Identity and Representation on the Neoliberal Platform of YouTube

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Identity and

Representation on the

Neoliberal Platform of

YouTube

Andra Teodora Pacuraru Student Number: 11693436

30/08/2018 Supervisor: Alberto Cossu Second Reader: Bernhard Rieder MA New Media and Digital Culture

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Introduction

YouTube is a great example of neoliberalism with each person responsible for their own capital, and introducing the notion of personal branding. This all leads to each individual’s own identity, which they build for themselves and heavily depend on. This plays a crucial role in their quest towards becoming micro celebrities. Advertising and monetization eventually became the heart of YouTube’s capital, all of which are highly dependent on the aforementioned. The goal of this paper is to show how all of these factors come into play, by analysing three cases of YouTube celebrities who all have minority identities of different sorts; how they have applied themselves, how it was received, what kind of social impact they aim to make and why YouTube is their chosen platform. Through all of this, we can begin to answer the question of, can people with underrepresented identities stand out and showcase their unique voices in the neoliberal world of YouTube?

The first chapter of this research paper will consist of the theoretical framework. It will discuss relevant aspects of neoliberalism, such as homo economicus and human capital, the emergence of personal branding and micro-celebrities, as well as the concept of identity and how that is constructed, and how the emergence of the Internet and mass self-communication have made an impact on how people construct their identities. The chapter will also introduce YouTube, from its inception to how it has changed in order to best monetize its content, the way it positions itself as a platform, and how it can affect its users’ visibility and marketability. Lastly, it will take a general look at how YouTube micro-celebrities can turn their presence on the website into a money maker.

The second chapter analyses the three chosen case studies: Lilly Singh, Hannah Witton and Alex Bertie. This will be done through a mix of data analysis of various aspects of their YouTube channels (such as monthly subscribers gained, monthly views, total subscribers and views growth) from the website Social Blade and content analysis of their channels which tracks the evolution of the users in terms of video quality, topics and so on. Other relevant topics included in this analysis are the users’ collaborations, their sponsorships and endeavours outside of YouTube.

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The third chapter will focus on discussion, tying together theoretical aspects introduced in the first chapter with findings from the case studies’ analysis. It looks at the way the chosen users construct their identities and use them for different reasons, from building their brand to simply building a community, and what effect their visibility potentially has.

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Chapter 1: Theoretical Framework

Neoliberalism & Personal Branding

For Foucault, the difference between classical liberalism and neoliberalism is based on how each mode of governmentality focuses on economic activity. In classical liberalism, that is based on exchange: in the marketplace, that means an exchange of goods and services for money or other goods, but also socially and for the state, an exchange of some freedoms for rights and liberties. Neoliberalism, however, changes the focus of economic activity from that of exchange to that of competition. This change is important: exchange was considered natural, while competition is seen by neo-liberals as an artificial relation which requires the constant intervention from the state on the conditions of the market (Read 28).

Both types of liberalism have the notion of homo economicus, which is “the way in which they place a particular “anthropology” of man as an economic subject at the basis of politics” (Read 28), but once again, this changes from exchange to competition. In classical liberalism, homo economicus is “the man of exchange, one of the two partners in the process of exchange” (Foucault 225). In neoliberalism, homo economicus is an entrepreneur of himself, who is his own capital, producer, and source of his own income (Foucault 226).

In neoliberalism, every person has their own human capital, which includes innate elements and acquired elements. Innate elements are biological and hereditary, such as race, class, or hereditary medical conditions. There is nothing anyone can do to change some of these elements, and they can be viewed as advantages or disadvantages from the perspective of employers. From this point of view, people coming from minorities or from a lower class background may have an automatic disadvantage in many situations where they are looking for employment or other opportunities. Some of these innate elements can also affect acquired elements such as someone’s education, training, and other additions to their knowledge. While human capital analysts assume that a person decides on these things by weighing the pros and cons of them for their future, some people may not even have the means to reach their full potential in these areas because of other circumstances.

