By Alesha Granshaw
Image from: http://picslist.com/tags/ashton%20irwin%20au%20meme
This concept of ‘everyday autobiography’ is particularly relevant to the YouTube phenomenon of “daily vlogging”. This increasingly popular style of content creation adopted by YouTube users involves filming, editing and uploading a video each day which enables viewers to gain an insight into the lives of their favourite YouTube stars. Popular YouTube vloggers like Alfie Deyes, Marcus Butler and the SacconeJoly family voluntarily construct a daily autobiography via video diary, and they upload it for the entire world to view and comment on. This YouTube trend “asks users to imagine how they want themselves to appear and then invites friends to reinforce the image” (Van Luyn, 2015). Vloggers are able to edit the footage of their lives in a way that reflects the way they wish to portray themselves to the public, omitting any unsavoury footage that could potentially create a negative view of them. In this way, daily vloggers are able to create a virtual self that does not align exactly with their real self.
Whilst YouTube users who daily vlog are attempting to construct an authentic identity for them online, they are also engaging in a virtual network where other users and the social media platform itself are responsible for shaping their virtual identity. Due to this external influence in constructing an online identity, popular YouTube content creators are often viewed harshly and gossiped about based on rumours and trolling that occurs in the comment section of their videos.
An example of this is the recent drama involving Velvetgh0st. Over the last twelve months, YouTube user Velvetgh0st, more commonly referred to as Gabby Lindley, has been the subject of many nasty rumours, all of which were false. This fabricated drama had drastic effects on Gabby’s personal life, friendships and mental health – in essence, the distortion of her “virtual” self had consequential effects on her “real” self as well. Gabby recently posted this YouTube video in an attempt to reconcile her real and virtual selves, and create an honest portrayal of herself online.
References:
McNeill, L. (2012). There Is No "I" In Network: Social Networking Sites and Posthuman Auto/Biography. Project Muse, 35(1), 65-82. Retrieved from http://www.learnjcu.edu.au
Van Luyn, A. (2015). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, Narratives and the Making of Place, Lecture 6: Networked Narratives: Intertextuality. [Powerpoint Slides]. Retrieved on September 2, 2015 from http://www.learnjcu.edu.au
Image Credits:
PicsList. (Image). (2015). Retrieved from http://picslist.com/tags/ashton%20irwin%20au%20meme
I agree with you with that vlogging enables viewers to gain an insight into the lives of their favorite YouTube stars as they display their homes, and their "true" selves as they can pick and choose who to display in their vlogs or what content they will show to their viewers. Even though it might not be true to how they actually are, they can insert and delete things where necessary to keep a certain image that they are trying to present to their fanbase. McNeill states that
ReplyDelete"the digital era complicating definitions of the self and its boundaries, both dismantling and sustaining the humanist subject in practices of personal narrative" (McNeill, 2012). as it allows one to recreate their whole personality and life with a few easy clicks so it is really hard to actually distinguish if a user's identity is their true identity or not. In the sense of other social media like Tumblr, a user can say whatever to create how they are seen, though other users are able to reply, and send messages to try and make other users see or feel this person in a different way.
Reference List
McNeill, L. (2012). There Is No "I" In Network: Social Networking Sites and the Posthuman Auto/Biography. Project Muse, 35(1), 65-82. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au