer at the beginning of the video, stating that she “supports any woman bettering herself,” and applauds Kardashian’s previous efforts to aid in criminal cases, referring to Kardashian West’s influence in freeing Alice Johnson from jail in 2018, “however,
I’m also not going to change my brand, so let’s make fun of it, shall we?” (Mackelden, 2018; M.
Hart, 2019c). This establishes a tension between how Hart may genuinely feel about
Kardashian’s venture into law, a desire to be a supportive feminist female, and her YouTube WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 68
character who makes jokes at the expense of popular culture figures. The rest of the video, which
has about 60 thousand views, is filled with mostly sexual puns, referring to Kardashian’s sex tape with musician Ray J, the detox teas that the Kardashians often promote on their social media accounts and the love lives of the other Kardashian sisters.
The disclaimer at the beginning of the video and the other content that Hart posts aside from YDAD may be a hint as to why the channel has, as of April 2019, not had any true YDAD episodes for the year. In January Hart posted a video called Master of Thank Calling w/TYLER
OAKLEY, and in March Hart posted a video where she went to a professional makeup artist to be transformed in the TV character Alf (M. Hart 2019a; M. Hart 2019b). The lack of YDAD episodes and the disclaimer about supporting women is a signal to Hart’s audience that she is
encountering a tension between her established snarky personality on her channel and a desire to
put out more positive content, such as the episode with Oakley where they call businesses and
thank them for exceptional service or products (M. Hart, 2019a).
Toasts are not the only change to the format of YDAD. Hart also has several episodes of
YDAD called “Quickshots,” where the recipe is for a shot rather than a full cocktail. Despite the
name, the videos are not, on average, any shorter than a normal episode of YDAD. There have
been seven Quickshots episodes so far, ranging from Harry Styles Cherry Wild to Yoda Bomb
(M. Hart, 2014; M. Hart, 2017).
Hart’s two most recent episodes are collaborations with Grace Helbig. On April 26, 2019,
Hart uploaded a traditional episode of YDAD, entitled SaVed bY THE BELL pepper W/ Grace
Helbig (M. Hart, 2019d). The video was partially filmed in her kitchen and partially at a pop-up
space that is a recreation of several sets from the 90s television show Saved By the Bell,
including Mr. Belding’s office, Zack’s bedroom, and the hallway of Bayside High. While all of WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 69
the joke cuts were filmed at the Saved By the Bell space, the demonstration to make the bell
pepper martini was filmed in Hart’s kitchen. This video features both the opening card for
YDAD and Hart’s traditional introduction. In addition, there is an opening credits sequence that
mimics the TV show, but features Hart and Helbig in scenes such as Hart holding pom-poms and
playing on an arcade game, a body scan shot of Hart laying on Morris’ bed on an old cellphone,
Hart walking down a hallway of lockers with a tennis racquet in a “Bayside Tigers” T-shirt,
Helbig sitting on a blowup chair in the shape of an old cellphone holding pom-poms in a black
graphic T-shirt, windbreaker, and Walkman headphones, and Helbig on the phone behind Mr.
Belding’s desk.
These shots reproduce both typical opening credits shots for a show at the time, and
embody a typical shot described by Mulvey as an example of the male gaze. Compared to the
more casual Hart that the audience has seen, these overproduced and stereotypical shots are in
direct tension with the identity that Hart now typically performs. The visual of seeing Hart and
Helbig with pom poms, posing with a tennis racquet, or laid out on a bed represent an
oppositional gaze to the typical chest up shot of Hart during her show, where the audience does
not even see her attire and she remains in action throughout the video rather than posing.
Back in Hart’s kitchen, the ingredients for this drink are on the counter in front of Hart.
Hart wears the same outfit she wears in the shots at the Bayside set, a botanical print shirt with
large leaves and flowers in turquoise, pink, purple, and dark blue with black and white polka dots
with a short pink denim skirt, with her hair down. The ingredients for this martini are: “Agave, or
as I call it, hipster honey,” lime, spicy chili vodka “any brand. Or you could use tequila, or you
could use gin. It doesn’t really matter,” and fresh-squeezed bell pepper juice, which is contained in a miniature diner-style coffee pot (M. Hart, 2019d). Again, this noncommitment to specific WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 70
instructions represents a more flexible style in Hart’s show. Hart states that the audience can also cut up a bell pepper and muddle it but that she “got drunk and Amazoned a juicer” so she wanted to use the juicer.
The cut scenes include scenes in Zack’s bedroom, Belding’s office, and the Max diner, and shows Hart fake typing on an old computer while Helbig reads a Sports Illustrated, Hart and
Helbig doing a choreographed dance, or sitting in the rooms. Each joke, featuring puns about the
TV show characters such as “Slaters gonna slate,” is followed by a laugh track (M. Hart, 2019d).
In one notable scene, Hart is sitting on a bean bag chair in Morris’ room talking on an old cellphone. Her short pink denim skirt is covered by a blurred-out circle with a sketched black star covering where her skirt may have ridden up to reveal her underwear. This action calls attention to several gendered topics: Hart’s clothing choices, the potential for a casual action to accidentally result in exposure, and Hart’s humorous way of editing the footage.
First, Hart is wearing an outfit that could easily be reminiscent of the 90s, the time period that the set is designed in, so it is appropriate for the video’s aesthetic. However, sitting in a short skirt is notoriously difficult, and in this scene, Hart sits on a beanbag chair which both causes her skirt to rise and the angle of the camera to be one that would easily be able to show up her skirt.
Hart and Helbig likely noticed this during the filming and made the decision to use the footage and just add a coverup in some way. The choice to cover up the upshot in post-production rather than cover it up with other clothing or shoot the scene in a different way signals that Hart wanted her audience to know that this happened but did not want to expose herself to her audience, which could have professional consequences.
Second, there could be potential consequences if Hart had not covered up the potential exposure, specifically that she could receive unwanted reactions from viewers or the YouTube WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 71 platform. Viewers could come to the channel for the purpose of seeing this scene, adding an overtly sexualized body theme to Hart’s video, and taking away from her channel’s main purpose of comedic entertainment. YouTube could also choose to censor the entire video because of the scene, depending on what exactly was visible.
Third, Hart chose to both blur out and cover up the potential exposure with a sketch of a filled-in black star. This choice adds a layer of comedy to the scene because of the oversized nature of the star and the perceived overkill of using two different methods of covering up the potential exposure. It also reinforces the concept that Hart purposefully included this scene for comedic value. This exhibit’s Hart’s sense of humor about the situation and calls back to her early costume choices and their tension with her word choices during the episodes: it presents a character who tried to dress the part and ended up exposing who she really is. This shot also acknowledges that Hart recognizes the male gaze in her video and adds both an overt awareness and a frame of comedy to negate the sexualized nature of the upskirt shot.
Returning to the kitchen, Hart adds all ingredients to a shaker and while shaking it to the theme song for Saved By the Bell plays. Hart initially tries to cut out a bell-shaped garnish from a bell pepper, but decides against it, and serves it up in an iridescent martini glass that she says reminds her of the 90s. Of the drink, Hart says it “tastes like I just walked through a summer garden and then I saw a really hot farmer and then he laid me down and made love to me. But like, no dirt got anywhere weird” (M. Hart, 2019d). During some of the scenes on the set, a title screen states that the audio was bad so Hart and Helbig dubbed over the original audio. This dedication to quality and the overall heavily edited aesthetic of the episode show a higher commitment to production value in You Deserve a Drink. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 72
But Hart does not take her show too seriously - she also includes bloopers at the end of
the episode from the filming session on the Saved By the Bell sets. Taken together, the post- production cover-up of her skirt, the redubbing of bad audio, and the inclusion of bloopers, all of which incur extra effort in editing the video demonstrate a continued commitment to the comedic value of her show, the main frame that continues throughout her series. This episode, with off- site scenes and themed content tied throughout, shows a higher level of professionalism while maintaining the same level of comedy. The content of the jokes itself refers back to some of
Hart’s older style of humor, using events like Dustin Diamond’s legal troubles as content for the
jokes (Jenskins, 2016).
Another way that Hart expands the definition of a YDAD episode is to integrate
gameplay components into a collaboration. In a June 2019 episode with Grace Helbig, the two
play a trivia/guessing game called Rider Die Challenge (with my ride-or-die) (M. Hart, 2019e).
While the episode has the title card animation for YDAD and Mamrie opens with her traditional introduction, the rest of the format of the episode does not resemble the typical formula, and she does not make any mention of the fact that the format is different than any other episode.
Despite the episode missing a recipe, the usual puns, or a specific named person for the topic of the show, the action of this YDAD still takes place in Hart’s kitchen. There is no reason for the two women to be in the kitchen for this episode, and it sits in contrast to other non-recipe videos where Hart films in other locations such as while sitting on the couch. Filming in the kitchen, however, makes the episode visually display as a YDAD episode.
On the counter behind them, we can see a bottle of vodka and a can of sparkling water, and a bowl of lemon and limes, but only Helbig has a drink throughout the episode. Hart refers to a gold MacBook throughout the episode, and a ring light can be seen in the reflection of the WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 73 cabinet glass behind them. Hart is wearing a purple sleeveless outfit with cheetahs on it, while
Helbig has on a tie-dye shirt with an upside-down smiley face that says “IDK” below it. Hart’s hair is down initially, but she puts it into a bun partway through the episode, while Helbig has her hair half up in a top knot.
At the beginning of the show, Hart and Helbig discuss their podcast This Might Get Weird and its upcoming tour - this is the purpose of the video, to promote the tour and encourage viewers to purchase tickets. They discuss that on tour their rider contains requests for items in their green room, including a bottle of vodka, various mixers, crudités and hummus, and fresh fruit (M. Hart, 2019e). To follow with the theme of touring, Hart explains that the game will consist of several different formats of guessing the rider requests of several different celebrities.
The mentioned celebrities include Marilyn Manson, David Hasselhoff, Mariah Carey, Larry the
Cable Guy, Britney Spears, Drake, and Madonna.
During the discussion of their tour rider, Hart and Helbig share that a bottle of the liquor
Fireball also used to be on their green room list, but that they no longer drink it. They also explain that they feel self-conscious requesting even the short list of items they have, using words like “timid,” “humble,” and “cautious” and that they worry about “seeming like divas...even asking for hummus felt like too much” (M. Hart, 2019e). This hesitancy to request items, which total might only cost around $30, and specifically the use of the word “divas” indicates that there is a gendered piece to their reticence. This relates to ideas of taking up space, asking for what one wants and will make them comfortable, and asking others to fulfill basic needs (food). Particularly since Hart’s channel is dedicated to making cocktails, the concept of her being bashful about asking for ingredients to make a cocktail seems absurd, but it also reveals that Hart (and Helbig) may experience imposter syndrome while on tour. This insight into WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 74
Hart and Helbig’s thoughts about their requests on tour is particularly interesting in that it
precedes a game/discussion about very famous actors and musicians’ requests on tour. The
requests that they discuss make Hart and Helbig’s request for vegetables and vodka seem
minuscule in comparison to, say, Madonna’s request for a new toilet seat at every venue she
plays (M. Hart, 2019e). It is also telling that Hart and Helbig do not directly call anyone else a
diva or comment that requests are outrageous, only that they feel uncomfortable requesting items
themselves.
You all Deserve a Drink
In the past eight years, Mamrie Hart’s channel has evolved from a pseudo-housewife character following a strict format of recipe plus pop culture puns to a creator collaborator who flexes format in order to best fit her goals outside of YouTube. In contrast to other YouTubers,
Hart’s main goal has never been YouTube stardom, but rather to pivot her notoriety into traditional media, mainly movies and TV shows. Hart has written two films that starred several of her YouTube collaborators and has a first-look deal with Lionsgate. She makes a living out of living, even going on several vacations with friends in order to gather content for her second book. Her identity on her channel is still sweet with a salty side, but the content is no longer aimed at making fun of figures in the news and skews more toward creating community among youtubers. Her current flexibility in format and more casual nature enforce that new discourses are being created, and present Hart’s ideology when it comes to women’s performances, as
discussed by Hesse-Biber (2013). In an environment where YouTube seems more focused on
competition to get the most views, subscribers, and play to the algorithm, Hart’s channel does
not seem to put an emphasis on that. The lack of regular uploads or clickbait titles or even a
singular format is evidence of this. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 75
Hannah Hart & My Drunk Kitchen
Hannah Hart created her main YouTube channel, MyHarto, on June 4, 2009, but her first video was not uploaded until nearly two years later. Her secondary channel is titled YourHarto and was created on August 22, 2011, and nearly eight years later has 321 thousand subscribers
(H. Hart, n.d.). The central and most popular content on MyHarto is Hart’s ongoing show My
Drunk Kitchen, which has garnered the main channel 2.4 million subscribers to date. The channel has 665 videos total, with 234 in a Hart-created playlist for food-related videos. Hart’s other content on the channel is mostly made up of vlogs of various content - including titles like
“Advice from the Hart,” and “Captain’s Vlog,” much of which is filmed when she travels or is otherwise unable to film a cooking video due to practical constraints like location (H. Hart, n.d.).
Hart also creates videos to integrate with her other creative and sponsored efforts, such as a recent video titled $13,000 Engagement Ring Reveal! that connects to a web series Hart stars in on Ellen DeGeneres’ platform, or a brand partnership with the wine subscription company Winc where she drinks their wines during My Drunk Kitchen (Weiss, 2019; H. Hart 2019a; H. Hart
2018c). Despite a plethora of content that is outside of her show, the channel’s bread and butter is found in the My Drunk Kitchen (MDK) series, and it is that format that has catapulted Hart into other media, including two cookbooks and a show on the Food Network. From an analysis of a series of MDK episodes, Hart’s identity is focused on her comedy rather than her (lack of) cooking skills, and she makes a concentrated effort to broaden her reputation from the accidental viral video of her unsuccessfully making a grilled cheese into a socially conscious voice of reason (and puns) on a platform that struggles with performances of true vulnerability. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 76
Butter Yo Shit
Hannah Hart’s first YouTube video was uploaded on March 16, 2011 (H. Hart, 2011a).
Titled My Drunk Kitchen Ep. 1: Butter Yo Shit, the video has over 4.3 million views, also making
it the most viewed episode of the series. The video begins with “Hello! Welcome to my drunk
kitchen,” followed by jaunty music and Hart opening a bottle of red wine (H. Hart, 2011a). The
video sets the format for all future episodes of MDK, and only uses one static shot, a camera
placed at counter height across from a stove. Hart wears a green zip-up hooded sweatshirt and a
blue tank top with glasses and her signature short haircut in a sandy color. She is in a low-lit
kitchen where an electric stove, small countertop, and some cabinets are visible, all in the
background. Before the title screen that says, “My Drunk Kitchen,” in scrolling white script on a
black background, several jump cuts of Hart’s face or in the midst of her cooking are included.
These entail shots of Hart making faces, singing a snippet of Justin Beiber’s song “Baby,” and
Hart stating both “Shit is getting real over here,” and “And that’s beautiful” (H. Hart, 2011a).
This rapid-fire cut and a sort of preview of the action that will unfold throughout the video is typical of the style of MDK going forward and provides viewers with intrigue as well as comedic entertainment before the main content of the video gets going.
After the title screen, Hart begins by describing the wine she just opened. She mimics a manner of a sommelier describing wine, but her words act in direct opposition to someone with such knowledge: “This is a wine that I found in my sister’s kitchen. Which...is free” (H. Hart,
2011a). Hart then goes on to share several important things to keep in mind while cooking drunk.
The first is that “you should be also dancing,” the second that “you should also be drinking a lot of water because alcohol,” third “or...run, sprint. I like to sprint” (H. Hart, 2011a). Hart then goes on to describe the nature of this show. First that “this is a show about making sure that you don’t WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 77
puke your guts out,” and second that “this is a show that’s about friendship” (H. Hart, 2011a).
The second phrase refers to the impetus for Hart’s video, which was as a gift to a friend who needed cheering up (Sowa, 2018). This action, where Hart playacts as one who is going to provide knowledge, followed by content that is off-topic, silly, or nonsensical establish the fact that Hart, despite setting up a cooking show, does not have epicurial knowledge or practice. The goal of the show is comedy, not instruction for creating food.
Hart continues this list-making as she moves into the actual recipe for the show, which is for grilled cheese. Her first direction is “not to be drunk when you’re cooking. Safety advisory.”
She then takes out a pan and sets it on the stove. She jump-cuts to talking to the screen a bit more
(“if you are watching this, you are in front of a computer”), pours more wine, and then says it’s important to gather the ingredients (H. Hart, 2011a). She leaves the frame and comes back in holding butter and a loaf of bread and says “you may be thinking right now “Why don’t I just make some toast? Fuck, that’s so much easier than making a grilled cheese sandwich” (H. Hart,
2011a).
The episode follows with a series of jump cuts to witty remarks and is not accompanied by music or additional editing. She continues to make several lists during her banter, sometimes working on several at once, including the recipe directions, and “Benefits of grilled cheese: one: delicious. Number two: easy to...eat. Number two: easy to make” (H. Hart, 2011a). In the cooking demonstration, Hannah butters the bread, turns on the stove, and then consequently realizes that she does not have any cheese. Hart also ends the video with credits, including
Hannah Hart as “drunk,” and cheese as “not present” (H. Hart, 2011a). She continued to add credits at the end of her videos for several episodes but eventually discontinued them. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 78
Although this is the first episode, Hart did not create the show to be a series initially. She
hints at this by saying “Well, that sums up this week’s episode of drunk cooking. Not to imply that there will be a next week’s episode of drunk cooking” (H. Hart, 2011a). The credits of the episode include Hannah Hart as “Drunk” and Bread as “Eaten,” and “Not Featured: Cheese.”
The lists that Hart makes throughout the show serve to fit the show into a traditional cooking demonstration genre, and also highlight Hart’s drunken state. For example, instructions for cooking the grilled cheese include the following:
Always use a butter knife for everything. Don’t fuckin’ hurt yourself.
It’s important when cooking, to use food.
Add fire.
Butter your shit.
Step two: clean while you go. (Said as she puts the butter away.)
Step three: pick your shit up that you dropped earlier when making your video.
Step five: check on your shit.
Step five: don’t forget that you’re cooking.
Hart, 2018
The repetition of step numbers, and statement of obvious things like using food, and turning on the stove enhance the impression and discourse around Hart’s drunkenness.
It is this underproduced and spontaneous performance that drew viewers to Hart’s video.
Although 4 million total views are not considered viral in 2019, in 2011, the video was considered a huge hit (Saxe, 2018). Hart hit on an experience that many viewers related to - feeling out of control with a lack of ingredients. Although Hart’s video does not provide any real recipe instructions, and most of the episodes of MDK follow that (lack of) format, what she does WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 79
provide is an insight into doing one’s best, and practicing “reckless optimism,” to use one of her
catchphrases (H. Hart, 2015).
