MAKING CULTURE ON YOUTUBE: CASE STUDIES OF CULTURAL PRODUCTION ON THE POPULAR WEB PLATFORM by MARK C. LASHLEY (Under the Direction of Anandam Kavoori) ABSTRACT This dissertation discusses three popular YouTube video bloggers (vloggers), Mr. Chi- City, Shaycarl, and iJustine, and their relationship to the site as a vehicle for cultural production. It employs a framework for studying cultural production on YouTube that focuses on its key components: authorship, performance, and narrative. It discusses the significance of the interaction between the YouTube space (conceptualized as a platform) and its users, both of which are imbued with their own agency to negotiate the dynamics of the space. The dissertation contends that vloggers, using the tools made available by the platform as a site of cultural possibility, produce work that is sophisticated and variable, all while being constantly engaged with feedback solicited from and offered by other users. It uses the language of participatory culture and produsage to draw out this relationship and suggests ways in which the elements of cultural practice on the platform play themselves out on the increasingly influential space. INDEX WORDS: YouTube, cultural production, narrative, authorship, performance, platform studies MAKING CULTURE ON YOUTUBE: CASE STUDIES OF CULTURAL PRODUCTION ON THE POPULAR WEB PLATFORM by MARK C. LASHLEY B.A., The University of Scranton, 2002 M.A., The University of Georgia, 2009 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2013 2013 Mark C. Lashley All Rights Reserved MAKING CULTURE ON YOUTUBE: CASE STUDIES OF CULTURAL PRODUCTION ON THE POPULAR WEB PLATFORM by MARK C. LASHLEY Major Professor: Anandam Kavoori Committee: Nathaniel Kohn Horace Newcomb Casey O’Donnell Elizabeth St. Pierre Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2013 DEDICATION For Laura, my greatest cheerleader. For my family. I am proud to make you proud. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project does not exist without the steady guidance of Andy Kavoori, who knows better than anyone when to offer me ideas and when to let the ideas find me. He has helped to shape my understanding of how theory is made, where it comes from, and how we can use it. Horace Newcomb deserves special thanks as a leader, advisor, and mentor. He founded a field and shows his students every day how to make it grow. I thank committee members Bettie St. Pierre, Casey O’Donnell, and Nate Kohn for their help with this project in method, concept, and theory (and all of the interactions between the three). I owe my productive grad school experience also to countless members of the Grady College community. Carolina Acosta-Alzuru and Jay Hamilton gave me my first introductions to cultural studies and critical work. Dean Krugman taught me the building blocks of theory. Debbie Sickles solved every one of my graduate student problems. Jennifer Smith gave me my first teaching experience, and advised me throughout. Four classes of undergraduate students taught me the practicalities and deep rewards of being an educator. Though I never met any of them, John Drewry, Lambdin Kay and George Foster Peabody gave me the greatest graduate assistantship in the world. And my cohort, my colleagues, and my friends were always available to support me, and each other. Thank you all. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................ v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: YOUTUBE AS A PLATFORM .................................................. 1 The Platform Study .................................................................................................. 4 YouTube as Smooth Space? ..................................................................................... 8 The “Produser” and the Nomad .............................................................................. 10 Appropriation, Resistance and Accommodation .................................................... 13 Reading YouTube as a Platform ............................................................................ 16 Implications for This Project .................................................................................. 21 2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE: THE YOUTUBE USER AS CULTURAL PRODUCER ............................................................................................................... 23 YouTube: Fundamental Literature and Why It Matters ......................................... 24 Produsage and Convergence (Participatory Culture) ............................................. 31 The Celebrity Drive and the “Demotic Turn” ........................................................ 34 Online Culture ........................................................................................................ 37 Cultural Creation and Technological “Work” ........................................................ 38 The Industrial Impact ............................................................................................. 40 Vlogs and Vloggers ................................................................................................ 41 3 METHOD: POSTSTRUCTURALIST TEXTUAL ANALYSIS ............................... 43 vi The Work of Textual Analysis ............................................................................... 44 Truth and Vision ..................................................................................................... 47 Choosing and Handling Objects of Analysis ......................................................... 48 Conclusion (Plan for Textual Analysis) ................................................................. 51 4 SHAYCARL AND THE VLOGGER AS AUTHOR OF A CULTURAL PRODUCT .................................................................................................................. 53 What is an Author (Today)? ................................................................................... 54 About Shaycarl and “The Shaytards” ..................................................................... 58 Shaycarl’s Videos ................................................................................................... 60 Shaycarl the Author ................................................................................................ 69 5 MR. CHI-CITY AND SELF-PRESENTATION AS A FORM OF CULTURAL PRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 74 Ritual, Identity and the Presentation of Self ........................................................... 74 About Mr. Chi-City ................................................................................................ 77 Mr. Chi-City’s Videos ............................................................................................ 79 Mr. Chi-City, Performance and Self-Presentation ................................................. 90 6 iJUSTINE AND YOUTUBE AS A STORYTELLING PLATFORM ....................... 94 Narrative on YouTube ............................................................................................ 94 About iJustine ......................................................................................................... 96 iJustine’s Videos ..................................................................................................... 98 The Narrative of iJustine ...................................................................................... 110 7 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS ................................................................ 114 They Many Shades of Vlogging ........................................................................... 116 vii Authorship, Performance, and Narrative .............................................................. 118 Produsage and Nomadology ................................................................................. 124 Space-User Interaction ......................................................................................... 129 Limitations and Future Study ............................................................................... 132 Implications .......................................................................................................... 133 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 136 viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: YOUTUBE AS A PLATFORM In less than a decade of existence, YouTube, the video sharing web service currently owned by Google, Inc., has proven itself as a major force in global culture. Its massive reach and its business practices have come under scrutiny not only due to the prevalence of things like intellectual property breaches on the site (e.g., Breen, 2007), but also, and perhaps more notably, because of its novel place in the industrial and economic complex of moving image media, long dominated by television and film, which were until recently the only games in town (e.g., Marshall, 2009). A catch-all location for all manner of user produced video content, and, increasingly, a space for record labels, television networks, and motion picture studios to publicly house portions of their own archives, YouTube has developed into a monolithic media empire. The kinds of content offered on the service, nearly all of which