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Human capital also includes the individual’s body of work, their habits, even harmful ones like smoking and other addictions. Some of these aspects can be changed if someone chooses to actively invest in their human capital by giving up something harmful or changing their lifestyle (Becker, Foucault). “The theory of human capital investment relates inequality in earnings to differences in talents, family background, and bequests and other assets” (Becker 12). Van Doorn sees human capital as “a machine that advances a rationality in which a plethora of different qualities, capacities, attributes, and values are integrated into one common measure – or a set of interrelated measures – thus rendering them comparable and measurable in terms of their market value” (360).

In this view of the world, the worker becomes human capital and their salary is a revenue earned in the worker’s investment in their skills and abilities. Activities that increase their human capital and their potential revenue are also investments in oneself. Neoliberalism operates on “interests, desires and aspirations rather than through rights and obligations” (Read 29). One way in which labour has changed under this world of competition is the trend of moving away from long term contracts, towards temporary, part-time or freelance labour. This strategy can be seen as more beneficial to companies, who do not have to commit to long-term contracts and expensive health care plans for their employees. By making workers consider themselves as their own companies or entrepreneurs, this way of thinking also makes it less likely for them to come together and organise themselves as a group against their employer, because they are all in competition with each other (Read 28; van Doorn 359). Read sees neoliberalism as a “restoration not only of class power, of capitalism as the only possible economic system” but also as a “restoration of capitalism as synonymous with rationality.” (Read 32).

Increasing one’s human capital can become more important than the actual profit of one’s current human capital, as it can open up more opportunities in the future. The purpose of the worker in this environment becomes increasing the value of their human capital, or at least preventing the depreciation of it, more than it is making money in the moment (Feher, in van Doorn 358). The tricky part is that the valuation of human capital in neoliberal conditions is speculation and is dependent on the judgments of others (van Doorn 358).

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Rankings and ratings, particularly online, have also changed the way people present themselves, even in a more personal setting. Everything becomes public performance on the Internet. This has led to the appearance of the reputation economy online, where the entrepreneur has to be careful with how they manage their reputation in order to increase their human capital, it is an important asset that can become profitable under the right circumstances (van Doorn 362).

The concept of personal branding was first introduced by Tom Peters in a 1997 article titled ‘The Brand Called You’. In it, he said “We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketers for the brand called You” (Peters). Under this logic, anyone, no matter what they do, is capable of being their own brand and their own manager. Just like a company, a person needs to have a selling point, which in this case would be something unique about their personality. According to Arruda (in Chen), the personal branding process needs to follow three steps: extract, express, and exude. First, the person in question has to identify a unique attribute, or attributes, within themselves, that can hold value. Second, they need to create a “person brand statement” around this attribute. Lastly, they need to create a strategy in order to make this brand visible to other people (Chen, Exploring Personal Branding on YouTube 334). It can be seen how personal, or self-branding, ties into the neoliberal concepts of homo economicus and human capital, where a person has to be its own entrepreneur

The concept of personal branding has grown in recent times thanks to the rising presence and importance of social media, with platforms such as Twitter, Instagram or YouTube offering everyone the potential to reach a very large audience. YouTube is an important space in this conversation, where people can post all kinds of videos that would reflect their personality, their uniqueness, and their self-expression in a public space that can attract attention. They can directly target a certain type of audience that can identify with them or be interested in what they have to say. They can continue to promote themselves and thanks to the metrics available on social media, such as subscribers, followers, views and ratings, they can present themselves as commercially viable for advertisers, sponsors, etc. Social media also offers a direct line of communication between the person, or the brand, and their audience or consumer, through which they can receive feedback and insight into what

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they are doing right and what they might be doing wrong, how they can improve, what the audience may want to see.