An interesting piece of this video is that none of Hart’s style, set, actions, or dialogue is
coded as gendered - it was all coded as gender neutral. However, in March of 2018, Hart
uploaded a video where she reacts to her first video, in celebration of the seven-year anniversary
since she uploaded it (H. Hart, 2018b). In rewatching, Hart shares some behind the scenes
thoughts about her style in her first episode, including that she thought her tank top was a bit
sexualized, saying “I thought I had cleavage,” and that it was “scandalous to wear just the tank top in one shot,” which is contrasted with a recent photo of Hart in just a sports bra and athletic shorts (H. Hart, 2018b). Late, Hart also says of her style: “I had SO many lesbian dykey rings,” and that she was somewhat embarrassed by her clothing choices because at the time she would choose clothes based on colors that she liked rather than style whether they matched (H. Hart,
2018b). These reactions show that while Hart’s behavior in the video do not come across as gendered for the audience, for her personally the choices were intentional in a manner to express herself and she worried about being sexualized or judged for her style. The discussion of these topics by future Hart contribute to a discourse of change since she began her channel, including topics of change in clothing and self-perception.
The main topics in this video are the recipe, being drunk, and grilled cheese. Hart provides a lot of content that tie together all three of these topics, including the tips about not
cooking drunk, or how grilled cheese is easy to eat and make. She provides facts and potential
tips about cooking, what do to when one is drunk, and why grilled cheese is so good. The only
frame is comedy, because Hart does not provide a real recipe for this episode and does not
actually make grilled cheese. This fits into Hall’s oppositional code for encoding and decoding, WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 80
because while Hart is following a template for a cooking show in providing banter, instructions,
potential hints, she does this without providing any actual educational content that would be
useful to someone learning how to make grilled cheese.
Although at the time, Hart did not expect to make more episodes of MDK, she
unwittingly set the template for the series, which includes three parts: a recipe, a drink of choice,
and musings about deeper or unrelated topics. At the end of the video, Hart states “but in all
seriousness, don’t beat your kids” (H. Hart, 2011a). While this comes across as funny as well,
Hart continues in future episodes to try to leave the audience with a deeper or more serious thought, in an effort to make the episode about more than drunken misadventures in cooking.
Birthday Cake Crossovers
The most popular episode of My Drunk Kitchen is its premiere. The second most popular
episode is titled My Drunk Kitchen: Birthday Cake, which was published on September 13,
2012, and features fellow YouTube star Jenna Marbles with a short feature from Grace Helbig
near the end of the video (H. Hart, 2012a). As is characteristic for early My Drunk Kitchen days, the episode takes place in a different kitchen (Marbles’), with Hart and Marbles seated at a round table drinking champagne. The episode has 3.5 million views, and as the text explains at the beginning of the video, was split into two parts. The MDK episode is actually the second part of the video, while the first part is titled MDK: Birthday Cake Extras and was posted to Hart’s secondary channel, YourHarto, with 881 thousand views (H. Hart, 2012b). Both videos will be used in this analysis, as crossover is used in two interesting and standardized ways in this example: a crossover in the form of collaboration with other YouTubers, and a crossover in breaking one shoot into multiple pieces over multiple content streams. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 81
The “extras” video opens with Marbles asking Hart if she can say “fuck” on her channel.
This indicates a question of norms about profanity in the YouTube space, a question that is usually handled on a channel by channel basis, as there are not any regulations on profanity on the platform itself, unlike with television or radio. This also indicates priming of the type of content that will be created during the videos, and what will be appropriate or not. Hart responds by saying that “I’m pretty sure fuck is the basis of our friendship,” which sets the stage for ensuing profanity and sexual innuendo throughout the videos (H. Hart, 2012b). This discussion about the appropriateness of profanity can be tied back to concepts of ideas for female norms, as it has historically been considered “unladylike” to cuss, and both Marbles and Hart go against this norm by choosing to agree to use profanity throughout the video. There is also strong implication in the actual discussion of the use of profanity, as Hart could have easily chosen to cut this piece out. After all, Hart cusses in her very first video and provides no disclaimer or acknowledgment that permission is needed. In discussing whether cursing is “allowed” there is an admission that it may not be appropriate, according to social and YouTube norms. Hart adds to this conversation in her 2018 video where she rewatches and reacts to her first episode. The first time that Hart says “fuck” in episode one, Hart says “Oh, haha, can’t swear anymore on the
Internet,” referring to the fact that Hart now normally bleeps out any swearing in her videos (H.
Hart, 2018b). This shift is likely due to Hart’s efforts to market her brand to a wider audience and perhaps a more mainstream cable audience or a wider range of advertisers.
Hart and Marbles discuss that they are making a cake just for the purpose of decorating it.
At first, Marbles seems to be nervous about Hart’s manner of cooking without using measurement or following a recipe very closely, asking Hart if they should separate the wet and dry ingredients. Hart responds with “Great, so, you’re better at YouTube and better at cake” (H. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 82
Hart, 2012b). This refers to Marbles’ wider known fame on YouTube, Marbles has 19.6 million
subscribers compared to Hart’s 2.5 million (Marbles, n.d.).
Unlike many My Drunk Kitchen episodes, Hart does not introduce the recipe that they
make, or give any real direction for the video. She does, at the beginning of the official MDK
episode, explain that they are making a birthday cake, saying that “So birthdays are super great,
or traumatizing, boring events” (H. Hart, 2012a). In the extras video, Hart states to the camera
“You only bake birthday cakes for people you love...I have never baked a birthday cake in my
life,” and Marbles responds, “Do you know how to love?” (H. Hart, 2012b). Neither Hart nor
Marbles ever read any of the recipe directions out loud, and they do not narrate what they are doing at all. In both videos, the action of the cake making and decorating is almost busy work while the conversation between the two, who are eventually joined by Grace Helbig who has been filming the video, is the main content.
This choice to focus on the conversation and action of cake making and decorating rather than the recipe or instructions move the focus of the video away from the labor of baking and onto the camaraderie of Hart and Marbles. The focus on conversation over instruction is typical for My Drunk Kitchen:
It’s never mattered if her hilarious cooking show doesn’t convey any reliable food skills
because she and her fans have, "a great conversation in the kitchen...the way that I like to
think of it is that when I go to a house party, honestly, I’m in the kitchen. The kitchen is
more intimate, it’s a better place for conversation, and best of all there’s food there.”
Saxe, 2018, para 8
The absence of any sort of instruction at all is fairly atypical for the MDK series. The fact that the video was divided up into two videos, or double the content of a normal episode, puts even WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 83 more emphasis on this format in contrast to MDK’s normal format of providing at least a cursory attention to the typical structure of a cooking demonstration. At one point, Marbles suggests that since their ultimate goal was to decorate the cake, perhaps they should have just purchased a cake that was pre-made. This underlines the idea that the cooking part of the show is particularly irrelevant to their episode. Focus is instead on their conversation and the “drunk” part of My
Drunk Kitchen, as throughout the main channel video, Marbles and Hart are seen opening three bottles of champagne.
The focus on their conversation allows Hart to easily apply the first use of crossover in this episode: to make the connection between her two channels by posting one video or half of the episode on her main channel, My Harto, and the other half on her secondary channel, Your
Harto. The Your Harto channel is generally used for travel diaries, videos of community work, live discussion videos, and vlogs. Posting half of the episode with Marbles on this channel signals that it is more personal, more of a conversation rather than a typical episode of MDK. It also works as a great reminder to followers of the My Harto channel that the secondary channel exists, and content is uploaded there as well, as the Your Harto channel has just a fraction of the number of subscribers of My Harto: 321 thousand versus 2.4 million (H. Hart, n.d.).
The separation of content among more than one channel is a tactic used by many youtubers, including three out of four of the case studies in this project. This allows creators to establish two different kinds of content identity, perhaps keeping higher production value videos separate from on-the-go vlog style videos, or for commercial purposes keeping one channel at a certain content rating level for advertisers while allowing for more adult themes on a separate channel. Promoting content between the multiple channels is important to keep awareness up about both channels. In this case, Hart references the other half of the video several times during WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 84
each video, encouraging viewers to watch both parts. This gives the audience the opportunity to
explore the other channel if they are not familiar with it, and hopefully subscribe to it.
Crossovers between creators’ own multiple channels allow audiences to be exposed to variations
of the identities and types of content that creators produce. For example, a viewer may click on
the MDK episode with Marbles because they like the series and end up watching the other half
on Your Harto and be exposed to a more sober, serious side of Hart as a creator in consequent
videos on that channel.
The second type of crossover used in this episode is more commonly called a
collaboration or collab video - meaning that it features one or more youtubers from other
channels. In this case, Marbles is the main collaborator, but Grace Helbig also makes an
appearance. As seen in the previously covered collaborations that Mamrie Hart does, these are
often used to increase audience awareness across youtubers. However, Helbig is not named as a
collaborator in the title, which is a norm of collaborations. Helbig was likely filming the video
for Hart and Marbles, and just stepped in at the end to join the conversation or eat the cake. This
indicates that her participation is out of friendship more than promotion. This collaboration
among youtubers is atypical as well because Hart and Marbles did not film a second video that
goes on Marbles’ channel. This indicates that Marbles appeared on Hart’s channel to increase her brand awareness as Marbles’ has a much larger following and notoriety on YouTube.
It is never stated exactly why the women are decorating a birthday cake, however in the credits for this video, it can be inferred that each person’s birthday month is listed, and Marbles and Helbig are both listed as “September!” while Hart is “not until March” and Cheese is
“somewhere safe away from this madness” (H. Hart, 2012a). WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 85
Once again, there are not any gendered actions in this video from Hart. At the beginning
of the main channel video, Marbles points to her and Hart’s breasts in a comical gesture, but
nothing is said about it or connected back to it. The main topics for this video are birthdays and
puns. Most of the main channel video includes fast paced cuts to puns about the cake they are
making, and dialogue between Marbles and Hart about Marbles attempting to make puns and
admiring Hart’s ability to come up with them. Once again, this fits into the oppositional code
from Hall, as Hart promotes this video as an episode of My Drunk Kitchen even though no
recipe or instructions are provided, and the real reason for making a cake was to decorate it.
This video echoes Hart’s first episode in its desire to establish Hart as a comedian and not
a chef. Its focus on the interactions between Marbles, Hart, and Helbig underscore the
community aspect that Hart is cultivating on the platform, and a desire to be appreciated for her
quick wittedness rather than need to exhibit skill in cooking. After watching this episode, viewers
might feel that Hart’s setting in the kitchen and main action of cooking are superfluous, that she could just film her and her friends sitting around chatting, and that making a mess of someone’s
kitchen might not be necessary. It could seem that the only reason that Hart remains in the
kitchen is because that is what garnered her attention in the first place.
Hart’s Queer Kitchen
In its current form, a large part of Hart’s youtuber identity is as a lesbian. This is
evidenced throughout her videos but historically focused on her non-MDK videos on her main
and secondary channels that include series about coming out, advice on dating, and travel vlogs
with her fiancée, Ella Mielniczenko (H. Hart, 2012c; H. Hart, 2018a). Hart has been “out” on her channel since November of 2012 when she posted a video titled Coming Out, although she had been out as a lesbian in her personal life since 2010 and shared the fact that she is gay on her WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 86
website and social media profiles before coming out formally on her YouTube channel (H. Hart,
2012c; H. Hart, 2018a; H. Hart, 2011b). She has cultivated content about being a part of the
LGBTQIA+ community throughout videos on both of her channels, presented at and won
GLAAD awards, and is an advocate for queer rights (Goodman, 2016).
During the month of June 2019, Hart celebrated Pride Month by making seven videos that centered around LGBTQIA+ themes (H. Hart, 2019b). The videos included making rainbow colored foods during multiple My Drunk Kitchen episodes, doing a rainbow-colored juice blind tasting (Taste Buds Taste the Rainbow) with Tyler Oakley, Grace Helbig, and Mamrie Hart, answering audience questions (QandGay) with Kelsey Darragh, and giving others’ a platform to share their coming out stories (How Did You Know You Were Gay?) (H. Hart, 2019d). Although
Hart created videos for Pride before, this year marked the first year that Hannah uploaded exclusively pride-themed content during the month of June. As this signals a shift in content and an emphasis one individual piece of Hart’s identity, the My Drunk Kitchen episodes from Pride
Month will be analyzed together here.
My Drunk Kitchen of 2019 is still a one-shot, jump-cut filled show. Hart still ends many episodes with a piece of wisdom or food for thought. The first pride-themed episode of My
Drunk Kitchen features Hart baking Challah bread with rainbow coloring. Hart explains during
the video that she is in a new kitchen home for MDK, which is on the property of a newly-
purchased home with Mielniczenko. In true not-really-a-cooking-show form, Hart time lapses
the creation of the dough. She does, however, put the ingredients and their amounts on the
screen. Hannah also admits that she cooked another loaf earlier in the day, saying that it was to
practice, and also saying that she was sober then. She holds up the loaf she makes during the
video at the end, saying “Yea, it was better before when I wasn’t drinking. Wow! Nobody is WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 87
surprised” (H. Hart, 2019c). While this piece of information seems to show a more professional
MDK, there is also a portion of the video that is out of focus because Hart does not refocus her
camera between two takes.
The second MDK episode during Pride Month is a collaboration with Amber Whittington
of the channel AmbersCloset, and the two women make rainbow grilled cheese sandwiches. The
episode’s caption is “Butter yo rainbow shit,” which is a reference back to MDK’s first episode,
also about grilled cheese. This time, cheese is the first ingredient included. At the beginning of
the episode, Hart asks Whittington “How do you love bread and have abs?” which refers to a common social belief that in order to be fit, one must deprive themselves of carbohydrates (H.
Hart, 2019e). Whittington responds, “Listen you just gotta do cardio,” to which Hart responds in the negative, implying that she is not interested in working out. This interaction between two women seems to work in opposition to much of the rest of the video, where the women, both stated lesbians, talk about Pride, cooking, and LGBTQIA+ issues of inclusivity. In contrast to the rest of the episode, this conversation sets a tone of very socio-typical behavior among two women where they discuss their eating and physical activity habits as they relate to their body appearance. This video also uses a second camera: Whittington uses a smartphone to capture footage of Hart at the stove. In the process of making the grilled cheese, Hart burns both sandwiches and finds out that the food coloring they used to color the cheese has a sweetened flavor to it. The women end the video by referring viewers to a second video collaboration on
Whittington’s channel, which had not been filmed yet but is entitled Super Gay Snack Tasting +
Pride Faxxx (w/Hannah Hart) (Whittington, 2019).
In both episodes, Hart promotes her upcoming cookbook My Drunk Kitchen Holidays, which is expected to be released in October 2019. The episodes serve as more than commercials WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 88
for her celebratory book, though. Themes of queerness, acceptance, and celebration of Pride
Month are found in both videos. In the Challah video, Hannah uses the time during which the
dough is proofing as an opportunity to discuss “proof” from a queer point of view, saying:
A lot of my experience as a queer person has been about proof. A lot of times I’m asked
to prove why I am the way I am. Or how I am the way I am, or in what way I celebrate
the way I am.
H. Hart, 2019c
In this monologue, Hart hints at the multifaceted issue of legitimacy within and about queer
communities. Often people are asked to prove that being gay is not a choice, or, more subtly,
expected to perform socio-cultural identifiers of being queer, such as performing “butch” as a
lesbian. Hart goes to encourage her audience to “Just do you,” which may refer not just to sexuality performance, but identity in general (H. Hart, 2019c).
In the rainbow grilled cheese episode, Hart discusses the topic of inclusivity versus diversity, and the differences between the two words with a focus on inclusivity. She transitions to this topic by sharing that the original recipe for rainbow grilled cheese only called for three colors to be used, so it could not be a full rainbow, and said that that is “not inclusive” (H. Hart,
2019e). Hart uses a metaphor to explain the difference between diversity and inclusion, saying that diversity “is being invited to the dance” while inclusivity “is being asked to dance” (H. Hart,
2019e). Although the conversation stops there, Hart may be referring to the idea of Pride Month and in particular the rainbow flag icon. The past few years have seen brands who change their logos to rainbow colors in an effort to acknowledge diversity, but that those some brands or even individuals who “celebrate pride” do not make an effort in everyday life to include people who identify as LGBTQIA+. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 89
In these videos the shared main frame is sexuality and identity. These videos represent a
negotiated code in Hall’s encoding and decoding in that they follow the template set out by Hart
for MDK episodes in the integration of cooking, joking, and unrelated discussions, but they also
follow a cooking show format in that both episodes feature actual step by step demonstrations on
how to create the featured foods. Within these templates, though, Hart negotiates to include her
own sexuality and discussions about how to navigate that identity in the world and what it means
to have pride about that identity.
The pride series is the latest in an effort from Hart to integrate My Drunk Kitchen with the
other, often more serious, content on her channels. In her seven-year anniversary video in 2018,
Hart mentioned that she was initially hesitant to create even a second episode of MDK because she was “concerned with becoming “that drunk girl”” and the perception of people wanting her to “get drunk for a living” (H. Hart, 2018b). That even in 2011, Hart did not feel that being a drunk chef was not what she wanted her identity to be, and she expressed thankfulness that as she grew her channel and diversified her content, the audience was receptive to that, that they wanted to be “more than just party friends” (H. Hart, 2018b). After rewatching her first episode,
Hart said “I can barely recognize myself,” and that it is not only an external transformation, but that she has been able to “watch myself grow as a creator,” as well as “watch the platform do whatever it’s doing” (H. Hart, 2018b). This indicates that bringing more than comedy to her channels was always a part of Hart’s plan but signifies that she is perhaps unsure of the current nature of YouTube as a platform. While it is evident in early episodes of MDK that Hart wants the focus to be on her comedic timing rather than any kitchen-related talent, Hart’s opportunities off of the YouTube platform have often been food centric, including two cookbooks, a Food
Network show, and a recent collaboration with Buzzfeed to cook historic recipes in a series WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 90
called Edible History (Spangler, 2019). Hart’s pride related content is a strong effort on her part
to refocus her identity from mainly the punny drunk girl to someone who can approach sexual
identity with empathy and a comedic flair.
Harts in the Kitchen
Mamrie Hart and Hannah Hart use their kitchens to discuss the world around them.
