Feminist Media Studies ISSN: 1468-0777 (Print) 1471-5902 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rfms20 Performing Gender on YouTube Lindsey Wotanis & Laurie McMillan To cite this article: Lindsey Wotanis & Laurie McMillan (2014) Performing Gender on YouTube, Feminist Media Studies, 14:6, 912-928, DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2014.882373 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2014.882373 Published online: 19 Feb 2014. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 1882 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rfms20 Download by: [University of Delaware] Date: 08 May 2016, At: 11:38 Feminist Media Studies, 2014 Vol. 14, No. 6, 912–928, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2014.882373 PERFORMING GENDER ON YOUTUBE How Jenna Marbles negotiates a hostile online environment Lindsey Wotanis and Laurie McMillan The contemporary online environment is often touted as a democratic space, open to perspectives that might regularly be excluded from professionally-controlled media platforms. However, females are underrepresented on YouTube, a popular video-sharing internet social media platform. This underrepresentation of women suggests that gender matters on YouTube. In order to contribute to research on gender dynamics on YouTube, this study focuses on the most-subscribed female YouTuber, Jenna Mourey. The first part investigates the degree to which Mourey’s YouTube reception could be understood as misogynistic and hostile. To this end, comments on Mourey’s top-ten videos were compared to viewer comments on the top-ten videos of a male counterpart: Ryan Higa. The second part of the study focuses on the content and style of Mourey’s video oeuvre in order to contribute to research on YouTubers who successfully negotiate a hostile environment. Mourey’s tendency to perform gender extremes—both masculine and feminine roles—is an ongoing feature of her videos, allowing her to simultaneously critique and benefit from traditional gender roles. This two-part study of gender on YouTube thus both supports research describing harsh responses to women on video-sharing sites and offers one YouTube performer’s strategy for achieving success in this environment. KEYWORDS YouTube; Jenna Marbles; Ryan Higa; gender performance; Jenna Mourey Downloaded by [University of Delaware] at 11:38 08 May 2016 Introduction In February 2012, only nine of the fifty most-subscribed YouTube channels featured female performers, and only one of these female-led channels was ranked in the top ten. This underrepresentation of women suggests that gender matters on YouTube, but how gender matters is not clear. While some studies point to males spending more time on video-sharing sites such as YouTube (Mary Madden 2009; Heather Molyneaux, Susan O’Donnell, Kerri Gibson, and Janice Singer 2008, 4), other statistics find the opposite (Brian Chappell 2012), and still other research suggests that males and females are equally represented in terms of viewership (Kathleen Moore 2011) and content creation (Lee Rainie, Joanna Brenner, and Kristen Purcell 2012). No matter which picture is most accurate, none accounts for the paucity of female YouTubers ranked in the top fifty most-subscribed channels. A possible answer for the gender imbalance may be found in qualitative research and anecdotal reports on YouTube suggesting that although video-sharing environments q 2014 Taylor & Francis PERFORMING GENDER ON YOUTUBE 913 potentially can create “a participatory model of culture” that includes “multiple voices and an expanded flow of information” (Douglas Kellner and Gooyong Kim 2009, 2–3), such an ideal is rarely achieved. Indeed, rather than operating democratically in ways that offer males and females similar opportunities, YouTube videos may be subject to “surveillance, judgment, and evaluation—practices signaling consumer agency but simultaneously disciplining and constituting subjects” (Sarah Banet-Weiser 2011, 288). The literature suggests that much of this disciplining is sexist and gendered, affecting female participants to a greater extent than male participants (Azy Barak 2005; Jodi Biber, Dennis Doverspike, Daniel Baznik, Alana Cober, and Barbara A. Ritter 2002; Susan Herring, Kirk Job-Sluder, Rebecca Scheckler, and Sasha Barab 2002; Clancy Ratliff 2007). Still, despite observations of problematic interactions, scholars also regularly focus on users who participate in YouTube as a way of being heard and building community (Patricia G. Lange 2007b, 2007c; Roger Saul 2010). As a whole, then, the literature points to YouTube as a site that can potentially both reinscribe and challenge gender inequities. In order to contribute to research on gender dynamics on YouTube, this study focuses on the most-subscribed female YouTuber, Jenna Mourey (whose YouTube channel is titled JennaMarbles). The study was conducted in two parts. The first part investigated the degree to which Mourey’s YouTube reception could be understood as misogynistic and hostile. Comments posted to videos served as a primary measurement