Making up Art, Videos and Fame: The Creation of Social Order in the Informal Realm of YouTube Beauty Gurus (original) (raw)

THE FAME OF VLOGGERS Value Production and Spatiotemporal Expansion Among YouTube Beauty Gurus

In this chapter I compare the exchange of ceremonial shells in the contexts of the Kula ring in the Massim archipelago and of a special type of video called Tags inside the beauty community of YouTube. I analyse general correspondences of how value is created and transformed as these objects are produced and shared among participants. I argue that Tag videos share a particular similarity with Kula valuables: both have ceremonial rather than practical use. In order to support this analysis, I drew on Munn (1986) and on Graeber’s (2001) discussion of Munn’s theory of value to present key notions such as action, intersubjective spacetime and value transformation. I suggest that Munn’s model can be successfully applied to explain the motivation YouTube beauty gurus have for spending time and resources creating videos that do not display their knowledge about makeup. I also point out the particular correspondence between Munn’s Gawa and the YouTube beauty community regarding how action based on ritual exchange results in the formation of intersubjective relationships.

"Being an online celebrity - Norms and expectations of YouTube’s beauty community"

First Monday, 2017

This article is based on 22 months of online fieldwork examining YouTube’s beauty community, specifically the beauty guru Bubz, her uploaded content, and user comments. We aim to conceptualize central community-specific dynamics and practices, particularly those related to self-presentation and identity-management and their affordances for legitimized online popularity. We explain how the guru’s successful online persona is based on a performative blend of relatable, down-to-earth values paired with a more aspirational and worthy of emulation side. Being an “ordinary-user-turned-famous” is seemingly an advantage given the high relevance of authenticity when judging online celebrities. However, her inherent ordinariness also increases expectations of trustworthiness and honesty, precisely because she is, and continuous to perform daily, a regular user.

Between Professionalism and Amateurship: Makeup Discourse on YouTube

Over the last few years, brands have become increasingly aware of the marketing potential of social media and have been exploiting them as a component of their marketing effort. A strategy adopted in various industries is to co-opt social media celebrities and either employ or pay them to promote products, often without explicitly declaring it. This is common in the makeup industry, where a number of social media users are so popular that they have become (corporate) 'makeup gurus'. Their alleged amateur status is key to their success: by appearing economically disinterested they seem more trustworthy than corporations, thus being able to attract a wide follower base. On the other hand, makeup gurus have to depict themselves as valuable experts in order to appear credible both to the companies that supposedly hire them and to their fans. This study sets out to investigate the linguistic representation of makeup gurus' identity in texts collected from their YouTube channe...

The Digital Media Phenomenon of YouTube Beauty Gurus: The Case of Bubzbeauty

International Journal of Web Based Communities, 2016

This paper, based on broader digital ethnographic research performed on YouTube, aims at framing issues of online popularity development through the examination of videos and user comments. To explore the phenomenon of beauty gurus, I analyse a purposeful sample of 80 videos from the channel Bubzbeauty and introduce an emerged typology of two video categories: tutorials and vlogs. Findings suggest that the strengthening of the guru’s role as a popular online personality is the result of two spheres of influence. The commercial side consists of YouTube as a business platform and is best represented by her tutorials. The community sphere, sustained by the power of affective ties with her audience, is represented by her vlogs. I argue that her market value as a renowned guru is built through her know-how expressed in straight-forward tutorials. Conversely, her social value as an interesting, trustworthy personality is fostered by intimate vlogs.

Evaluation and Self-Evaluation on YouTube: Designing the Self in Make-Up Tutorials, in: Cecilia Suhr (Ed.): Online Evaluation of Creativity and the Arts, London/New York: Routledge 2014, pp. 95-111.

In the networked digital communication spaces, interactive media channels carrying heterogeneous production of meaning have emerged. These channels are accompanied by collective and collaborative media practices which include all aspects of production, distribution, use and evaluation of narrated content. In peer-to-peer-networks a 360-degree feedback (also known as multi source feedback) affects the combination of procedural communication and conceptional learning that is required for modern technology-assisted learning. Many areas of daily life and popular culture are accompanied by a variety of evaluation practices, which are not just another management tool – they are also new forms of self- and external commutation that have emerged. Before this background this essay will examine the reasons of the evaluation practices and the selfadjusted learning processes that emerged with the growth of the make-up tutorials on YouTube that are based on mutual and permanent evaluation, which comprise the entire social and cultural space and often adopt forms of business practices.