Whether it’s Mamrie’s quips about popular culture figures or Hannah’s puns about the difficulty
of rising a soufflé, these women open their homes to the YouTube audience. Neither woman,
though, focuses their content on the action in the kitchen, but rather on their friendships and the
world outside of YouTube. Both women exhibited an increasing comfort in performing as themselves as their channels progressed, which reinforces Chen’s theory that creator identities are a continual process. While Mamrie began in a dress with flowers and a tablecloth, she currently wears themed but casual clothing, often very conscious of the male gaze. Hannah’s style was never gendered but nevertheless changed as she became more comfortable with her lesbian identity and physical body, moving from feeling scandalous in a tank top to posing in a sports bra. Hannah’s content might not be overtly gendered either, but it is clear watching her
2019 pride content that a lot of her comfort comes from developing her expression of her sexuality on the platform. Hannah’s avoidance of specifically gendered content is a part of her intersectional identity as a lesbian who was raised in a conservative Christian home. For her, gender neutrality was a goal as a response to overtly feminine expectations in her culture, and as an avoidance of having an overt sexuality. Mamrie’s retro housewife feel is now less Mad Men
than it is Big Little Lies - she’s no longer the wife making a cocktail for her husband or the lady
at the end of the book club, she is the friend who will force you out of the house after a breakup
and pour a little whiskey in your coffee. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 91
In their most recent content, both women have shifted their content even further away from the templates they both set forth from episode one in order to create videos that focus on positivity, always with a side of comedy. As the YouTube platform has changed over the last eight years, so have both Hart women. Neither one expected their first YouTube video to lead to a career, and both have used their success on the platform to create other media including movies and books. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 92
CHAPTER 5: “I DON’T KNOW”: GRACE HELBIG AND LILLY SINGH’S TEN YEARS ON
YOUTUBE
While Hannah Hart and Mamrie Hart’s channels include videos that are outside of their
main content, they are both most well known for their kitchen-based shows. In contrast, Grace
Helbig and Lilly Singh’s channels fall more within a broad sketch comedy arena, featuring some recurring themes or characters, but with content that can be within a range. Helbig and Singh are both a part of what is considered the first generation of YouTubers. Helbig’s channel was created on October 3, 2006, and Singh’s on October 28, 2010, and while neither woman began regularly uploading content right away, they are mainstays of the first set of content creators on the platform to achieve million subscriber milestones and make YouTube their full-time job (Helbig, n.d.; Singh, n.d.). Alongside their similar variety of content centering around comedy, in 2018 both YouTubers found their names in a growing list of creators experiencing “YouTuber burnout” (Farokhmanesh, 2018; Spangler, 2018b; Parkin, 2018) when they went on hiatus for several weeks at the end of the year, returning with strategic changes to their content creation and view of themselves as creators. In this chapter, the analysis will center around their performed identity on their channels, as well as look closely at the narrative surrounding their respective breaks from YouTube and changes after returning to uploading. Similar motifs are found on the channels, including self-deprecating comedy, a focus on portraying female stereotypes, discussing current topics in popular culture, embodying characters on their channel as well as themselves, and maintaining creative empowerment and fulfillment on their channels. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 93
Grace Helbig
My Damn Channel
Helbig’s YouTube career started with a content creation partnership with the company
My Damn Channel (Zinoman, 2014). Their working relationship began in 2008, and the then 23- year-old Helbig acted as a host for the website and its videos until 2010 (Helbig, 2010). From
2010 until 2013, Helbig posted to a YouTube channel titled DailyGrace, which was owned by the company My Damn Channel. At the end of 2013, Helbig and My Damn Channel parted ways, and Helbig essentially restarted her YouTube career on her own channel, while My Damn
Channel retained ownership of the videos and over 2 million subscribers that Helbig left on the
DailyGrace channel (Zinoman, 2014). It was on the DailyGrace channel that Helbig created her
YouTube identity as “the Internet’s awkward older sister,” creating sketch comedies and popular culture commentary as she avoided sharing too much of her personal life or taking YouTube trends too seriously (Zinoman, 2014, para.10).
The revelations of My Damn Channel’s ownership of Helbig’s content, channel, and subscribers during that time brings in issues brought up by both Matthewman and Haven and
Lotz. Building on Matthewman’s theory, YouTube as a platform and site for individual broadcast has both restrictions and potential tools for rebellion. Haven and Lotz discuss the industry of media, and this case on YouTube is certainly one where industry trumped the self-expression and focused more on commercial content consumption instead. Helbig’s early start with My Damn
Channel established her as a name to watch on the platform, but the early stages of development of pathways to use YouTube as an income were rooted in network and company models where a brand owned the content rather than sponsored it. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 94
On DailyGrace, Helbig posted videos Monday through Friday, with a set schedule of
types of content uploaded on certain days. This schedule and the topics were explained in the
first video posted to the channel, where she stated that Mondays would feature personal vlogs,
Tuesdays included commenting on audience comments on social media or previous videos,
Wednesdays would feature reviews, on Thursdays Helbig would demonstrate “how-tos,” and
Fridays would be “sexy Friday,” discussing topics related to relationships (Helbig, 2010). These categories of videos remained largely the same throughout Helbig’s time on DailyGrace,
although the schedule would sometimes fluctuate due to Helbig’s growing commitments over
this three-year period.
The videos were largely in the comedy genre, and while they had clickbait-type names
like 10 Thanksgiving Pickup Lines, they would be filled with somewhat nonsensical content such
as “I like my men like I like my mashed potatoes. White, and a little lumpy...with the skin in
there” (Helbig, 2013c). The themes on this channel matched its upload schedule - they were typical YouTube topics done with Helbig’s personal style of pun-filled comedy and an awkward flair. Helbig also had a signature affected manner of speaking on the DailyGrace channel that could be associated with a sort of manic pixie dream girl aesthetic that had influences from a higher register baby talk and a sort of drawl.
On DailyGrace, Helbig included some signature details on the channel, including the opening line “What’s up f*ckers,” of which the last word would be bleeped out, the closing line
“Byeeeee,” and several songs for her theme days that would play during the introduction to the
video for the day which usually said “hey guys it’s (day of the week) and you know what that
means…” (Sexy Friday, How to Thursday, Commenting on comments, reviewin’). Monday was
the only day that did not have a song and was also most often an off-topic day as Helbig rarely WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 95
vlogged often enough to make a full video. In a shift in content, Helbig officially announced the
decision to discontinue the opening saying of “What’s up f*ckers” in a video posted on
September 11, 2011, citing that “I’ve made an artistic and professional decision that as a
professional artist I need to grow and change” (Helbig, 2011b). Helbig’s comedic and satirical
performances can cause audiences to question the authenticity or seriousness of anything she
posts. Whether that statement is satirical or not, it’s possible that the reason was commercial,
aiming to get more advertising or sponsorship partners, or it’s possible that Helbig was tired of
the opening. From that point on, most videos open with “hey guys.”
The scheduled topics, particularly “sexy Friday,” and “how to Thursday,” reproduce
traditionally feminine characteristics of female YouTubers discussing relationships and
performing DIY tutorials, and Helbig’s treatment of them previews her manner of performing on
her current channel. The DIY tutorials wavered between Helbig’s legitimate attempts at creating something and a haphazard slapstick performance. The most popular sexy Friday video is a collaboration featuring Mamrie Hart and JacksGap and has 2.8 million views as of March 26,
2019 (Helbig, 2013b). The video features the four of them on a couch answering questions from
Grace’s followers on Twitter. This format was common on Helbig’s channel, incorporating responses and creating an interactive nature to the content. Questions for this video fall into somewhat generic topics such as “How to get your ex to stop texting, calling, wanting to have sex with you,” and “How to pick up a guy in college” (Helbig, 2013b). The groups’ answers are largely straightforward and based on experience and short anecdotes from their own lives.
The most popular DIY video is also the most popular video on the DailyGrace channel. It was posted on January 10, 2013, with 3.6 million views as of March 2019, and is called The Cup
Song, which references a popular song from the movie Pitch Perfect, released on September 28, WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 96
2012 (Helbig, 2013a). This video features Helbig stating that she asked on her Tumblr what
people wanted to learn how to do and the response was the cup song, which Helbig mentions she
did not know about. She shows a clip of the song from the movie, and then performs the rhythm
part of the song with the cup and says “So rewatch that and teach yourself how to do that”
(Helbig, 2013a). She then does the rhythm part again while saying the lyrics to the song very
quickly before saying that she is going to try to do it for real, begins to sing the song and
immediately stops saying that she cannot do it. This video and the collaboration with JacksGap
represent an overarching understanding of the DailyGrace channel: Helbig as a sincere,
sometimes comedic, yet twee reproduction of the perceived successful female on YouTube
during that era.
The main frame of the DailyGrace channel was comedy, as Helbig approached every
recurring topic with this frame rather than a serious attempt at discussing the topic of the day.
The content on this channel fell into the negotiated position within Hall’s encoding and decoding
model, as even though Helbig performed under the oversight of My Damn Channel, the comedic
frame that was applied to the approach to each topic placed it in negotiation with social norms
and particularly other videos on YouTube under those topics.
While Helbig oversaw the creative output of her channel during her time with My Damn
Channel, the schedule and overarching topics seem to be those that were created with a corporate
agenda rather than what would become Helbig’s more unscheduled but rotating video topic style on her current channel. The topics on the channel fall into the component of social trends, tastes, and traditions from Haven and Lotz’s cultural industry model, and certainly when compared to
Helbig’s current content, the formulaic nature of the channel feels very corporate. After Helbig left My Damn Channel, the company continued uploading videos of Grace to the channel, using WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 97 archived videos from before the YouTube channel was created, and eventually adding more videos from My Damn Channel properties to capitalize on the large subscriber count Helbig gained on DailyGrace. As of March 2019, the last video uploaded to the DailyGrace channel, now under the name DailyYou, was on January 27, 2017 (DailyYou, 2017).
it’sGrace
In January of 2014, Helbig relaunched her independent YouTube channel as it’sGrace.
The channel, under the username graciehinabox, already contained 90 videos which are currently prefaced with the title “Vintage Grace: [title of video]” (Helbig, n.d.). These videos were posted between October 25, 2006, and June 28, 2013, and featured content that was not licensed by My
Damn Channel. Videos were posted to this channel about once a month, were often less than two minutes long, and did not have a regular upload schedule. The only themed series on that channel prior to 2014 was where Helbig opened fan mail sent to her P.O. Box (Helbig, 2011a).
At the relaunch, it’sGrace originally followed the same format as DailyGrace: five videos uploaded per week, some of the same content and topics (for example, her commenting on comments catchphrase “You’ve been hazed” was replaced with “You’ve been praised”), and a new end of video tagline of “I don’t know.” Much of this content mirroring could have been an effort to reassure a migrating audience that Helbig would be consistent and continuing to meet expectations regarding the type of YouTube content that Helbig was used to creating. This also furthers Chen’s theory of creator identity, as Helbig spent several years on DailyGrace cultivating a specific character for her creator identity, and although it may not have been a true representation of Helbig herself, it was the identity she was used to performing.
An example of this effort to maintain the norm is found in Helbig’s first episode launching this channel is called “Welcome to it’sGrace,” which is what the channel was WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 98 originally renamed (from GracieHinAbox) before its current name of just Grace Helbig (Helbig,
2014a). Helbig begins by featuring cameos from notable YouTubers including Mamrie Hart,
Lilly Singh, and John Green as well as her brother and mother. She then discusses that the change to this channel was necessary because she’s no longer working with the company My
Damn Channel, and then thanks her audience for promoting the new channel in an overwhelming way. Grace then states that “Another question might be what can we expect with this new it’sGrace channel? You can expect me!” (Helbig, 2014a). She expands to say that the upload schedule will stay the same, the content will be mostly the same although “there might be some spins on some things,” (Helbig, 2014a).
Throughout the ensuing six years, Helbig has shifted her upload schedules, types of themed content, and overall persona several times, including losing the affected manner of speaking and creating new characters on the channel. These changes reflect more autonomy over her content and persona, as well as personal growth—when Helbig started creating videos on
DailyGrace in 2010, she was 25, and she is now 33 years old. The changes may also reflect shifts as the YouTube platform grew and changed, including introductions of new algorithms, many new content creators, and new methods of consuming videos, such as on smartphones and smart
TVs. As Chen states, digital identity is a progression, and particularly on a channel where Helbig had complete autonomy over her content for the first time, Helbig took advantage of the opportunity to change her creator identity through small shifts over time. Helbig also addressed these changes in videos throughout the years, stating new expectations for her audience regarding upload schedules and types of content (Helbig, 2017).
Helbig eventually settled on the name of the channel to simply be Grace Helbig and tagline of “consistently inconsistent” (Helbig, n.d.). This tagline embodies the self-deprecating WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 99
humor that Helbig employs. Today, Helbig’s channel page features playlists of types of videos
she often does, which includes fashion reviews, Not Too Deep: The Podcast, most popular,
collaborations, tutorials, challenges, reviews, transformations, and food (Helbig, n.d.). Currently,
Helbig opens her videos with “Hi my name is Grace Helbig if you did not know, now you know,
your life is different now,” and ends with “I don’t know,” which dates back to the start of
it’sGrace (Helbig, 2018b). These catchphrases and the organization of her content represent her
YouTube identity as someone who follows popular or typical YouTube trends and content categories, but with a comedic and even satirical twist. Through jokes, self-deprecating humor about her lack of skill, and often disclaimers that she does not think the end product will be good,
Helbig appears not to care much about the pieces of society that other female YouTubers capitalize on such as makeup, fashion, how-tos, and other reinforcement of hegemonic norms for women in popular culture, even while participating in them.
Helbig’s longest-running continual series on her channel is her podcast Not Too Deep.
Launched in 2014 as an audio/visual podcast, it originally had a one-hour audio version and a
ten-minute video version, each with exclusive content (Brouwer, 2014). Now with over 100
episodes, the weekly podcast is still audio/visual, but the visual aspect is a recording of the audio version and they have the same content across platforms. While the title of the show is Not Too
Deep, and Helbig originally described the show as “very exciting, highly interactive, and overwhelmingly dumb,” the show’s current format is a more typical podcast interview style
(Brouwer, 2014, para. 2). It does often run into more serious topics such as the recent interview with Chelsea Handler where Handler and Helbig discussed shifting public personas, therapy, and journeys of personal growth (Helbig, 2019). Guests on the show are typically popular culture figures and aside from Handler have also recently included actor Tony Hale, Bobby Berk from WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 100
Queer Eye, and Jack Conte, founder of Patreon (Helbig, 2019e). The content shifts based upon
what the guest is on the show to promote, but Helbig always asks the guest to share their “worst
pants shitting story in three words or small phrases” (Helbig, 2019e). This consistent piece of content falls in line with the title of the show and is the precursor to the guest answering questions sent in to Helbig on Twitter. Helbig always shares her answer to the question as an example, which acts as both an ice breaker and to further the purpose of the question which is to bring in a comedic and equalizing air to the conversation. This question is also coded as anti- gendered because it goes against social expectations for both men and women to speak about something that normally happens in the privacy of a bathroom or stall. In doing this, Helbig consistently reframes expectations for social discussion on a public platform, and therefore contributes to reshaping norms for interview content (D’Acci, 2004). Because of the type of the main conversations and guests placed in tension with Helbig’s one consistent question, the performances on Not Too Deep fall into a negotiated performance.
The most popular video on Helbig’s channel is titled Who’s that YouTuber w/Tyler
Oakley and Mamrie Hart // Grace Helbig was posted on August 26, 2014, and has over 4 million views (Helbig, 2014b). In the video, Helbig hosts a game with fellow YouTubers Oakley and
Hart participating. Helbig shows them a close-up photo of another YouTuber and the two participants try to identify who it is. Correct answers include Troye Sivan, Miranda Sings,
Hannah Hart, and Shane Dawson, among others including the participants, and are typically identified by pieces of their face such as an ear, lip, or nose.
The video is shot with a bokeh effect where Oakley, Helbig, and Hart are in focus and the background of Oakley’s apartment is out of focus. Helbig also uses editing techniques such as replay and zoom in, adding the photos that she shows to the participants on the screen, and WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 101
callouts to highlight things such as Hart’s facial expressions. Hart and Oakley select tools from
Oakley’s apartment as their “ringers,” to buzz in their answers. Hart chooses a flask and dowel to make a cowbell and Oakley chooses a martini shaker with ice in it. Several sexual innuendos code specific moments as gendered interaction during the six-minute video, including Oakley stating that he “has been out for years” when Helbig tells him he is out of a round, and Hart claiming that “I ring my ding dong daily” when Oakley asks her if she rang in before answering a question (Helbig, 2014b). This video is another example of a collaboration video. In this video and other collaborations, an example of the community of creators on YouTube is evident. While
Hart and Helbig are best friends in real life and met before being on YouTube, they met Oakley through the YouTube community and formed a bond to help each other become more successful.
The main topic of youtubers during this video also exposes the audience to other youtubers who they may not be familiar with, and the lack of commentary about any of the game show answers acts as a promotion of each of these people. This video falls into a dominant hegemonic performance within Hall’s model of encoding and decoding because of the straightforward game show format and simple topic and content following within those constraints.
One of the newest videos on the channel is from March 29, 2019 and is a video that
Helbig used to do monthly about her favorite products, usually in the beauty realm. The video is titled “My Current STDs (My Current Favorites) // Grace Helbig,” and has 105 thousand views as of July 31, 2019 (Helbig, 2019b). This video also features a bokeh effect, where Helbig is in focus, and the rest of her living room is blurry. Helbig explains at the beginning of the video that instead of calling it a monthly favorites video, assumingly because she is not consistent about doing a favorites video every month, she is going to talk about things that are “Special ToDay,” WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 102 aka STDs (Helbig, 2019b). Helbig features products such as under eye concealer, perfume, tinted moisturizer, and bed sheets.
Helbig does genuinely discuss the favorite products and their features and often uses these videos to promote sponsored content or personal promotions like her books, but there are several aspects to her favorites videos that add a satirical slant. For example, when Helbig brings in a new product, she says “Can you see it, can you see it?” while holding the item so close to the camera that it becomes blurry (Helbig, 2019b). This is meant to be in direct contrast with other favorites videos on the platform that make sure to do a detailed glamour shot of each featured item. In doing this, Helbig contrasts the earnest recommendation and personal endorsement of each product with comedic humor that reinforces Helbig’s creator identity that she does not take her topics or videos too seriously. Helbig also says at one point “this should also be called
‘Grace presents items that make her seem overcompensatingly put together,” referring to a feeling that those who recommend products to others can be seen as experts about the relating issues (Helbig, 2019b).
These two videos represent common themes on YouTube and the specific style in which
Helbig performs them. Collaborations are done all throughout the platform, as mentioned before they serve a purpose of exposure for YouTubers to new audiences and form a community bond among YouTubers. In bringing in additional content creators into the game, Helbig exposes her audience to a handful of people they may not know about, and audience members of those
YouTubers may get exposure to Helbig through the use of hashtags or social media posts about the video. The trio also filmed videos on the same day for Hart and Oakley’s channels, so promotion is made about all three videos at the same time. Helbig’s personal spin on the collaboration, making the video into a game and using close-ups of the YouTuber’s body parts WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 103 incites salacious conversation, which falls under her brand of adult-aimed comedy. The favorites video is a popular topic on YouTube, particularly amongst beauty vloggers. In following the format and content, but not necessarily the style or banter of a typical favorites video, Helbig’s favorites video falls into a negotiated performance category, and contributes to her channel discourse as a YouTuber who’s not too deep into the culture, which also contributes to a small shift in ideology about the promotion of beauty products on the platform and its overtly gendered qualities (Hesse-Biber, 2013).