Gandini calls self-branding a “form of digital work”, where the worker invests in social relationships and expects a return in the form of a reputation (124). He equates self-branding with social capital, which can be used by the worker to make themselves appear more attractive to employers, or in the case of social media celebrities, advertisers, as well as using any relevant contacts acquired through this work in order to continue raising their capital or reputation. Thanks to social media, reputation can now be put into tangible indicators such as numbers and rankings, making it a very important aspect of people’s profiles.

Khamis et al argue that there are three reasons for the rise of personal branding: the promise of fame to ordinary people who aspire to become micro-celebrities, if not more; the potential for a reward for them doing this, thanks to neoliberal individualism; and witnessing the commercial success of other micro-celebrities and social media influencers (194).

Page (in Khamis et al) believes that there is “particular emphasis on the construction of identity as a product to be consumed by others, and on interaction which treats the audience as an aggregated fan base to be developed and maintained in order to achieve social or economic benefit” (196). The people looking for some sort of success through social media, be it becoming micro-celebrities or building up their profile to have a higher chance of finding employment, use (or attempt to use) this tactic strategically; their public persona is highly curated and it represents only a small part of their actual life.

Turner identifies what he calls the ‘demotic turn’ as a change in media, where there is a growing visibility of ordinary people. This idea applies to social media, where people do not need to be part of an existing narrative structure, but they can create their own brand which can be whatever they want it to be. In this way, social media is a very different way for ordinary people to reach celebrity status or visibility from reality television, which before social media was one of the rare ways for people who were not working as entertainers to be seen by an audience. Another difference between the two is that by using social media, people do not need to have an affiliation with anyone in the industry (like a reality television contestant would, with the reality show or network they appeared on), and while they are

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hoping to reach that point through their work, their initial goal is to get the attention of an audience (Khamis et al 197).

Mass Self-Communication & Identity

In Communication, Power and Counter-Power in the Network Society, Castells discusses concepts of politics, power, counter-power and a new system of self mass-communication. He says that the way the majority of the people in a society thinks determines that society’s set of values and norms. These are reflected in that society’s politics, which uses the mass media system available to influence the minds of its citizens. “What does not exist in the media does not exist in the public mind” (241), which means that it is important to have visibility, especially for groups of people or growing social movements who are marginalized in one way or another and need to be seen in order to be understood by the majority. Castells defines power as “the structural capacity of a social actor to impose its will over other social actors” (239) and counter-power as “the capacity by social actors to challenge and eventually change the power relations institutionalized in society” (239). The media system in each society is where power is decided. Due to the diffusion of the Internet and the growth of access to tools equipped with mobile communication and digital media devices, a very high percentage of the world’s population has access to the Internet and mobile communications, and these people can now connect with each other on a global scale as well as a local one. Castells calls this mass self-communication. This helps the growth of social movements around the world, as well as minorities of different types finding a community online if they cannot find one locally.

Similarly, the emergence of the Internet, combined with globalization, has caused a shift in the public sphere, creating a global one in addition to a local one. In The New Public

Sphere, Castells defines the public sphere as “the space of communication of ideas and

projects that emerge from society and are addressed to the decision makers in the institutions of society” (78). Just as previously mentioned in the case of politics, the media is also the biggest part of the public sphere as the society in question organizes its public sphere thanks to media communication networks. The digital era has only made this easier. The Internet can

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help organize societies or groups of people, but it is also a space for debate and constructive dialogue on a bigger level than what was possible before, which can affect public opinion in both good and bad ways.