of community reaction to the content and performer. To target the effects of performer gender on reception, comments on Mourey’s top-ten videos in February 2012 were compared to viewer comments on the top-ten videos of a male counterpart: Ryan Higa (whose YouTube channel is titled Nigahiga). Mourey and Higa are close in age (twenty-six and twenty-two years old, respectively), have similar comedic styles, and seem to target similar teen and young adult audiences. The categorization and analysis of comments on these two channels—one featuring a female and the other featuring a male performer—ultimately offered quantitative evidence that supports earlier findings of hostility toward women on YouTube. Evidence of misogyny directed toward Mourey, the most successful female YouTube performer, suggests the seriousness of hostility toward women on video-sharing sites and provides a framework for the next part of this analysis. The second part of the study thus focused on the content and style of Mourey’s video oeuvre in order to contribute to research on YouTubers who successfully negotiate a hostile environment. While Mourey’s popularity is certainly not based on one factor, her tendency to perform gender extremes—both masculine and feminine roles—is an ongoing feature of Downloaded by [University of Delaware] at 11:38 08 May 2016 her videos. Gender performances and parody in Mourey’s videos operate at both implicit and explicit levels, allowing her to simultaneously critique and benefit from traditional gender roles. This two-part study of gender on YouTube thus both supports research describing harsh responses to women on video-sharing sites and offers one YouTube performer’s strategy for achieving success in this environment. Review of the Literature YouTube as Hostile Space Video-sharing takes place across the internet, and commercial sites such as Vimeo, NetFlix, and Hulu are on the rise. YouTube is a prime medium to study because it is currently the most active video-sharing site and because users not only view but also create 914 LINDSEY WOTANIS AND LAURIE MCMILLAN and comment on video content. YouTube has grown exponentially since its launch in the spring of 2005, with more than eight hundred million unique users visiting the site each month (Statistics). Paul Haridakis and Gary Hanson (2009) found that YouTube is a uniquely social medium (330), so it is not surprising that YouTube has created “Community Guidelines” by which users are expected to abide. The guidelines defend free speech while addressing a range of problematic behaviors not permitted, including violence, abuse, hate speech, harassment, and sexually explicit content (YouTube Community Guidelines). Users can report instances of community guideline violations by flagging videos, which are then reviewed. When videos violate community guidelines, YouTube will remove them; repeat offenders are supposedly banned from the site. However, YouTube does not explicitly address violations of community guidelines that occur in comments responding to videos. All users can flag comments as spam, but other community violations fall to individual channel owners to address. When posting a video, YouTubers may disable or screen comments; they can also delete comments posted to their videos. Still, even though many YouTube performers say they have been “emotionally hurt” by comments exhibiting “hating behavior,” these same performers often choose not to moderate comments at all because more viewer interaction on a site is likely to increase popularity (Patricia G. Lange 2007a, 25). The result is that the site claims to have no tolerance for “hate speech” and other abusive behaviors, but many users still make comments that even to an untrained eye are violations of YouTube policies. YouTube thus has a reputation as a site full of “abusive comments,” a situation which is “exacerbated by anonymity (so that there are few disincentives to behave badly) and scale (so that it becomes difficult to keep up with policing and moderating comments)” (Jean Burgess and Joshua Green 2009, 96). Comments may be used as a tool to value some YouTube performers and condemn others. With such a self-governing system, it may be no surprise that, on YouTube, the most popular videos and channels represent “far less racial diversity than broadcast network television” (John McMurria 2006). While some “minority content ... circulates on YouTube” and may reach a niche audience, “there’s little or no chance that such content will reach a larger viewership” (Henry Jenkins 2009, 124). YouTube performers may be targeted not only on the basis of race and other social markers but also in terms of gender. Awareness of women being harassed on vlogs has prompted the question, “Is this new technology producing new social relations—or a rerun of old-style social relations with which we are all too familiar?” (Toby Miller 2009, 427). As Herring et al. (2002), Molyneaux et al. (2008), and Ratliff (2007) show, gender often plays Downloaded by [University of Delaware] at 11:38 08 May 2016 a role in social dynamics on YouTube.