Navigating Fulfilling Content
A prime example of Helbig’s shifting style of content and navigation of performance identity can be found in her shift away from fashion review content. Helbig’s last fashion review video was a 2019 Oscars red carpet fashion review posted on February 26, 2019 (Helbig 2019a).
In her fashion reviews, Helbig takes the trope of women commenting on famous people’s outfits and highlights the absurdity of this practice by adding irrelevant commentary in her own style.
The Oscar red carpet video features reviews of the outfits worn by Lady Gaga, Laura Dern, Elsie
Fisher, Kacey Musgraves, Oliva Colman, Chris Evans, Jennifer Lopez, Emma Stone, Sarah
Paulson, Chadwick Boseman, Angela Bassett, Charlize Theron, Brie Larson, Glenn Close, Amy
Poehler, Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph, Lisa Bonet, Jason Momoa, Shangela, Selma Blair, Billy
Porter, Marie Kondo, and Heidi Klum (Helbig, 2019a).
Some of Helbig’s content does fall into what would normally be present on a fashion review. For example, she mentions that many of the celebrities featured look beautiful but will often couple it with something descriptive yet irreverent. About Lady Gaga, Helbig says
“Cinderella has two hip tumors and decided that she has gone goth for the night. I think this is beautiful” (Helbig, 2019a). Mostly, Helbig relates the outfits to a similar and yet unrelated WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 104
aesthetic, as when she says of Emma Stone’s outfit, “It’s futuristic, and also looks a little bit like
my air conditioning filters when I remove them and have to replace them” or about Jennifer
Lopez’s dress “You look like you’re literally transforming into some sort of tin foil scorpion”
(Helbig, 2019a). These descriptors are, luckily for viewers, combined with a split screen view of
Helbig’s commentary and a photo of the outfit under reviews. Some of Helbig’s reviews are a bit
more personal, for example when she says of Amy Poehler’s tuxedo look, “I love this so much. I
wanna wear this to every single red-carpet event I ever have to go to in my entire life. You can hide so many airplane bottles of booze and so many snacks. Uh, I’m so jealous!” Helbig’s review
of Poehler’s outfit is interesting because she acknowledges that she attends red carpet events
herself, and the need for snacks and alcohol seems to come from experience. At this moment,
Helbig separates herself from her YouTuber identity as a humble and amateur comic to
acknowledge her personal success.
In this particular video, Helbig positively addresses several of the norm-changing
moments on the Oscar red carpet, such as Billy Porter’s ball gown skirt, drag queen Shangela’s
attendance, and Selma Blair’s first public appearance with her cane. About Shangela, Helbig said, “This is some Cinderella bullshit right now and I love it so much it makes me mad,” while about Blair she used the moment to create a platform of adoration, saying:
She looked fucking stunning. I have no jokes to make about it, one because that’s wildly
insensitive and she looks fucking beautiful, and this is incredibly brave and wonderful
and amazing of her to even go to an event like this let alone look this fucking fantastic
and this photo is beautiful.
(Helbig, 2019a) WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 105
On April 14, 2019, Helbig took to Twitter to hint at another fashion review video, this time for the music festival Coachella (Helbig, 2019c; Helbig, 2019d). However, on April 17,
Helbig posted a video, with a follow-up tweet on the 18th stating “Look, I tried to make a
#Coachella fashion review but...I...I just...I just realized...I dont give any shits about it”
(Helbig, 2019g). The resulting video is titled I Don’t Like My Content // Grace Helbig and features Helbig discussing that while “fashion reviews have become one of the main staples of my channel,” she is no longer inspired by them or enjoys making them (Helbig, 2019f). In fact,
Helbig associates fashion reviews with her time on My Damn Channel, stating that:
I think I like was self-triggered by the idea of making a fashion review video just because
it felt like I was holding on and grasping at this like old version of myself, and wishing
that like 2011 Grace like still existed in the Internet world, and it turns out it doesn’t.
(Helbig, 2019f)
So, while the Coachella fashion review video was already shot, Helbig found herself postponing editing the video and in the end decided not to post it, and to share some insight into her current creative process instead.
Even through her changes in YouTube channels and types of content, and nearly ten years on the platform, Helbig’s main identity remains essentially the same. She uses topics and style of comedy to combine stereotypical female-led YouTube content with satire to create a persona that does not take her job too seriously or personally, and to question the industry created on
YouTube for female youtubers to sell beauty products. Notably, Helbig’s main sponsors on her channel are audible and Hello Fresh, neither of which are gendered products in their target audiences. Helbig has become increasingly more honest with her audience, announcing changes to the channel or types of format but also providing insight into the state of her mental and WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 106
creative well-being. While this new more transparent Helbig creates a stronger bond with her
audience, it also creates a tension between Helbig as a performer of comedy and Helbig as a
more emotionally available version of her persona. As important as it is for Helbig to evaluate
moves away from content like fashion reviews, it will be equally as important to analyze the
content that replaces it. Increasing content that discusses mental and physical wellness, avoiding
burnout and increasing creativity will certainly shift the identity that Helbig is known for on her
channel. If Helbig finds a new way to replace comedy with comedy, this may continue to build
her YouTube identity along the same path as a satirical and self-deprecating young female.
Lilly Singh
Lilly Singh created her YouTube channel in 2010, but it was not until the middle of 2011
that she began uploading on a more regular schedule. Her early videos jump from a turban tying
tutorial to an original music video to a cake making demonstration (Singh, n.d.). Her identity as a
YouTuber early in these videos establishes her identity as a comedian, a musician, and a self- proclaimed “brown girl” (Singh, 2011). Her vlogging channel was created in December of 2011, where Singh shows some more behind the scenes of her life and the creative process of her videos (Singh, n.d.). Singh’s yearly series The Twelve Collabs of Christmas was also launched in
2011. Although the two channels are run separately, they often feature complimentary content through the behind the scenes nature of the vlog. For this case study, both channels will be considered. Topics discovered include race, transparency, gender, individuality, popular culture, and identity.
Females Behind the Scenes
The most popular video on Singh’s IISuperwomanII channel has 30.4 million views and is called What Clubbing is Actually Like (ft. Liza Koshy) (Singh, 2016a). It was posted on WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 107
December 5, 2016, as part of Singh’s 12 Collabs of Christmas series that year. Many of Singh’s most popular videos are from this yearly series. This video also fits into two main themes on
Singh’s channel. First, the idea that other media portray something different from reality. In this case, the video is discussing what going out to a dance club is “really” like, as opposed to potentially how it is portrayed in movies and on television. The second theme is that the video seems to want to uncover truths about life as a female. These topics are inherently gendered as they discuss portrayals of females in media and expectations about women preparing for and going to clubs to socialize. The frame placed on the video is comedy. This video falls into the category of oppositional performance, every topic is framed through the lens of being incorrectly portrayed by the media.
The plot of the video is that Singh and Koshy “document” a night of things that might happen when one goes out with her friends, including getting ready, pregaming, trying to get into the club for free because they are a woman/on the list/VIP, etc., drinking at the club, dancing, getting sick when they get home, and starting the cycle all over. The video also features a moment of cognitive dissonance when Singh and Koshy are trying to get into the club and the bouncer asks them if they are sisters and they look at the camera as they make a point about not assuming they are the same because they are the same color, women, funny, etc. This is their way of addressing what could be seen as racist or misogynistic comments about two successful
YouTubers who both happen to have brown skin, be female, and focus on comedic content.
The video also has a companion video on her vlogging channel, as is the case with many collaboration videos that Singh. Posts. The video, which was posted on the same day as the video on Singh’s main channel, is titled Bloopers – What Clubbing is Really Like (ft. Liza Koshy) and has 4.1 million views (Singh, 2016b). While it is named bloopers, the content of the video is WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 108
really more like a behind the scenes look at the making of the video. The two women talk a lot
about how much they admire/respect one another. At one point, Lilly discusses how Liza just
started on YouTube a little over a year ago, and Lilly says she started in 2010 and was “the only
brown girl, and I’m too proud that I’m not the first and last” (Singh, 2016b).
The second most popular video on Singh’s main channel is titled How Girls Get
Ready…It has 28.3 million views and was posted on March 25, 2013 (Singh, 2013). One of the most important visual cues we see is the physical transformation. When the video opens, Singh is wearing a backward baseball hat, a tank top, sweatpants, and white socks. By the end of the video, Singh is wearing a short strapless pink dress and heels. The three-and-a-half-minute video is a montage of Singh going through very female gendered actions, stereotypical of hegemonic portrayals of women preparing to go out for the night. The actions that Singh participates in are: painting nails, picking an outfit, shaving legs (and cutting her leg while shaving), applying makeup, tweezing her eyebrows, singing in the shower, taking selfies, straightening her hair, dancing in the bathroom, watching YouTube tutorials on twerking and makeup application, putting on perfume, and trying on different outfits. Singh is the only person who appears in the video, and the only dialogue in the video is her on the phone with seemingly her girlfriend about what time she will be there, that she is running late, whether she should wear jeans or a dress, flats or heels.
These two videos illustrate a main narrative on Singh’s channel which is the effort required to meet hegemonic stereotypes of femaleness. Both videos also work in direct opposition to these stereotypes as although Singh participates in these gendered actions throughout the video, it is with an over exaggeration to cast a negative light on these social norms (Gramsci, 2007; D’Acci, 2004; Hesse-Biber, 2013). Singh’s videos often show her in WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 109 more neutral clothing, particularly at the beginning of these videos and throughout her more casual videos. The visual message to viewers is that “realness” and perhaps “sex appeal” are all manufactured.
The Indian Parent Stereotype
The third most popular video on Singh’s main channel is titled How to Stop Parents
From Comparing Kids (ft. Miranda Sings) (Singh, 2014). The video has just under 28 million views and was posted on April 28, 2014. This sketch features the characters of Singh’s parents, who express that they think their child is weird compared to other friends’ and friends’ kids because of their YouTube efforts. In the opening of the video, Singh plays herself dressed up as a male character Anjit to film a music video for YouTube. Later in the video, Singh also plays herself, as well as her parent characters, Manjeet and Paramjeet. In an effort to convince them that she is normal, Singh invites a friend over for dinner, who happens to be the popular YouTube character Miranda Sings, played by Colleen Ballinger. It is Miranda, not Ballinger, who attends dinner and fills the rest of her video with rude and off-putting behavior. After Miranda leaves,
Singh’s parents say that she is not as weird as they thought, and they say they must be good parents. The last scene features Singh on the phone with Ballinger discussing that they are planning to have Lilly as Anjit go over to Colleen’s parents to do the same thing.
This video features another main theme from Singh’s channel, which is the stereotype of the overbearing, continually unsatisfied Indian parents, and their child’s continual efforts to make them happy. Another topic in the video is a shift in what is considered a career or proper path for a child now that Singh herself and others can pursue a career on YouTube or other social performance platforms instead of more traditional paths like teacher, businessperson, or lawyer.
These topics could be perceived as gendered, particularly because Singh and Ballinger are WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 110
female, but the way that they are portrayed indicates that Singh’s intention is to discuss these
topics through race and generational social norms rather than gender. Because of this, the video’s
content is a negotiated performance in Hall’s model, and the main frame is comedy.
The most popular video on Singh’s vlog channel is from September 1, 2017, has 4.8 million views and is titled The Time My Real Parents React to My Instagram Pictures (Day 944)
This video shows Singh’s real parents (as opposed to the characters of Singh’s parents that she plays herself) reacting to various pictures from her Instagram (Singh, 2017). Singh’s parents mostly react positively, stating that they are very proud of her, or that she looks beautiful.
Singh’s main thread of narrative in the video is about searching for acceptance or rebuke from her parents, playing off of the trope she portrays through her parent characters that Indian parents are very strict and have very strong opinions of their children’s behavior.
The actual content of the video seems to be in tension with this fact as Singh’s parents are very mild in their reactions and are generally positive, aside from sometimes saying they feel sorry for the men who have to take pictures with her. In this vlog where Singh’s actual parents are featured and seem to be very proud of their daughter with the previously discussed video where Singh portrays her parents characters, it highlights that while one of Singh’s common themes is how things “really” are, racial profiling of tensions between older generations and younger ones in Indian culture, there is always a high comedic value to her content, which in effect contributes further to racial and female stereotypes in media. While her performances seem to work against these stereotypes of females needing to get dressed up and perform a beauty routine and go out in order to gain social acceptance, or follow a specific career path in order to gain acceptance from her parents, by enacting these tropes, Singh creates another WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 111
performance of the hegemonic expectations for women without any specific serious content to
contribute to a discourse that says otherwise.
Vlogs
Singh’s vlog channel was launched on December 31, 2011 in a video titled Welcome
2012! (Singh, 2011). The video has 90 thousand views, and the topic centers around resolutions.
Singh establishes that her three resolutions are to wake up earlier, eat right, be healthier, and
workout, and to “work ten times harder in all aspects of my life,” particularly YouTube because
she sees great potential in YouTube and really enjoys it (Singh, 2011). Singh also takes some
time to address the new channel and that she created it for videos that are not comedic or heavily
edited, which is how she sees content on her main channel. She also mentions that it might be the
place for requested content like makeup or hair tutorials. Singh’s vlog channel today follows a
more specific daily vlogging format, where Singh first discusses her to do list for the day and
then takes the camera through some of those events. Each vlog also usually features specific
content that is addressed in the title, such as a review or reaction to something or how to perform
a task. These videos also often include words of encouragement or advice from Singh.
A recent example of a vlog with advice is titled My very honest review about living in Los
Angeles and was posted on April 24, 2019 (Singh 2019h). Singh’s first task for the day is to have a phone call with her financial manager, after which she states that she is bad with money and never understands how much money she has. She reflects that this may be a cultural thing and
“as brown children, we feel like we haven’t always been empowered to be self-sufficient...being independent is almost seen as you being disrespectful” (Singh, 2019h). Singh goes on to say that everyone should learn about money and how to be financially stable, no matter your cultural upbringing or level of family support. The last four and a half minutes of the seven-minute video WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 112 focuses on Singh’s review of living in LA. Singh has mostly positive things to say about the area, describing it as “an environment where everyone is hustling” but that the “loneliness is real,” because everyone is so busy (Singh, 2019h). She does think that the uniqueness of LA has helped her to “feel comfortable in the skin I’m in,” and overall is encouraging of people who want to move to the area (Singh, 2019h).
Singh often posts reactions to other popular culture in her vlogs, and a recent vlog featured Singh’s reaction to a new music video from KPop group BLACKPINK (Singh, 2019g).
The vlogging portion of the video includes a road trip from LA to Las Vegas, after which Singh takes time to watch the music video before the group goes out in the city. Singh positions this review as an ongoing effort to consume a lot of pop culture before she begins hosting her recently announced late night television show on NBC (de León, 2019). The review uses a screen in screen editing technique where the music video plays in the lower right-hand corner of the screen while Singh watches and reacts to specific moments. Singh’s review is very positive, and she focuses throughout her review on the styling and production quality of the music video overall. She describes the band members themselves as gorgeous, before correcting herself to state that they are talented first, followed by beautiful. At the end of watching the music video,
Singh states “It’s like so interesting because they’re my sisters and I’m proud of them, and then I also low key want to date them so it’s like really confusing” (Singh, 2019g). This statement calls back to Singh’s bisexuality, and an ongoing effort to navigate feelings around her sexuality.
Singh’s reaction to the video highlights a tensions Singh that feels as a music video creator herself, including wanting to be noticed for raw talent and production skill before physical looks.
One of Singh’s most recent videos on her main channel is titled I tried dating apps for the first time, and is from March 11, 2019 (Singh, 2019f). Singh opens up by saying “I’ve lied to WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 113
you” because so many videos she has made talk about dating apps when in reality she’s never
used them before. This video brings in themes of identity projection, particularly gendered as
Singh revealed on Twitter and Instagram shortly before this video that she is bisexual (Singh,
2019d). In the video, Singh identifies that she is using the apps Tinder and Bumble.
At the beginning of the video, Singh admits that she wanted to be on the apps under an
alias to avoid people recognizing her, so “first thing I googled was “how to lie on dating apps””
(Singh, 2019f). To protect her identity, Singh first uploaded a picture of her dog which was not
accepted. Singh focuses on tropes that she sees on profiles, at one point saying that she thought
that comments that others make on social media about profiles all looking the same or having
certain key characteristics were a joke, but she quickly found out it was real. For example, Singh
mentions that she’s looking at profiles of women, and “if I had a dollar for every girl with an
“om” tattoo…” (Singh, 2019f). Singh also addresses the issue of accuracy of physical portrayal in this video, saying that the use of filters is kind of assumed because “You always face tune a little bit, but you want people to know this COULD be me” (Singh, 2019f). Despite the current proliferation of the use of dating apps, Singh also mentions a stigma around using them, particularly when it comes to such a public personality using them, and states “I’m on this dating app because I’m a sad, embarrassed person” (Singh, 2019f).
Singh’s vlog channel provides deeper insight into Singh as a person and reveals a different creator identity that is hardworking and serious in addition to her main channel’s persona of comedian. The topics in these videos include individuality, popular culture, and identity. In discussing her to do list for each day, Singh lets the audience in on her day to day activities and goals, which include things like reading emails, going to meetings, and drinking water (Singh, 2019g). In her vlogging space, Singh also makes space for more discussion about WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 114
her actual personal beliefs and identity, such as the social pressure to not worry about finances or figuring out how to date as a bisexual. In contrast with her main channel, Singh’s intersectional identity as a bisexual woman of color is treated with seriousness rather than reproduction of media tropes for comedic value. In her vlogs, Singh promotes a representational identity that is true rather than for entertainment.
At the end of 2018, Singh announced she would be taking a break from making videos on both of her channels (Singh, 2018a). This pause and intentional reset overlapped with Helbig going on hiatus as well, and has implications for their individual identities as a YouTuber as well as contributes to a wider discourse surrounding YouTuber “burnout,” including raising questions of the goals of YouTubers, ways of interacting with the YouTube platform, expressed explicit feelings about content creation processes, the algorithm, and changes since their YouTube channels began.