Identity, as defined by Castells in The Power of Identity, is “the process of construction of meaning on the basis of a cultural attribute, or a related set of cultural attributes, that is given priority over other sources of meaning” (6), but they only become identities when the person in question internalizes them and constructs meaning around that. A person can also have a plurality of identities. In order to construct their identity, a person uses aspects of their biology, their history, their geography, their religion, their institutions, their personal fantasies and so on and rearrange their meaning. The culture of societies is defined by the opposition between communalism (which “roots itself in religion, nation, territoriality, ethnicity, gender and environment) and individualism (which spreads “as a market-driven consumerism, as a new pattern of sociality based on networked individualism and as the desire for individual autonomy based on self-defined projects of life”) (Castells,

Communication, Power and Counter-Power in the Network Society 240). Tubella (2005) also

points out two types of identity building, individual identity (“the sense of oneself as an individual endowed with certain characteristics and potentialities” (257)) and collective identity (“the sense of oneself as a member of a social group, a sense of belonging, a sense of being part of a collectivity” (257)).

Castells sees three forms and origins of identity building. The first one is the legitimizing identity, “introduced by the dominant institutions of society to extend and rationalize their domination vis a vis social actors” (The Power of Identity, 8). The second one is the resistance identity, “generated by those [social] actors who are in positions/conditions devalued and/or stigmatized by the logic of domination, thus building trenches of resistance and survival on the basis of principles from, or opposed to, those permeating the institutions of society” (8). The third one is the project identity, “when social actors, on the basis of whatever cultural materials are available to them, build a new identity that redefines their position in society and, by so doing, seek the transformation of overall social structure” (8). Resistance identities can induce projects and eventually become legitimizing identities by becoming dominant in society. On the other hand, they can also help form communities and forms of collective resistance against society’s oppression.

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Because the Internet spans cultural and geographical boundaries, it has a big impact on the expression and perception of social identities. People can now find resources by themselves in order to construct their own identities, and they have increasing access to “non-local knowledge”. In the case of minorities and resistance identities, this can be a huge help in understanding themselves, becoming more seen and increasing the awareness of their identity if they are in a society where they are not seen in the general public.

YouTube & Micro-Celebrities

YouTube was founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim. In just a few months, investors were already interested in buying into the company. YouTube started gaining attention from advertisers once a video of Brazilian football player Ronaldinho doing tricks, which was actually an advertisement from Nike disguised as an amateur video of the player during training, went viral in October 2005 (Cloud). This was the first video to reach a million views on the website (Dracott). Despite pressure from advertisers, Chen and Hurley decided against having ads play before videos (Cloud). While that would have been better for them financially, the move helped make YouTube a community-driven space.

In October 2006, Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion, keeping the brand’s identity and leaving Chen and Hurley with some independence in managing the platform (Sorkin and Peters). Because of legal worries around copyright infringement among the millions of videos, the website signed agreements with companies such as NBC Universal (Cloud), CBS, Universal Music and Sony BMG Music that would allow them to share their content online (Sorkin and Peters). YouTube’s global impact was acknowledged by the media when TIME Magazine named ‘You’ as their 2006 Person of the Year, referring to all the user-generated content uploaded to websites such as YouTube, Wikipedia, MySpace, etc. (Grossman). Burgess and Green described YouTube as “video content from a wide range of sources is uploaded [on the site] for an equally wide range of communication purposes, embedded in various existing or emerging taste communities, media subcultures, and fandoms” (58).

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After acquiring YouTube, Google soon started looking for ways to monetize it and appeal to advertisers, making that a priority over the amateur, community-driven style of website it was before. The company’s intention to make YouTube more attractive to advertisers was clear from the beginning, as Google stated in the press release announcing the acquisition of YouTube that it combined “one of the largest and fastest growing online video entertainment communities with Google’s expertise in organizing information and creating new models for advertising on the Internet” (Wasko and Erickson 374). Some ways they developed were adapting their keyword advertising system so certain search terms on YouTube, bid on by various advertisers, would bring up sponsored videos, or linking relevant retailers to videos (like iTunes or Amazon for music videos).