Hiatus Episodes
In the fall of 2018, Grace Helbig and Lilly Singh each announced that they would be taking breaks from making YouTube videos for an undetermined amount of time. Helbig’s break lasted from October 19 until December 3, 2018, however, 8 videos were posted to Helbig’s
YouTube channel during that time: seven episodes of her podcast Not Too Deep and one announcement about launching a Patreon page with Mamrie Hart for their podcast This Might
Get Weird (Helbig, n.d.). Lilly Singh’s break began on November 12, 2018 and ended on
December 6 of the same year (Singh, n.d.). Both Helbig and Singh announced their return on
Twitter in advance of posting new videos, Singh in a tweet simply identifying the date
“12/06/2018,” and Helbig on November 28 as a question about the types of content viewers would like to see (Singh, 2018b; Helbig, 2018d). Both women announced their YouTube break WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 115 with a video on their channel (Helbig, 2018c; Singh, 2018a). Visual analysis of these videos provides important insight into their continuing identity performances on YouTube, particularly while they navigate a leave of absence from the space and share reasons for their evaluations about whether they want to continue to contribute to the current ecology of the platform and redefine what success on YouTube means to them.
The topic of YouTuber burnout was covered by news outlets increasingly in 2018 even before either of these creators announced their breaks (Alexander, 2018; Glasner, 2018;
Hernandez, 2018; Parkin, 2018; Spangler, 2018b; Ward, 2018). Many of the articles featured quotes from some of the top YouTubers, breaking them down by subscriber count, and focused on mental health, YouTube’s mysterious algorithm, and fickle viewers as a recipe for YouTubers to constantly chase the success that drew them to the platform and the pressure to continue to succeed:
Constant changes to the platform’s algorithm, unhealthy obsessions with remaining
relevant in a rapidly growing field and social media pressures are making it almost
impossible for top creators to continue creating at the pace both the platform and
audience want — and that can have a detrimental effect on the very ecosystem they
belong to.
Alexander, 2018, para. 3
Among one of the top reasons that people take a break from YouTube, according to these articles, is that the creators cannot keep up with the demands of the YouTube algorithm. Despite not knowing exactly how the algorithm works, many believe that the frequency of posting is among the most important characteristics (Alexander, 2018; Hernandez, 2018). Many wonder what
YouTube is doing to help creators avoid burnout, assuming that the reciprocal relationships WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 116
between the platform and its content creators are something that the company should want to
preserve. YouTube offers some videos in their Creator Academy from therapists who discuss
strategies to avoid burnout, and a Creator Insider channel with videos from YouTube employees
that offers clarifying information on the ways the platform operates (Parkin, 2018; Hernandez,
2018). YouTube’s official statements to the press always encourage creators to be mindful of
work/life balance and to be open with the YouTube “community” about their need for a break.
But does this discussion of the need for a break contribute to an awareness of the need for
balance, or is it the company’s encouragement to create more content for their platform?
Having more information and access to the platform’s insights might, however, fuel the
so-called obsession with creating successful content. As Patricia Hernandez (2018) of The Verge
points out:
When YouTubers’ videos fail, having access to hyper-specific metrics like when and
where people stop watching makes it easy for them to obsess over numbers that have
virtually no context. The data does little more than making YouTube feel like a system
that could be gamified if you just knew the right combination of factors.
(Hernandez, 2018, para. 15)
The very ecology that YouTube creates that enables creators to feel like they have increased control over their channel may be a contribution to their undoing.
One consideration is that YouTube is many of these creators’ main source of income, but creators, including Helbig and Singh, have used the site to diversify their content channels to include deals for books, tours, movies, merchandise lines, and television. While burnout on
YouTube may be considered a potential inevitability, YouTube likely will not be the end of the line for either of these personalities. Having other revenue streams and platforms in play may act WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 117 as both a cushion and a recipe for overexertion, and YouTube may be the item the creators need to stop juggling.
Alycia Marie, a YouTuber who took a break in early 2018, suggested that future success on YouTube may be less consumer-driven, “Before, I would say, ‘What do these 7 million people want to see?’ We live in this click-bait world,” she says. “Now I just want to genuinely do stuff
I’m proud of” (Spangler, 2018b, para. 38). This type of outlook for content creation calls back to the emerging days of the platform when insights and viral videos were rare or non-existent. A return to a platform where creators do not rely on YouTube for their main income, and therefore do not need to obsess over analytics may allow for increased mental health and output of content that comes more naturally to them. When looking at the case studies who took a break from
YouTube, similar themes arise, including frustrations with playing to the YouTube algorithm, creative burnout, and a desire to focus on creating content that they are proud of rather than caters to accumulating views.
Grace Helbig – “I’m taking a break”
Helbig announced her break from YouTube first, in a video titled I’m Taking a Break
(Helbig, 2018c). As of December 5, 2018, the video has 223 thousand views. The 3 minute and
21 second video features one shot: Helbig from the shoulders up, sitting on the hardwood floor of her home, looking directly into the camera, long blonde hair worn down, wearing a black sweatshirt from her own merchandise offerings that says her end of video catchphrase “I DON’T
KNOW” in pastel rainbow colors. Behind Helbig is a yellow fire hydrant, and glimpses into her kitchen, including part of a refrigerator, light-colored wooden open shelves, a copper dog bowl, and a white kitchen island. Part of another room is visible as well, with darkly painted walls and part of a white desk visible. Aside from the channel’s normal intro screen and sound, the video WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 118
does not include any music or any noticeable editing or cuts. It opens with Helbig turning on the
camera and ends with her traditional sign off “I don’t know,” followed by a screen in screen
follow up featuring links to her social media accounts and a subscribe button, which ends with
Helbig turning off the camera. Helbig addresses this lack of editing during the video when she
says at 2 minutes and 43 seconds “I might not even edit this video, I might just let this live like
this” (Helbig, 2018c). During the video, Helbig looks alternatingly into the camera and off
camera at what can be guessed is the camera’s screen to show what is recording. Helbig’s body
language is alternatingly neutral and somewhat uncomfortable, as she holds her hands close to
her chest and slouches into herself during several sections where she discusses the hiatus and its
reasons and duration.
During the video, Helbig uses the term “break” or “space” six times when describing her hiatus from making new videos. Typically, these terms are used alongside qualifiers such as
“quick break” “some space” or “lil’ bit of space,” which indicate that Helbig feels the need to reassure her audience and potentially herself that this hiatus is temporary (Helbig, 2018c). She discusses the concept of permission for the break in several spots as well, stating both that she is giving herself permission to take a break and that she “wants to take a second from making
YouTube videos here if that’s ok with you guys” (Helbig, 2018c). These statements and their acknowledgment of the sense of responsibility and relationship with the platform and its audiences as well as Helbig’s ultimate autonomy in deciding whether she will continue to create content show a tension between what has potentially been ongoing through the process for the creator. Helbig’s success relies on issues such as viewership, clicks, subscriptions, and interactions on her videos, so an acknowledgment that she is not planning a long break may indicate anxiety about her audience’s long-term commitment. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 119
Helbig references her emotional state as the main reason for her hiatus. She uses the terms anxious, sad, overwhelmingly nervous, and fearful to describe her emotional state and feelings about creating videos. Helbig refers to fear as something that used to be a good thing and that “following it will ultimately lead you to some discovery,” but that fear has instead been leading to her being “overwhelmingly consumed with making good content,” while immediately acknowledging that good is a highly subjective concept (Helbig, 2018c). Helbig then connects her decision to take a break to the concept of self-care which she claims is trendy and that she feels that she has not participated in this trend yet but rather has been “on a Razor scooter trying to catch up to it” (Helbig, 2018c).
Helbig consistently refers to her break being short in duration, describing it at one point as “a couple of weeks, I don’t know exactly how long” (Helbig, 2018c). She also spends time during the video highlighting all the content that she will continue to make, emphasizing that she is not stepping away from creating completely, but rather just dedicated YouTube videos.
Content channels that will continue to generate during this break include both of her podcasts, a new line of merchandise, and her social media channels. Helbig even points out that her
YouTube channel will have a new video from her podcast Not Too Deep, available on podcast platforms as well, each Monday. Helbig reiterates this again at the end of her video while showing links to all of these channels.
The key phrases, casual setting and production, and content of Helbig’s video announcing her YouTube break contribute to an overall message that, as she states, this is “not a big announcement” (Helbig, 2018c). In announcing her hiatus, Helbig wants to acknowledge that she is not producing new YouTube videos for an extended period of time and that it is due to her emotional state, but also emphasize that new content is still being produced. While Helbig WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 120
acknowledges that she typically avoids having more serious type content in her videos because it
“has much more gravitas,” she seems to feel a responsibility to announce this break to her
audience before taking it.
Notably, Helbig does not attempt to rationalize her break by referencing how long she has
been continuously creating for YouTube (ten years), or the frequency with which she typically
produces content (typically more than one video a week, ranging from 2 to 5 videos per week).
She does not attempt to place blame on either the platform or the audience for the reasons that
she is taking a hiatus. She does not address lower view counts (from January to October 15,
2017, fifteen of Helbig’s videos received over half a million views, for the same time period in
2018, only one did), or frustrations with YouTube’s algorithm or the types of content that go viral
(Helbig, n.d.; Helbig, 2018c). Helbig focused only on her personal desire to step away from
making YouTube videos and cited her emotions as the main reason for the time away.
Lilly Singh – “I’ll see you soon…”
Lilly Singh’s video to announce her YouTube hiatus was posted on November 12, 2018
(Singh, 2018a). As of July 31, 2019, it has 2.3 million views. The 7 minute and 53-second video
features one shot, of Singh from the waist up sitting in a white office chair in a black t-shirt, three
long braids, and a white and black bandana in front of a wall of what looks like colorful comic
book style portraits. While the video features only one type of shot, there are many jump cuts
throughout the video, sometimes mid-sentence. The video does not feature any music, other than
Singh’s signature video opening graphic. Singh typically opens her videos by saying “what up
everyone, it’s your girl Superwoman,” while making an S shape with her fingers, but in this video she opens with “what up everyone it’s your girl Lilly, Lilly just felt more appropriate for this video, so it’s your girl Lilly” (Singh, 2018a). The keywords in the video are happy and WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 121
mental health. Singh discusses at length the need to find her happiness in life, happiness with the
content she creates, and that that happiness leads to good mental health.
Singh opens with a statement that she does not want to be dramatic, and wants to be clear
that the title I’ll See You Soon… and thumbnail of the video are not for clickbait, to attempt to be
a trending video, and that she does not want to take herself or the video too seriously because
“there are way more important things happening in the world,” but she does want to openly communicate with her community about what is going on with her (Singh, 2018a). She announces that she is planning to take a break from YouTube, and credits creators like Alycia
Marie and Grace Helbig for announcing their breaks because “I was too scared to do this, I’ve been living vicariously through creators like this who’ve taken breaks,” calling them brave and an example for YouTubers (Singh, 2018a).
Singh cites four main reasons for her YouTube hiatus. The first is her mental health. She states that she is “mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted” and refers to her eight-year tenure on YouTube where she often posted two videos a week on her main channel in addition to a daily vlog on her vlogging channel as a leading cause of her exhaustion (Singh,
2018). The second reason is her content, which Singh states she is not been happy with recently.
She then refers to YouTube as a “machine that makes us believe that we have to pump out content constantly even at the cost of our life and mental health and our happiness because if you don’t then you will become irrelevant” (Singh, 2018a). Singh refers to happiness and creative energy as something she needs to fight to get back.
Her third reason for taking a break is YouTube itself, of which Singh states “I don’t understand it right now” (Singh, 2018a). She says that YouTube has changed and that although she has complained that other people have changed it, it is the environment itself that has WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 122 changed and that while other people have found a wait to make it work for them, she has not.
Referring again to her happiness, Singh states, “whatever currently works on YouTube does not make me happy,” and expands to question what it means for something to work on YouTube
(Singh, 2018a). She seems to be reflecting introspectively when she asks whether that means being a trending video, or having millions of views, and “is 100 thousand people not valid? Is
200 thousand people not valid?” (Singh, 2018a). Singh states that she wants to “evaluate what I define success as and what I want my legacy to be,” because “right now it’s not something that
I’m proud of” (Singh, 2018a).
This second and third reasons for a YouTube hiatus seem to point some blame on the
YouTube ecology specifically as an ingredient directly contributing to Singh’s unhappiness and mental instability. Similar to what has been seen with other YouTuber’s who took breaks, Singh questions what success on the platform currently means for her, which leads into her fourth reason for taking a leave of absence: to give attention to other endeavors. Singh refers to her newly founded production company, her volunteer projects, speaking engagements, and merchandise line as efforts that she would like to be able to focus 100 percent on, which she cannot do while constantly creating YouTube content.
Singh wraps up by reaffirming that she is not leaving YouTube, and her hiatus does not have any parameters to it, that it “might be a one week break, it might be a one month break, I have no idea,” but that she will not be posting any videos to her main channel or her vlog channel. She addresses the fear that during a hiatus, audiences will leave or forget about her, but that she has confidence in herself and her audience to be able to pick up where they left off whenever she comes back. Singh does acknowledge her responsibility to and reliance on her audience when she says that her return will be contingent on “if you would be so gracious with WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 123 your time and energy” as to watch her again, that she is “really sorry if this break upsets any of you” and also asks that those watching not comment that they agree that her content has been lacking, but rather to be supportive and positive (Singh, 2018a). Singh ends on a note that is outwardly positive – specifically restating over and over again that she sees this break as a positive thing, that she is “going to come back better than ever personally, professionally, creatively” and calls others to work on themselves as well. The video ends with her signing off
“one love, Lilly” with an abrupt cut (Singh, 2018a).
Overall, Singh’s video directly addresses many of the more politicized issues on YouTube as it relates to creator burnout: the stress of constantly creating content, of trying to figure out the mystery of the YouTube platform’s inner workings, the fast pace of the platform as it relates to audience attention spans, and the concept that success on YouTube is measured in virality. She does position herself as someone who deserves to take a break through claiming her credibility in longevity and frequency of posting on the platform. While she states early in the video that the break is not “a reflection of how I feel about the platform of YouTube,” the platform’s current state make up one main reason for her leave, and is definitely a contributing factor in the reason she is unhappy with her content, as she cites posting different content in an effort to cater to the platform’s algorithm for views (Singh, 2018a). She does not address whether her content will shift when she returns, and in fact, seems to portray that nothing will change when she comes back and that she and her audience will pick back up exactly where they left off. Which leads the viewer to wonder how much Singh will really learn during this hiatus, or whether she will set herself up for further burnout in the future.
Singh and Helbig address their breaks from YouTube in very different ways. Helbig focuses on the need for a break from only YouTube videos and uses keywords that emphasize her WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 124 plan for the brevity of the hiatus. Her casual and toned-down manner in the video mark a change in content and viewers are left with a sense that there is a change coming to the channel even after Helbig returns. Singh’s video fits in with the jump cut stream of consciousness often found on her channel and seems to be more of a missive of the changing culture of YouTube than a call for creative intentionality to benefit Singh in the long-term. While Helbig focuses on her semi- immediate return, Singh leaves viewers feeling that the break may be quite lengthy. However,
Helbig seems to emphasize that she will take time to work on herself, while Singh seems to make it seem like she just needs a vacation. Singh mentions taking time to focus on other projects, but none of the projects she mentions seem to be immediately consumable while Helbig makes sure to point out that regular content will still be released during her break.
These videos mark a specific type of identity performance for each of these case studies.
Helbig openly states in her video that she does not like to post more personal videos because it makes the channel and content more serious than it needs to be. On a channel mostly filled with sarcastic and physical humor, an unedited talking head video where Helbig addresses her mental state and her struggles with content are few and far between, although not foreign to the channel.
Particularly surrounding the 2016 election, the channel saw an increase in Helbig sharing a more serious side, and discussion topics like depression and politics. While Singh is often more transparent in her vlogging channel, this level of straight talking to the camera is not as common on her main channel where videos are typically highly produced and involve costuming, scripts and several camera angles. In addition, on her vlogging channel, Singh provides unscripted advice or reflection but is not usually so forthcoming about issues with YouTube or her professional life itself. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 125
Breaking the Hiatus
Both Helbig and Singh broke their hiatus in the first week of December 2018 (Helbig,
2018e; Singh, 2018c). Each of them had some words about their break, and the potential future
of their channel, announcing changes as well as increased intentionality in content creation.
Helbig’s return video was posted to her channel, while Singh’s main channel video was the first
of her annual 12 Collabs of Christmas series, but her vlog channel included a behind the scenes
of the filming, which featured her addressing the audience vlog-style about her hiatus.
I’m Back?
On December 3, 2018, Grace Helbig posted her first non-podcast video to her channel in over six weeks. The video, titled I’m Back? // Grace Helbig has 155 thousand views as of July
31, 2019 and was eight minutes and forty-nine seconds long (Helbig, 2018e). Unlike the video
announcing her hiatus, this video uses editing techniques more typical to Helbig’s channel like
flashbacks to other videos, video clips shot asynchronously, a silly opening shot of Helbig lip- synching, and jump cuts. Helbig’s video focuses mostly on the theme that nothing has changed during her break. She emphasizes several times that the break did not fix her issues with
YouTube nor did she find a solution to the problem of YouTube burnout, however, Helbig’s frame of mind seems to be clearer about a process that is needed on her channel going forward.
The video discusses three themes: her mindset before her hiatus, what she learned, and her goals for the future of the channel.
Helbig expresses that before her hiatus she was constantly worried about creating better and higher quality content, that the “idea that I had to level up” was a pressure, but that it didn’t
feel consistent with who she really is (Helbig, 2018e). Helbig discusses that she has “slowly
started to get into the mode of missing making YouTube videos,” rather than the previous WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 126
“problem where I felt like I had to rather than I wanted to” (Helbig, 2018e). She shared some
footage from her break, where she says she “ate, got sad, ate again, and then got more sad”
(Helbig, 2018e). In a continuation of her hiatus announcement, the tone of the video is still solemn and does not match the more comedic tone of the majority of the channel.
Helbig refers to the years’ focus on mental health of YouTubers, and says that it is good, acknowledging that “the whole YouTube and digital industry is brand new,” and that while in traditional Hollywood, the concept of burnout when one’s career has hit a long trajectory is commonplace, but that the same issues are just beginning to surface in the digital entertainment space. Helbig references that nothing has been “fixed” several times in the video, saying “I still
feel crazy, I still feel stressed out, I still feel anxious, I still feel nervous, I still feel insecure,” and
that “there isn’t gonna be that magical eat, pray, love epiphany-ish moment that’s gonna fix everything and give me full clarity on the way to direct the future content,” perhaps addressing
the concept that she personally held and that many projected that time away would leave her
refreshed and with a new purpose and clear direction for her YouTube channel (Helbig, 2018e).
The video takes place in a hotel room in Austin, which Helbig says has been a place of
creative flow throughout her career, and cuts to four videos from her channel archive, including a
video from her previous channel on My Damn Channel. She also discusses that she’s tried to
film the same content several times, showing clips from three other attempts.
As far as the future of her channel, Helbig discusses the concepts of permission and
acceptance when it comes to herself. She indicates that upcoming content will be a mix of
silliness and more adult-targeted, saying both “I miss giving myself permission to be stupid with
you guys,” and “I’m thirty-three now. I started making YouTube videos when I was in college. I
don’t think I’ve given myself permission to be an adult with you guys” (Helbig, 2018e). The end WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 127
of the video features Helbig stating that she hopes the channel and its community will grow
together and that she is aiming to “be comfortable with being a little bit different than I used to
be” (Helbig, 2018e).
Helbig does not provide any specific examples of what content may be on the horizon,
does not talk about a new upload schedule or goals, but does perform a shift in identity for the
channel and the persona that she projects. While emphasizing that nothing has been fixed, she
focuses on continued work that she will need to do to share content and a personality that is more in line with what she feels comfortable and fulfilled producing.
Learning how to be James Charles
Lilly first addresses her return to YouTube in a video posted on December 6, 2018, entitled Learning How to be James Charles (Singh, 2018c). The nine-minute and 27 second
video has 998 thousand views, and focuses mostly on the behind the scene process of shooting
her first in her Collabs of Christmas series with the beauty vlogger James Charles, but about two
and a half minutes features Lilly speaking vlog-style from her bedroom before and after the
shoot describing how she used her time on break and her hopes for the channel going forward.
While the video opens with Lilly on set at Charles’ house, at fourteen seconds, the video
switches to Lilly before the shoot, discussing her break. Using terms like “mental break,” Lilly
describes how she was surprised at the media reaction to her hiatus, saying that stories like those
saying she was taking a break for her mental health concerned her mother and made her feel
“weird” but not mad. She does discuss the hiatus in positive terms, saying that she’s “really been
working on myself this break” participating in activities like writing, sleeping, meditating, and
“thinking a lot about creation” (Singh, 2018c). Singh echoes some of her sentiments from her
video that announced her hiatus and states that the aspects of creation that led to her burnout WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 128 included being creative on demand, not having fun during shoots, racing against a timeline, and not being completely proud of the end product. Throughout the video, she emphasizes particularly these concepts of enjoying the process and being thankful for the experience. She sets a mindful intention for the shoot to be fun, and to look at the monitor during the shoot to make sure the product is something she likes, and to practice gratitude for the moment. Singh states that a big part of YouTube for her has been “having a brain baby and then seeing it come to life is something I’ve always been very grateful to have the opportunity to do and I lost part of that,” describing the process of YouTube in recent history as chaos (Singh, 2018c). After this one-minute vlog, the video cuts back to the behind the scenes process of the shoot. This insight into Singh’s intention for the video is something that shows a more mindful practice for Singh’s videos, rather than the sense of urgency and rushing that the video vlogs typically portray. She demonstrates purposeful energy going into the shoot and seems to reinforce that the break has provided her a time to reflect on her energy output on YouTube.
At the eight minute and ten-second mark, the video returns to Singh in her room, post- shoot. Singh is in high spirits and emphasizes the fun she had during the process, saying that she was able to move through the shoot “at a pace that I could actually like experience…I remember what it feels like to create for fun” (Singh, 2018c). She then goes on to discuss the future of her channel, saying that she views the Twelve Collabs of Christmas as a special series, particularly because while she has a timeline of the month of December, there is not a specific upload schedule like her normal channel content. Singh says that she plans to relaunch her channel with more normal content in the new year but has not yet made any decisions about it. She does say that she would like to take more time for the videos, focusing again on being proud of the final product, and “not just put out videos because YouTube’s algorithm is going to hate me WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 129
otherwise,” but rather because she has a vision and it is fun (Singh, 2018c). Again, these sentiments echo some of the same mindset as Singh when she announced her hiatus, referring to the tension between perhaps the way she would like to produce and release content and the pressures of the way the YouTube algorithm is perceived to work.
This Channel is Changing
On January 9, 2019, Lilly Singh posted a video that formally addressed format and content adjustments to her channel going forward (Singh, 2019a). The video, titled This Channel is Changing! opens with “what up it’s your girl” but finishes the sentence with Lilly (Singh,
2019a). This signals that she is continuing to shift her channel identity from “Superwoman” to her legal name Lilly, and sets the stage for the video going forward that she may be aiming to be less of a personality and bring in more sentiments that could be attributed to “honesty” or
“reality.” Keywords repeated in this video include “happy,” “clarity,” “breather,” which indicate that while her channel may have previously been comedy-focused, it also represented a pressure to create entertaining content on a set schedule (Singh, 2019a).
Throughout the three minute and fifty-five-second video, Singh emphasizes that “not much is changing,” while continuing to discuss changes to the more formal qualities of her content (Singh, 2019a). This tension signals that Singh is perhaps trying to navigate potential expectations from her subscribers, that she does not want to change too much in fear of losing her audience. Singh addresses this contradiction late in the video when she states that while some aspects of the channel are changing, such as removing the set twice a week upload schedule from her main channel in favor of uploading “whenever I have a dope idea,” lessening the vlog channel from seven days a week to five, and uploading spice news to IGTV (Instagram’s video upload platform) from every week to every other week, “what we represent” is not changing WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 130
(Singh, 2019a). Singh goes on to identify what’s not changing: positive vibes, good energy, inspiration, inclusion, acceptance, and love. Throughout the video, Singh also uses phrases such as “fighting for your happiness,” “focus on yourself,” “focus on your happiness,” which
emphasize that Singh believes her hiatus was an empowering move toward a fulfillment outside
of her YouTube channel that she hopes to bring to the channel content and her audience (Singh,
2019a). While Singh does state that her main channel will still contain branded videos,
noticeably absent in this video is any mention of the YouTube algorithm. This could mean that
Singh is focusing her revenue efforts into brand partnerships and income streams outside of
YouTube rather than attempting to fit her channel into a method that will best mold to the
algorithm for ad-based revenue based on views.
As of March 2019, Singh has posted three more videos to her main channel, each with very high production value and with a specific popular culture theme. On January 14, 2019, she posted “Realistic Skincare Commercial,” a video sponsored by Olay skincare products, followed by “How to Make a Migos Song,” a parody songwriting and music video, on January 26 (Singh,
2019b; Singh, 2019c). The most recent video, posted on March 4, is titled “Being the Ghost in
Horror Movies,” and features Lilly impersonating a real ghost as if they have to audition for movies and haunt people in real life as their job (Singh, 2019e). Each of these videos continues
Singh’s identity as a comedic entertainer and follow through on her desire to produce content that she is proud of, take her time creating it, evolve – all words she uses to describe the future of her content in her video from January 9.
In contrast to the ways that Mamrie Hart and Hannah Hart slowly infuse identity changes and flexibility into their channels without big announcements, Helbig and Singh tend to demarcate changes to their channels with statements to their audiences about changes they are WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 131
making in upload schedules or programming. With regard to their breaks from content creation
and returning to their channel, Helbig and Singh seem to be transparent about their reasons while
still maintaining a privacy and downplaying the importance of taking this break, using words like
“little,” and “short.” When the women return to their channels, they state the same theme going
forward – that they want to focus on uploading content that fulfills them creatively rather than
following the status quo or attempting to keep up with YouTube trends or analytics. As
Matthewman (2011) concluded, as we have allowed technologies to structure our worlds, they
also structure us, and in these hiatus announcements and return videos, audiences are exposed to
the ways that the YouTube platform has structured these women’s careers.
These videos signal a performance of reflexivity for these creators that is not typical of their content. The performance of videos each have identifying factors that are nonconforming of their channel content. For Helbig, posting an unedited video is very unusual, and it underscores her desire to be away from YouTube that she perhaps just posted the video rather than crafting the content through editing. For Singh, it is unusual to post a vlog-style video to her main channel, which typically features more highly produced sketches. These shifts in style as well as the purposeful and straightforward tone of the hiatus videos and return videos contribute to a performance of reflexivity that is particularly unusual for Helbig, but is unusual for Singh’s main channel. Reflexivity is performed through the process in the videos. First, in the ways that they refer to their content and the YouTube platform, second when they outline how both aspects are affecting them personally and professionally, and finally the decisions they make to leave the platform and then return with new or updated definitions about their channel content. This reflexivity is a signal that these creators are continually considering and changing their identities, creative output, and decisions about content. The unusual decision to make these professional WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 132 reflections visible to their audiences is perhaps done out of necessity to announce changes to an audience that has been built over nearly a decade, but could also be out of fear of losing audiences and a desire to build an emotional appeal and connection to them to receive continued support.
These videos portray starkly different identities for each of these creators as well. Both
Helbig and Singh use the main frame of comedy on their channels when it comes to the identities they cultivate and content they upload. While Singh is known to share more of her behind the camera life on her vlogging channel, her main channel usually contains highly produced and even scripted content. These sets of videos on the main channel share a different side, which is evidenced even by the shift in Singh’s intro to using her first name rather than her Superwoman moniker. Singh is very clear about the way the channel will operate moving forward, even updating her upload schedule and types of content. She marks the new year of 2019 as a shift in her channel through the time period, the title of the video, and her statements throughout.
In contrast, Helbig is not specific about her channel changes, and overall seems less clear on whether anything is different after her hiatus. She speaks more broadly about YouTube culture and burnout being commonplace rather than her personal experience with it. This lack of structure presented is vastly different from the beginnings of her channel which had set content topics and upload schedule of five days a week. The identity shift Helbig portrays is more of one who is uncertain but is going to document to process rather than create a new structure and return to business as normal. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 133
CHAPTER 6: THE MEDIA ECOLOGY OF THE YOUTUBE PLATFORM
There are two key components involved in identifying the media ecology of the YouTube platform as it relates to creators. The first is creator content, which makes up the bulk of what the end audience consumes on the platform and contributes to the dialogic community aspect of the ecology. The second is the ways in which the YouTube platform shapes the context within the ways that creators and their content can be shared. YouTube’s feature hub for creators is called the YouTube Studio (in Beta since 2017 but the default for all creators since early 2019) and is the main component of this second piece of the creator ecology. Looking at this platform results in an additional frame of understanding of the women studied here and the way that the creators and their platform on YouTube can be understood through McLuhan’s laws of the media.
First, I look at the information and functions available to creators in a separate space of the YouTube site, where their channels and videos can be managed and where YouTube has provided certain metrics and data related to their channel. The analysis includes the functions available as well as those that are missing, the information provided, and the naming signifiers used. Second, an analysis of the Studio within McLuhan’s laws of the media is performed to discover how this channel management space enhances, obsolesces, retrieves, and reverses aspects of other media to create its own ecology. Lastly, the findings from the case studies are
integrated with the findings from the YouTube studio analysis in order to discover further
findings about the YouTube ecology for creators. The resulting conclusions confirm the earlier
analyses seen in chapter three regarding YouTuber burnout. There is a discrepancy or perhaps a
tension between the YouTube Studio and its focus on audience analytics and constant growth for a channel and the values that youtubers add to the creator ecology of creative fulfillment and community building. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 134
YouTube Studio
Figure 1: The dashboard of the YouTube Studio.
YouTube’s creator features, a separate area of the site called YouTube Studio, place a
heavy focus on audience interaction metrics, emphasizing specific goals including reaching
viewers, interesting viewers, and building an audience (YouTube, 2019). The Studio can be
accessed by anyone who has a YouTube account with a channel by clicking on the channel’s icon
from the website and then choosing the button for YouTube Studio. We will begin with a
description of the features of the YouTube Studio.
The first page that comes up when accessing the YouTube Studio website is a personalized dashboard for the channel associated with the YouTube account. For accounts with multiple channels, creators must switch between channel dashboards, the dashboard only shows metrics for one channel at a time. The channel dashboard acts as the homepage and hub for the
YouTube Studio and includes sections with the creator’s most recent video, subscribers, News,
Creator Insider, and Channel Analytics. The newest video area shows top-level analytics
including the number of views, average view duration, and total watch time, with links to more
analytics about the specific video, or to go to the comments for that video. These analytics are WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 135 also comparative, stating how the most recent video is performing compared to other video performance from the channel, and showing percentages of growth for each metric.
The recent subscriber area has a list of channel names that subscribed to the channel within the last month, including their subscriber count, and a button to subscribe back to that channel. There is a disclaimer that YouTube only makes visible the “users who have made their subscriptions public,” and while they include a “channel” name, this is also the username of the subscriber (YouTube, 2019). Making the button to subscribe back available as an action item in this section suggests a community building or something closer to a social network than is typically attributed to the viewer/creator relationship that is highlighted elsewhere on the platform and specifically in the functions within the YouTube Studio.
The News and Creator Insider include links to videos with titles like “3 Quick Tips from
Creator HQ!,” and “Comment Moderation Deep Dive” (YouTube Creators, 2019; Creator
Insider, 2019). These channels promise to share information directly from YouTube to creators, questions answered by YouTube employees themselves and seem aimed at helping creators manage their channels. The videos on each of these channels focus on ways for youtubers to increase the visibility and popularity of their channels.
Channel analytics show the subscriber count, total watch time, and views on the channel for the last month. Each of these metrics also have icons showing growth or decline with percentages. Below that is a list of the most popular videos on the channel in the last 48 hours with the number of total views for each video. The dashboard page sets the tone for the rest of the creator’s tools and establish that the bulk of the YouTube Studio is focused on analytics, which includes the same set of features available at both the channel and individual video level. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 136
Analytics are a typical piece of building a brand of content, particularly as it relates to
the digital space and its focus on network growth. It is normalized to want to have access to
numbers about audience interaction to measure reach or consumption of the content and can be
seen in other platforms provided by Google such as Google Analytics for websites and analytic
tools provided on blogging platform Blogger. YouTube and its content creators use audience
metrics for more than channel management and growth of the channel’s popularity. Analytic measurements are also used by YouTube to determine monetization for individual videos, and by creators to build a community that can be leveraged into other creative ventures in legacy mediums such as television shows, books, and movies. Nevertheless, the specific analytics that
YouTube makes visible to creators shape the way that creators can manage their channel and set
a precedent of the definition of a successful YouTube channel.
In looking at the terms and numbers that YouTube reveals to those that upload videos,
insight is provided into the way that youtubers run their channels and develop content. The
YouTube Studio describes itself as a way to “discover better fresh ways to manage and grow
your channel” (YouTube, 2019). This platform directs the focus of creators, emphasizing only
certain pieces of the creator-viewer relationship, and ultimately has an important impact on the
ways in which creators may decide to alter their content in order to reach certain metrics made
visible by YouTube. While these features can be helpful in achieving ad buys, subscriptions,
comments, and views on new and old content, they cannot be comprehensive, and it certainly
cannot be assumed that these are the only metrics that the platform has for each channel.
Therefore, it is imperative to critically analyze the metrics that the platform chooses to make
visible to creators, and the potential influence they have on the creator’s decisions. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 137
Above the dashboard, and visible as a navigational tool on each page of the Studio, are
tabs named with action items: reach viewers, interest viewers, and build an audience. A tab
labeled “reach viewers” shows the viewers’ traffic source, including source types. Source types
involve whether the viewer was referred from an external source or from within a YouTube
feature such as a suggested video, playlist, or YouTube search. The “interest viewers” tab ranks videos, playlists, and cards (links to other videos that can be placed within videos) by most views or clicks. It also shows audience retention and likes versus dislikes on each video. The “build an audience” area focuses on demographics of the viewers themselves: country of origin, gender, age, and whether the viewers used subtitles or closed captioning on the video. These reports are titled by specific actionable goals of a YouTube creator – certainly, they want to reach, interest, and build an audience, but the metrics backed up by these titles state that these things must be done with intention – and ideally using YouTube-built tools to share their work to specific target audiences. So, while the tabs are named for actions that creators may want to take to build the popularity of their channel, the pages themselves provide retrospective measurements, not instruction or recommendations for the future.
Naming each of these tabs as action items rather than their reporting topics (e.g. “reach
viewers” rather than simply traffic source) sets an expectation that the creator should use these
metrics to take some action in order to achieve the goal of the page. For example, by separating
out traffic sources, creators may feel a need to have positive information in each of these
categories. This can result in creators flooding their social media profiles with referral links to
videos rather than more unique or engaging content for each platform. Particularly of interest in
this category is that two of the traffic sources rely on the YouTube algorithm: YouTube searches
and suggested videos. In placing these sources under the heading “reach audiences,” YouTube WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 138
creates the expectation that creators need to be successful in catering to the YouTube algorithm
to be included in these referral sources that are managed by the platform. However, it does not
provide instruction on how to increase clicks from these sources.
The second navigational tab, interest viewers, focuses on increasing overall watch time
for the channel through four metrics: top videos, end screens, top playlists, and top cards. The
first is the top videos, which are the most-watched videos counted by views. Views are counted
by a video playing for 30 seconds and longer (Gesenhues, 2019). YouTube promises that
engaging with this metric “can help you plan programming that takes advantage of seasonal
trends,” as the creator can change the time period to display ranging from seven days to a year,
by month, or by year (YouTube, 2019). The second metric is the end screen of the video, where
creators will often place bloopers with links to other videos or their social media profiles on the
screen. If viewers do not have autoplay turned on, this screen stays up until the viewer navigates
away. End screen metrics are measured twice on this page: by most effective aka “end screens
that viewers clicked the most,” and by top end screen elements, or the individual “screen elements types that viewers clicked the most” (YouTube, 2019).
The third metric is top playlists, ranked by watch time. Playlists are sets of videos, usually organized by theme, series, or category like food, collaborations, or most recent that the creator can make available on their channel and the videos will play in the selected order automatically. The last metric is top cards, or pop up banners that created the most click- throughs. Cards can appear at any time during a video, while end screens are only available on the last screen of the video. Emphasis on these metrics is to increase overall watch time on the channel, not just individual video views or clicks. This encourages creators to create content that is themed, serialized, or otherwise contiguous so that audiences will stay on their channel for WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 139 longer. However, despite the goal instilled by the platform with this area of the studio, the page does not actually show amounts of time that viewers spend on videos or the channel.
The last analytical tool provided by YouTube is focused on the creator catering to specific demographics. Called “build an audience,” the page displays total unique views, views per user, and the number of subscribers, and then breaks this information down by gender, country, age, and subtitle languages. These very specific but basic demographics influence the creator to choose demographics that they would like to target. The categorical breakdowns themselves encourage creators to target audiences by hegemonic demographic rather than by subject matter or similar channel interests.
YouTube expands on the subscriber reports, stating that “over time, this can help you understand what causes viewers to subscribe or unsubscribe to your channel” (YouTube, 2019).
Under “see more,” creators have the opportunity to view additional metrics, such as device type, operating system, and playback location. These insights provide information about the audience and its viewing habits, which in turn could encourage the channel creator to adjust their content to appeal to these demographics based upon their metrics or broader market data. Viewing by
YouTube products is also made visible - whether the audience is a member of YouTube, YouTube
Kids, or YouTube Gaming. This focus on viewer engagement and audience demographics made visible by YouTube creates and enforces social norms for what it means to be successful as a youtuber. It directs the creator to concentrate on engaging audiences and creating interaction rather than create content that is self-satisfying.
YouTube’s original slogan of “broadcast yourself” focused on this potential to become
Internet famous for being yourself, or at least sharing your creativity on an easy and international platform. In more traditional terms, transitioning this online labor into actual money has been WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 140
difficult, both for the YouTube platform and its creators (Christian, 2018). According to Christian
(2018), “the lesson of YouTube is algorithmic targeting and scale are not enough to make a
platform stand out” (para. 34). As can be seen through YouTube’s company struggles to be
profitable, the strategy of using audience data to drive content has not even worked for YouTube,
so why would it work for its creators (Christian, 2018)? Christian goes on to state that in order to
“succeed” on a level akin to Netflix, YouTube “must first consider the identities of the people
you invest in. You should consider their ability to tell complex, interesting, never-before-seen
stories” (Christian, 2018, para. 34). YouTube’s catchphrase of “broadcast yourself” seemed to create a purpose of creative expression found within the representation of oneself, while the
YouTube Studio encourages creators to cater to the viewers. It is this tension of the purpose and definition of success that we see youtubers in the case studies pushing back against.
Success on YouTube has its own currency - views. YouTube enabled the 21st-century
concept of the viral video, and in this way reshaped how we define success for youtubers. This is
in part because it is a metric that YouTube makes public for each video, and in part, because it is
hard to pin down exactly how much money youtubers make from the platform. AdSense is just
one method of income for creators, who may also receive monetary compensation for publishing
a sponsored video, free products for consideration for review, or income directly from their
audience via a platform such as Patreon’s crowdfunding approach (About Patreon, n.d.). But as
Helbig and Singh expressed in their hiatus videos, views are no longer a metric that serves some
youtubers, as they struggle to understand and cater to the YouTube algorithm.
YouTube Studio & The Laws of the Media
The ecology of a platform is made up of not just the features, information, and content,
but also the engagement and saturation into other media and daily life. McLuhan’s laws of the WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 141
media provide a more formal method of evaluating the media ecology of YouTube and the ways
that it interacts with aspects of the media landscape. Addressing the ways that the YouTube
Studio amplifies, obsolesces, retrieves, and reverses reveals the influence that YouTube has on its
creators and their content production. While YouTube is a revolutionary medium for sharing
video and provides an unprecedented amount of creative control and the ability for distribution
and consumption for both creators and viewers, the platform is not without its biases.
Determining the causes and effects based on McLuhan’s media tetrad method exposes these biases as well as potential implications for limitations on creators.
First, the YouTube Studio amplifies the relationship of the creator as a transactional content provider to their audience. This is placed above all other relationships, including the creator and their advertising partners, the creator and themselves, the creator and the platform, and any emotional connection between the creator and their subscribers.
Second, the Studio’s features for creators retrieves the obsession with views and target audiences that is so prominent in television. While the original purpose of YouTube was to easily
share videos among friends, the current use of uploading videos publicly for anyone to watch
combined with the visibility of view count on every video and the YouTube Studio’s emphasis
on analytics of time spent on a channel mimic television’s reliance on Nielsen counts of viewers for an episode in order to measure success. This focus on view counts is privileged above community building, knowledge sharing, or expression, two other high factors of joining
YouTube. This focus on viewership and “success” equating to large audiences and eventually fame contributes to a focus on youtubers as financially successful because of the platform and as influencers focused on lucrative partnerships. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 142
Third, the media ecology of the creator studio obsolesces critical creator engagement with their audience and themselves. This is seen in the videos produced by Singh and Helbig as they navigate their hiatus and return to YouTube. Both women appear apologetic for questioning their satisfaction with their success and their relationship with the platform. The rear mirror and comparative nature of the YouTube Studio reinforce replication of successful content. In
Helbig’s discussion of review videos, she explains that she normally does fashion reviews and that they have been successful, and again seems apologetic for critically pondering why she did not want to edit and post the video she already filmed. It’s possible that analytics in the YouTube
Studio encouraged continual creation of the fashion review theme because those videos perform well. In showing positive analytics for a video or a series of videos, a creator will be encouraged to reproduce similar content to recreate success in the eyes of the YouTube Studio.
Lastly, when pushed to an extreme, the YouTube Studio reverses creator burnout by focusing on playing to the algorithm. The algorithm plays an integral role in success on
YouTube, particularly for creators who have already built an audience, such as the four women studied here. Once a core audience is built, sharing video announcements on social media or other grassroots efforts to build a following are going to be less impactful than a recommendation by the platform’s engine. The YouTube Studio’s own metrics report on viewers referred by searches or suggestions from the platform, which are controlled by pieces of the site’s algorithm. This encouragement to play into the algorithm can manifest in many ways for creators, depending on how they believe the algorithm behaves. Despite videos on Creator
Insider that claim to share how the algorithm works, its exact recommendations remain a mystery, largely because of two reasons. The first is that the algorithm is constantly being tweaked by developers at the company, and therefore even a video made a week ago could be out WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 143
of date or imprecise. Secondly, the algorithm also relies on machine learning and is in a
continuous state of change based on an individual’s watch habits: it is not identical for any two
viewers. Some beliefs about the algorithm are widespread, such as that the algorithm favors
videos under five minutes or videos with clickbait-type titles in all capital letters (Weiss, 2018).
What can be definitively said about the algorithm is that attempting to cater to it has led directly
to burnout amongst youtubers (Spangler, 2018b). Thus, when pushed to an extreme, the YouTube
Studio contributes to burnout in their creators and results in disengagement with the platform completely.
The YouTube Studio has a direct influence on the rest of the YouTube platform, and particularly the creators who use it to monitor their channels. Seen through McLuhan’s laws of the media, the studio amplifies a transactional nature between the creator and their audience, transferring a currency of views and subscriptions. It retrieves this obsession with that currency of views and highlights this as a measure of success over community engagement, knowledge sharing, or expression. It obsolesces an introspective perspective of content creation, and when pushed to an extreme, reverses into disengagement with the platform completely.
Creators’ Media Ecology
When looking only at the features and information that YouTube provides for its creators, the focus is on bigger numbers: in subscribers, views, likes, comments, and particularly time spent on the channel. For creators who want to connect or provide emotional service to their audience, these tools may be more of a hindrance than a help. Helbig recently stated in an interview: WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 144
I’ve never been business-minded, so I’m not looking for a million views on a video, I’m
looking to make something so that if someone is sitting at home having a bad day, they
get relief from that for like ten minutes.
Shared Channel, 2019
Therefore, it is also essential to explore the values that the creators themselves infuse into the media ecology of YouTube creators. Thought McLuhan (1964) cautions against privileging content of media over function, I argue that because these two values are demonstrated in the ways that creators use of the platform and their channels, these values contribute to the creator ecology on YouTube. Through their performances, creators demonstrate aspects of the platform that are important to them, and when matched with the values instilled through the YouTube
Studio, tensions and new understandings emerge. Throughout the case studies, two main values emerge from the creators: community and creative expression.
Community
Community is a term that is used throughout this project, one that I argue is a main tension between the platform and the creators studied here. Based upon the evaluation of the
YouTube Studio and the performances of each of the women in my case studies, I believe that community among creators is not of value to the YouTube platform, but is of the highest importance to each of the case studies. Through first, an exploration of the ways that our creators demonstrate community, and second, an evaluation of the lack of community features in the
Studio, a definition of the concept of community on YouTube can be created.
Each of the four women bring other youtubers into their videos for collaborations on their channels, and in three out of four of the case studies, a collaboration with another youtuber is the most popular video on the channel. For Singh, collaborations are at the center of a yearly series WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 145 in her 12 Collabs of Christmas which has been created yearly since 2011. For Helbig, Hannah, and Mamrie Hart, collaborations between the three of them has led to the moniker “holy trinity” when fans refer to them collectively. As mentioned earlier, collaboration videos typically involve several youtubers getting together to film a video for each of their channels, which are then posted within a few of days of each other to their respective channels, with promotion for each of the other videos included. The main benefit of collaboration is introducing audiences of one channel to other channels they may be interested in. A byproduct of collaborations is a sense of community or camaraderie amongst youtubers.
These collaborations are also often successful ways of gaining views for the creators. For three out of four of the case studies, a collaboration was the most popular video for the channel.
Therefore, creators may be using collaborations to play into the algorithm in some way. For example, typically the creator includes the name(s) of the youtubers in the title if the video is a collaboration. This means that when a user does a search for that youtuber, the video will be more likely to be featured in the results. Helbig even includes her own name in every video title, potentially for this reason. The reasons why collaborative videos are more popular and certainly eventually favored by the algorithm may be because of any unique audience the featured youtuber has, or it could be that placing the name of a youtuber in the title of a video triggers a mechanism in the algorithm. Certainly, the creators play into this success aspect when they choose to do a collaboration today, although any formal methods of support for collaboration are lacking in the visible functions of the platform.
YouTube itself can be seen as a platform with individual channels and in that way, it mimics television with multiple channels, which leads to the concept of competition among channels. However, the asynchronous nature of watching on YouTube when compared to WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 146
television means that audiences are not scarce and competition for views does not have the be the
mindset. In fact, our four case studies have all collaborated with one another on multiple
occasions. The sharing of channel space with another youtuber results in a performance of community rather than competition.
In contrast, the YouTube Studio only has one feature that could be considered a part of community building. The action button to follow back recent subscribers from the dashboard encourages creators to participate as viewers and platform members as well as content producers.
In a set of tools that otherwise focuses on the creator’s own output and collecting subscribers,
views, comments, and overall more time from audiences, this lone feature in the YouTube Studio
suggests that creators might be viewers, too.
Granted, there are other places on the YouTube platform that encourage creators to
engage with the platform. For example, creators have the same homepage as their audiences,
where the algorithm personalizes video suggestions and subscriptions. Nevertheless, based on
the success of collaborative videos for each of the four women studied here, the YouTube Studio
misses an opportunity to build in a more community environment to the studio. Community tools
could include suggestions of other youtubers participating in YouTube trend videos based upon
key terms, or potential collaborators where there is a certain number of overlapping subscribers.
As mentioned before, there is not a scarcity of time for audiences to watch YouTube, so channels
are not competing for a primetime spot as networks do on television. Community, then, is a value demonstrated by each of the case studies in this project and is one main way that these women contribute to the media ecology of YouTube creators. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 147
Creative Expression
Creative expression is demonstrated as a value for creators in the case studies through the
discussion of content during videos, shifting templates for show format, and advancements in
video production including editing, audio, and shooting. Some of the case studies address
creative expression as a value directly while others indicate it through their performances in
nonverbal ways. As each of the case study subjects have been creating YouTube videos for nearly
a decade, their reasons for joining YouTube and continuing to create videos have shifted. But
certainly, the relative freedom of creative expression is one value that endures, particularly when
compared to other entertainment platforms - as Helbig says “I love the freedom to create anything I want at home” (Kurutz, 2016). Creative expression is often tied to individuality or uniqueness in content. In a 2018 interview, Mamrie Hart’s discussed success on YouTube:
YouTube is tough because I say when I started doing it was like seven years ago, and it
feels like I’m really referring to the ‘40s because it was so different back then, you know,
like “the talkies.” Um, I would just say don’t try to be - don’t try to follow the rule book
of how to get popular, because what I see so much happening on YouTube right now is,
there’s uh, kind of like the ingredients to success, and the certain videos you do. And
people feel like if they just imitate that, they’ll grow. But, you’re a knock off… Really,
just try to make stuff that you think is unique. And, “why does your voice need to be
heard?” ...Like why specifically do you have something to say that sets you apart from
everyone else. And then just hang on to that.
UNC Student Television, 2018.
Here, Hart touches on the concept of following all the right things to have a popular channel versus creating a channel with a very specific purpose. In her statements she seems to place a WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 148 binary between what perhaps YouTube or other common expectations are for success on the platform versus unique expression, inferring that original content is more highly valued over going viral.
Helbig started on YouTube as a job, creating comedic videos for a company. Under her own channel, she has taken the time to evaluate what kind of content she finds fulfilling, eventually taking a break from YouTube and making videos that discuss whether she enjoys certain types of content, such as fashion reviews. Hannah Hart discusses that she was unsure about continuing the My Drunk Kitchen series because of its inflexible nature in creating a character who is a drunk, but has intentionally cultivated other content on her channel and avoided making it the My Drunk Kitchen channel. Since Singh’s hiatus from the platform, she has continued to create at a slower pace and focused on highly produced content while maintaining a more consistent template on her vlog channel. Creators strike a balance through content creation and following the guidelines of what a YouTube channel “should” do to be successful in 2019.
When placed together, the values of the YouTube Studio and those demonstrated by the creators in this study seem oppositional. However, within the study of media ecology, it is important to acknowledge functions of and contributions to an ecology as neutral plot points rather than assigning a positive or negative value to them (M. McLuhan, 1964). The Studio’s focus on measuring volume on a channel and measuring the response by an audience to content.
Values demonstrated by the creators focus on the relationship of the creator to their content and the platform. Together, these values express the complicated nature of the platform for creators.
Because of its unique model of self-promotion and the ability to create with just a laptop camera, as Hannah Hart started, its entry point is one of the lowest out of many broadcast platforms. This WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 149
also means that creating for YouTube is very involved and can be solitary work as well. So, for creators, cultivating a community and maintaining a level of creative expression continues to provide positive reinforcement. In addition, having access to metrics on video and channel performance in terms of views, comments, likes, and subscriptions adds a level of feedback that can be done at a glance.
The missing piece of the ecology is the YouTube algorithm. As mentioned before, this is a key area of research on the YouTube platform, is a source of confusion for creators, and is an overall unknown piece of information that truly does impact the day to day existence of creators and their videos. This mystery of the algorithm also contributes to the media ecology of YouTube creators, because they spend time focusing on it, whether it is to attempt to play into the algorithm or to decide to ignore it. The algorithm has a presence in every YouTube video, and in every interaction on YouTube because it affects the way that the platform and its audience interact through video recommendations based on viewership. So even if the viewer is referred to a video from their favorite creator through a link on Twitter, the algorithm takes that view into consideration for both the promotion of the video just watched and for what it will recommend to that viewer in the future. The algorithm is always changing, both through machine learning and tweaks made by the YouTube team. Its impact into the ecology of creators is omnipresent, but
YouTube and the Studio do not provide actionable items for partnering with the algorithm, so in this case, it is a third actor in the ecology of YouTube creators, and one that cannot at this time be studied well. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 150
CHAPTER 7: DISCUSSION
This study analyzed four case studies and the ways that each woman created and enacted
an identity on their YouTube channel(s) and examined the media ecology of creators on the
platform. First looking at youtubers who have kitchen-based series, the analysis of Mamrie Hart
and Hannah Hart’s focused on a development of a template for their shows, and the ways that
they made that template flexible over time to develop more multifaceted identities. Mamrie Hart
focused on social commentary while sharing a personally developed cocktail recipe through her
show You Deserve a Drink while Hannah Hart focused on following a food recipe for the first
time while drinking.
Secondly, Grace Helbig and Lilly Singh’s channels were analyzed, focusing on their
portrayed identities on their more broadly comedic channels featuring skits or YouTube trends.
Analysis of their channels explored the ways that each creator found their footing on YouTube,
including following YouTube trends or creating satire sketches based on popular culture. Both
creators also put their channels on hiatus at the end of 2018, and their discussions surrounding
their breaks from YouTube brought up topics such as creative fulfillment, pressure to fit into the
YouTube algorithm, and a shift in content. The sixth chapter included an examination of the
YouTube Studio as a media ecology and the contribution of creators to that ecology through their
uses of the platform. The findings included YouTube’s focus on growth by numbers such as views and time spent on the channel, and the tension between that and motivations of creators to use the platform for creative expression, manifesting community, and the resulting facilitation of
cultural conversations.
The uncommon utilization of media ecology and gender identity theories for grounding in
this research results in a new way of looking at the YouTube platform, particularly the way that WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 151
creators and YouTube interact as the platform nears its 15th birthday. The findings offer insight
into the ways that creators are in conversation with their distribution platform, and
demonstrations of the ways that they use the platform to perform their identity. This provides a
holistic view of the ways that YouTube and its creators are contributing to culture and shaping
new and existing norms.
Hannah Hart described her foray into YouTube in 2011 as being a part of “the generation
that kind of helped pioneer the platform into what it is today,” which is why it is important to
look at the women who are a part of that generation (TheEllenShow, 2019). These pioneers
shaped what it meant to be a YouTuber, they were a part of the first set of creators to be able to
produce content for YouTube as their full-time jobs, to coin the term “youtuber” and the
community that surrounds it. In looking at the content and identity performances that these
women broadcast, we can find common themes. Several findings were identified during the four
case studies, including addressing each research question, the use of content containers, and the
importance of collaboration with the YouTube community. Finally, some limitations and future
directions are discussed.
Findings
Research Question 1
What characteristics of the YouTube platform ecology give and limit control by content creators?
Strangelove (2010) suggested that YouTube’s popularity would become an alternative
format to television and would create new production and consumption methods. The findings
here support this concept, particularly as can be seen in the relationship between creators and the
YouTube platform. YouTube’s focus on growing channels through numerical touchpoints such as
views, subscribers, likes, comments, and time spent on the channel resembles network executives WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 152
who are concerned about viewership and ad sales. The uses of the platform by creators to share
comedic content that they find fulfilling, such as a discussion about inclusivity and diversity
while making a rainbow grilled cheese sandwich, may not have wide appeal, but it contributes to
a cultural conversation about opportunities for members of the LGBTQ+ community in the
broader world (H. Hart, 2019e).
As Gajjala and Oh (2012) set forth in their book, the Internet both provides a space for women and allows for the systematic cycle of commodification. This study continues this line of thought through the exploration of the ways that YouTube as a platform does the same work of empowerment and commodification, as well as the ways in which the women who perform on
YouTube navigate that tension. The study integrated three identified approaches to media ecology of creators on the platform through first an identification of YouTube’s Studio environment, second, the ways that its design impacts users and the methods with which they are encouraged to interact with the community through McLuhan’s laws of the media. Lastly, using the visual analysis to look at the performances shared as use cases of the platform through a discursive lens to identify the impacts they may have on the ecology, and whether the YouTube ecology and performance frames indicate a sense of agency for the female performers.
Through an evaluation of YouTube via McLuhan’s laws of the media, the studio
amplifies a transactional nature between the creator and their audience, transferring a currency of
views and subscriptions. It retrieves this obsession with that currency of views and highlights
this as a measure of success over community engagement, knowledge sharing, or expression. It
obsolesces an introspective perspective of content creation, and when pushed to an extreme,
reverses into disengagement with the platform completely. For creators, cultivating a community
and maintaining a level of creative expression are demonstrated to be integral outcomes of using WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 153 the platform. The metrics that YouTube provides have the potential to place pressure on youtubers to continue to play into unknown pieces of the platform such as the algorithm and monetization.
As Dobson (2016) states, self-representation is not entirely straightforward, as the pressures to create content that sells or is popular still requires attention to structures of power and influence on the content creators. Dobson cautions that performances are limited representations of the women who create them, influenced by a complex set of norms to be sexy but not slutty, confident but not narcissistic, and so forth. Similarly, Jarrett’s (2014) discussion of the clout that comes with engaging in online social spaces can be a motivator in terms of wanting recognition. While each of these four creators are explicit about their desires to use the space for creative expression, the reality is that they do rely on the space for at least some income, and for brand building. Their freedom of expression is imposed upon by the platform in the directives from the YouTube Studio as well as these more symbolic confines of YouTube norms.
One norm imposed by the biases of the platform that is discussed by the case studies is cursing. In videos from Helbig and Hannah Hart, cursing is a theme that is explicitly discussed as being discontinued at some point (Helbig, 2011b, H. Hart, 2018b). While both creators have decided to refrain from cursing, and both mention it in videos, neither one gives a specific reason. It can be assumed that the platform has some influence on this decision, in terms of whether videos with explicit language will be promoted through the algorithm or for ad placement, and whether it will receive any sort of hidden rating because of it.
The media ecology of YouTube creators, then, is a space dominated by a tension between the adage “broadcast yourself” and the industrialization of the platform. Efforts to use the platform for innovative content distribution are under pressure to abide by unconfirmed rules like WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 154 clickbait titles in all capital letters, videos that are less than five minutes long, and daily uploads.
The biases of the platform are often these hacks of the algorithm spread by hearsay conformed to by creators who rely on views, subscriptions, and ad sales to pay rent. The unknowability of the algorithm is a bias that influences every creator on the platform, and in some cases, causes the reversal extreme of a hiatus.
Research Question 2
What actions do they participate in that may be traditionally female-gendered?
There are two main ways that the creators participate in actions that may be female gendered, and they are both identified as performances of negotiation or opposition to these hegemonic norms within Hall’s model of encoding and decoding. The first is through engagement with the male gaze. A specific example is seen in Mamrie Hart’s (2019d) video
Saved by The Bell Pepper W/ Grace Helbig. Hart uses several typical shots attributed to the male gaze in this video, including one where she is laying on a bed and there is a body scan. In another scene, we can see that she is sitting on a bean bag chair and based on the censoring, we can guess this may be an upskirt shot. The entire video is shot in a call back to scenes from the show Saved by the Bell, and by adding the frame of comedy, she works to acknowledge and dismantle these hegemonic portrayals of women. Hart actually has two levels of censoring in the scene – she has blurred out and added a sketch of a black star, which adds an overexaggerated level to this image and therefore makes fun of the male gaze. The second way that the case studies engage in gendered actions is to center what is traditionally considered “women’s work” to be the main narrative of their shows. Research discusses that women’s work like cooking, cleaning, and putting on makeup is traditionally used as a break from the main narrative, but by, for example, WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 155
Hannah Hart using cooking as the main narrative that frames her episodes, she reframes this idea
that this work is background noise.
The female youtubers included in this study, as mostly sole creators (aside from Singh),
have more control than ever over their content, including the process of the writing, performing,
directing, and distribution. This control is not without its perceived constraints from biases on the
YouTube platform such as the algorithm and monetization opportunities. Some of the videos in
this study portrayed actions such as fashion reviews, makeup tutorials, cocktail making, and
cooking (Helbig, 2018a; Helbig, 2018b; M. Hart, 2019d; H. Hart, 2019c). These actions are often
historically portrayed as actions reserved for women, or as Mulvey (1975) and Watson (2008)
claimed, women’s actions used to break up the scene’s main action by men. The work performed
by female youtubers, whether it is content about makeup, fashion, food, cocktails, or popular
culture, places these previously superfluous actions front and center as the main action done by a
female. In these case studies, this re-centering of content, produced, performed, and distributed
by a female works symbolically and materially to dismantle the male gaze.
Symbolically, actions that were coded gendered was always combined with the frame of comedy. In videos by Singh and Helbig specifically, specific gendered actions like fashion reviews and getting ready to go out were detailed in a manner that presented them for questioning the legitimacy and necessity of these actions (Singh, 2013; Helbig, 2019f). Hannah
Hart’s more neutrally coded content is a statement in itself as well. Hannah’s efforts to maintain a gender-neutral presence are particularly evident in her kitchen-based show as she works without previous knowledge of the recipe, often treating the video as an experiment rather than instruction (H. Hart, 2018c). This approach to a cooking show is vastly different from the hegemonic norm of a cooking show headed by a female. In these scenarios, the woman is often WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 156 wearing an apron, discusses various tips and tricks for the recipe, and centers the recipes around her heterosexual family sitting down for the meal when it is ready (Laurentiis, 2019).
Mamrie Hart’s current videos takes physical action against the male gaze, both addressing and redirecting it during her performances (M. Hart, 2019d). In reproducing shots that are emblematic of the male gaze such as a slow body scan of a woman laying on a bed, and contrasting it with an upskirt shot that is covered up in comical fashion, Hart calls attention to her persona as an independent woman opposing the male gaze. While work has been done on the male gaze through video, and a body of research exists that aims to discover the female perspective on gaze, my study contributes to filling the gap of exploring video media wholly created by women. Through analysis of the visual cues such as shots that do not include their bodies, and performative content of these videos such as discussions about feminine expectations, as well as efforts to produce gender neutral content, it is clear that each of these case studies contributes to dialogue dismantling the male gaze.
Research Question 3
In what ways do the women enact a gender identity throughout their videos?
One of the main takeaways from this project is the contribution of gender-neutral performances. Hannah Hart’s videos almost always came back coded gender neutral, and many of Singh’s performances are gender neutral as well. The importance of acting outside of the binary of gendering identity as female or male through dress and actions was a surprising takeaway for this project. The second finding for this question is the development of an intersectionality of race, class, and sexuality, particularly as seen in videos from Hannah Hart and Singh. Hart posted one of the earliest coming out videos on YouTube when she came out as a lesbian in 2012, and when her show originally aired she avoided talking about sexuality for over WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 157
a year. In contrast, in June of this year, Hart uploaded videos exclusively under the theme of
pride. Singh discusses being one of the first women of color to be a youtuber, and makes a point
of collaborating with and talking about successes of other women of color on the platform.
Intersectionality remains an important theory and area of work in feminism, especially as
tools like the Internet make it easy for anyone’s voice to be heard. The current work of
intersectionality echoes the goal from the beginning: making space for all kinds of feminists,
who fit into many categories. As Nash (2008) offered several spaces where more work can be
done, Singh and Hannah Hart’s channels work to fill these spaces including pinpointing and
exploring areas where oppression and privilege meet and studying race and gender as social
processes that inform one another before diverging. These places for future research can be seen
not as efforts to further clarify the theory, but to advance it by leaning into the ambiguity it
allows for in its very definitions. The four women included in this video use their platforms to
further this goal, with Singh and Hannah Hart representing two specific threads of
intersectionality as it encompasses race, sexuality, and class.
As McCall (2005) pointed out, intersectionality began when "other" often meant the
opposite side of a binary coin: male/female, gay/straight, white/non-white. Singh and Hannah
Hart’s channels embody the sometimes-complicated performance of using a platform like
YouTube to contribute to conversations about normalcy in having multiple identities. As Singh navigates her identity as a Canadian-Indian woman of color and a bisexual, she makes sure to verbalize the difficulties and celebrations of performing in that body and identity (Singh, 2019f).
Hannah Hart took a few years to be comfortable exposing some of her identifiers – particularly as someone who came from a low-income family and as a lesbian (H. Hart, 2012c). Today, her channel celebrates her sexuality and works as an advocate for equal rights and normalizing of WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 158
safe spaces for members of the LBGTQ+ community (H. Hart, 2019b).
Research Question 4
What additional frames are added, such as satire or performed skill, to enhance or reclaim
actions typically implemented as a part of domestic life?
All four women used comedy as their frame for shaping the majority of the content on their channel. Hannah Hart and Mamrie Hart use puns as the majority of their comedy, Hannah in reference to the food she is cooking, and Mamrie with reference to the celebrity that is the topic of her video (H. Hart, 2019c; M. Hart, 2018b). Hannah’s puns serve to make her seem witty while she is perhaps dropping dough on the floor, while Mamrie’s provide a softer delivery for the burns she utters about her target of the day. Helbig and Singh use satire sketches to highlight the absurdity of some of the trends or social norms on YouTube and broader culture
(Helbig, 2013c; Singh, 2016a). These performances along with their clickbait titles contribute to the discourses surrounding these actions like picking up men or going out to the clubs, and provide an easy way for viewers to consider the validity of these norms.
Comedy is often used as a performance mechanism for discussing difficult topics while maintaining a casual air. These women might use comedy on their channels in order to present opposition to or negotiation with cultural norms in a manner that is easily consumable and not seen as threatening or hostile. For example, in a recent episode from Grace Helbig, she follows a makeup tutorial originally filmed by a five-year-old (Helbig, 2019h). Helbig makes comments throughout the video about how quickly the young girl moves through her tutorial, how surprised she is at some skills like applying mascara, and also talks back to the video as if she is having a conversation with the girl, reassuring her that she is doing a good job and looks pretty. Through these actions and banter, the video manages to address issues of early-age gendering and WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 159
expected skillset with cosmetics while maintaining a humorous atmosphere. Similar comedy
used in performances allows all four creators to discuss and oppose gendered expectations with a
light air. These performances present alternatives to hegemonic norms that allow audiences to
engage with them without it being a heavy or heated debate.
Content Containers
Content containers were used on every case study channel in this study. Content
containers are a creator’s way of organizing their performances into pieces that can be
anticipated by audiences to create a brand or organization that makes sense to viewers. Examples
of content containers include catchphrases for intros and outros of the videos, and templates or
recurring topics for episodes.
All of the creators in this study used intros and outros. Helbig’s intros shifted from
“What’s up f*ckers” to ““Hi my name is Grace Helbig if you did not know, now you know, your
life is different now,” and outros from “Byeeeeeeee” to “I don’t know” (Helbig, 2010; Helbig,
2017). These shifts were partially because of her transition of channels from DailyGrace to Grace
Helbig, and partially because of the aforementioned movement away from using explicit language. Singh also transitioned her intro from ““what up everyone, it’s your girl
Superwoman,” to “what up everyone it’s your girl Lilly,” which changed during her hiatus from the platform and an overall brand transition from Superwoman to Lilly Singh (Singh, 2018a).
Mamrie Hart and Hannah Hart’s intros and outros have remained the same throughout their runs on YouTube. Mamrie opens her videos with “Welcome to You Deserve a Drink, I’m Mamrie
Hart” and ends with the instructions to rewatch the video and drink everything she makes a
“terrible pun” (M. Hart, 2018b). Hannah opens with her opening whatever drink she is WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 160
consuming and saying “boop boop” (H. Hart, 2019c). These phrases do not necessarily represent
anything materially to the channel, but the help to frame the episode symbolically.
Hannah Hart and Mamrie Hart both use templates for each episode in their series.
Mamrie’s episodes begin with an introduction to the celebrity topic and corresponding cocktail for the day, followed by a list of the ingredients. Each episode then switches back and forth between instructions for making the drink and puns about the celebrity. Hannah’s episodes begin with an introduction to the recipe and any related topic or theme, and then follow her through making the recipe and drinking increasingly more. For Mamrie, this template has become flexible as the years have passed. She will sometimes play a themed game with a guest instead of making a cocktail. The template helps audiences know what type of content they will see, and have cues as to how much longer is left in the video. It is common on YouTube for channels to have a very formulaic way of moving through episodes and is what helps build an audience who knows what to expect from a channel.
For Helbig and Singh, certain topics recur on their channels such as favorites videos or impersonation of Singh’s parents, and these have templates as well. In favorites videos, Helbig will introduce each item and talk about why she likes it. Singh’s episodes with her parents often involve them “reacting” to something in popular culture. React videos and favorites videos are common topics for videos on YouTube, and Helbig and Singh’s contribution to these themes with their use of comedic frame contributes to broad discourses on YouTube about its industrialization of consumption.
Collaboration
Every channel in these case studies used collaboration to their advantage, in that three out of four of the channel’s most popular videos were a collaboration. Singh uses collaboration in a WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 161
yearly series, while Hannah Hart, Mamrie Hart, and Grace Helbig collaborate with each other
and Tyler Oakley on a regular basis (Singh, 2016a; Helbig, 2018f). As mentioned before,
collaborations help youtubers spread awareness about their channels to followers of the channels
where they guest star, but they also create a sense of community and support between youtubers.
Collaborations can also be a way to move outside of set templates for the channel while still
encouraging audiences to click on the video. In using a taste test or game show format, or even
using youtubers as the content theme for the collaboration, audiences are willing to bet on
watching the video even if the format is unfamiliar (M. Hart, 2015a; M. Hart, 2019e; Helbig,
2014b; Helbig, 2018f). The sharing of channel space with another youtuber results in a
performance of community rather than competition. For audiences, seeing youtubers interact as
friends or at least colleagues contributes a sense of community to the platform as well.
This act of collaboration, particularly among the women in this study and their collaboration with a male who identifies as homosexual can be seen as a feminist act of dismantling the male gaze. As these women participate in youtube videos where they discuss a variety of content from popular culture to LGBTQ+ pride, they certainly pass the Bechdel test, which has recently been used in expanded ways outside of film to evaluate whether women have agency on social platforms (Selisker, 2015). Similarly to the reframing of women’s work as the main narrative can be seen as feminist, collaboration with other youtubers of traditionally marginalized identities can be seen as an active support of and collectivizing of feminist action and embodiment on their channel.
Limitations
Limitations of the study include the interpretive nature of the analysis itself. The scope and timeline of this study did not allow for interviews with the case studies themselves, which WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 162
would provide an additional entrance into the identity performance work that is done, as well as
an opportunity for the interpretations of visual analysis made by the researcher to be discussed.
Throughout the process of this study, there were changes to the content of the case study
channels and the YouTube platform. Research on emerging and current modes of expression is
difficult because it is a moving target and writing done one day can be inaccurate the next.
Helbig and Singh announced their breaks from their channels just after the topic for this study
was approved, and therefore brought the topic of youtuber burnout to the forefront of discussions
about the expression of these women and the creator ecology. Particularly the ever changing and somewhat mysterious nature of the YouTube algorithm made that important piece of this study an impossibility of analysis, although it is hoped that it can be studied in terms of its critical discourse in the future.
Some of the case studies in this project were chosen because of the researcher’s previous familiarity with them and the therefore increased level of understanding and knowledge of their body of work as a baseline in informing the project. However, the comedic and mostly apolitical performances that informed the project result in a somewhat optimistic view of creator intentions. As YouTube continues to grow in prominence, some creators are using the site for more nefarious reasons, whether to incite rage, political distrust, or harm to others. This aspect of creator identity, performance, and intention is not present in this project and certainly requires examination in future research.
With regard to an identification of intersectionality of race, the project was limited in its inclusion of only one woman of color. Singh was chosen as a case study not because of her specific identity as a woman of color but because of her identity as an exceptionally successful woman on YouTube. Her reputation as a powerful female youtuber and often the only woman WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 163 included on lists of highest income generating youtubers or youtubers with the most recognition or subscribers was the determining factor of her inclusion in the project. It is important that
Singh be included but not used as a token or cohesive representation of women of color on youtuber, although woman of color is certainly part of her identity. Further research should certainly be done to examine performances of women of many racial, ethnic, and religious identities, and some research is already done in this area (Limkangvanmongkol & Abidin, 2018;
Ayers, 2019).
Future Directions
Future directions of this project could include other pieces of the YouTube ecology. Two key components not included in this project are interactions with the YouTube audience and social media platforms. Direct audience interaction on YouTube includes video views, subscriptions, comments, and like and dislike votes on the videos. Social media platforms play an important role in the YouTube ecology because a lot of the outside source traffic originates there. Discussions about and shares of new videos come from creators, subscribers, and collaborators. Creators will source questions or topics from their followers on Twitter or
Instagram, and the nature of engagement on the social platforms allow for creators to engage with their audiences more efficiently and in real time than the comment section on YouTube videos.
Including these additional aspects of the broader YouTube ecology will also allow for an expansion of the analysis of the platform and the ways that it amplifies, obsolesces, retrieves, and reverses aspects of society. When applied to the broader platform, YouTube’s effects on society through our prolific use of it extend to aspects of knowledge acquisition, understanding of geography, and an even more underlined effect of the algorithm. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 164
As individuals, and women, in particular, navigate the Internet in order to find a place,
empowerment, and community, struggles remain and are reproduced from offline spaces into
online media. Sexuality, feminism, profession, and identity creation are all concepts that are
found in both spaces, but solutions are not applicable to both arenas, especially as virtual spaces
allow for a distillation of characteristics, both physical and emotional. Mamrie Hart and Hannah
Hart use their kitchens to discuss the world around them. Whether it’s Mamrie’s quips about
popular culture figures or Hannah’s puns about the difficulty of rising a soufflé, these women
open their homes to the YouTube audience. Neither woman, though, focuses their content on the
action in the kitchen, but rather on their friendships and the world outside of YouTube.
Even through changes on their YouTube channels and types of content, and nearly ten
years on the platform, Helbig and Singh’s main identities remain essentially the same. Helbig has
become increasingly more honest with her audience, announcing changes to the channel or types
of format but also providing insight into the state of her mental and creative well-being. She uses topics and style of comedy to combine stereotypical female-led YouTube content with satire to create a persona that does not take her job too seriously or personally, and to question the industry created on YouTube for female youtubers to sell beauty products. Singh’s intersectional identity as a bisexual woman of color is treated with seriousness rather than reproduction of media tropes for comedic value. In her vlogs, Singh promotes a representational identity that is true rather than for entertainment.
This study’s foremost approach to apply a feminist critical perspective and media ecology to YouTube and the female performers on the platform is shaped by previous work done on gender and YouTube ecologies surrounding social justice movements. Its conclusions about the ecology of YouTube for the creators who contribute content, as well as findings about identity WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 165 work done on an intersectional level by the women who create for YouTube allow for continuing research on other identifying groups on the platform, analysis of audience reception to these performances, response from the creators themselves, and discussions of other platform ecologies and the agency they provide to content contributors. WOMEN ON YOUTUBE 166
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