In 2007, Google introduced its Video ID system which would help the rightful owners of a piece of content to find any videos that illegally included the content they owned, which they could request to be taken down due to copyright infringement or they could get a share of the advertising revenue (Gerhards 3). Monetization through professional content remained the focus for a few years but YouTubers started emerging as stars in 2009, following the first amateur content creator reaching one million subscribers. This started a shift in the mind set of advertisers, who started recognizing that content creators on YouTube had built their subscriber base through authenticity and would make for excellent ambassadors of their brands thanks to the credibility they obtained (Gerhards 4). Lobato, in his observations around the changes YouTube has gone through since its inception, now sees it as a “structurally complex, managed ecosystem designed to monetize both amateur and professional content” (348). Kim (quoted in Morreale) recognized a double function of YouTube, which “reflects a hegemonic tension between an amateur led, individually driven mediascape and a professionally led, institutionally driven professional media landscape” (114).

As one of the world’s major online content providers, YouTube is careful in the way it positions itself differently to different groups, such as its users and advertisers, in order to frame itself and sound appealing to them in different ways. The use of the term “platform” helps in that regard, as YouTube and other spaces that use the “platform” label can give it different meanings and sound neutral in the face of different interest groups: users, advertisers, media producers and policy makers. By combining the four categories of use of

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the term “platform” (computational, architectural, figurative and political), Gillespie comes up with a new meaning for the term, in the context of online content providers: “it suggests a progressive and egalitarian arrangement, promising to support those who stand upon it” (350) and it affords “an opportunity to communicate, interact or sell” (351). This new, conceptual use of “platform” draws on all four of the previously mentioned categories of meaning: computational, “something to build upon and innovate from” (352), architectural, as “YouTube is designed as an open-armed, egalitarian facilitation of expression, not an elitist gatekeeper with normative and technical restrictions” (352) (differentiating itself from television and Hollywood), figurative, in that “the opportunity [for visibility] is an abstract promise as much as a practical one” (352) and political, as “a place from which to speak and be heard” (352). This view of YouTube helps the company downplay things like its reliance on advertisers and the way it has created partnerships with media companies to its regular users, focusing on the participatory aspects instead.

The term “platform” helps intermediaries such as YouTube approach their different audiences through a single term: advertisers have a space to showcase their brands and create awareness, possibly reaching target groups that are harder to reach through other means; professional media producers have a space that can make their content more visible and even strategically push it towards the desired audiences; and the regular users have a space where they are all perceived (or perceive themselves) as equals, with the opportunity to make themselves heard on a level they could not have been before. On the back of user-generated content and this egalitarian perception of its website, YouTube can try to become the new television, even as it acts as the anti-television (which as seen with its reliance on advertising and professionally produced content, is not actually true) (Gillespie 355). That has become more apparent in recent years with the emergence of services such as YouTube Red, the paid premium service that offers exclusive, professionally produced series, some from the website’s biggest YouTubers, and YouTube TV, an actual television service that is provided online instead of through cable.

YouTube itself positions itself as a neutral platform whose job is to help all types of users. Through this positioning, ordinary users will see YouTube as an empowering force that can be used for them to speak freely on any matter; for professional creators and advertisers, YouTube helps them earn money and, thanks to the user data it owns, makes it easy to target

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a particular audience in order to maximize their success (Hou 5). YouTube still appears as a democratic space where amateur and professional users can coexist and it relies on that perception. In the early days of YouTube after its acquisition by Google, its marketing director stated that they are “really focused on democratizing the entertainment experience, so whether it’s a user-generated content from aspiring filmmakers or from one of the networks, it’s the users who are in control” (Wasko and Erickson 384). The appearance of a democratic space perpetuates the belief that with continued hard work to create content in order to get noticed, and some luck, any amateur user can became at least a micro-celebrity and earn their living by making videos, but only a few of those users are actually able to make that come true (Morreale 125).

YouTube’s algorithm can discriminate against certain videos or users, making them less visible, all in accordance with advertisers’ needs (Bishop 71).Through its search mechanism, rankings and recommendations YouTube in fact mediates what videos can be most easily found on their website. In the early 2010s it was found that only 4% of users provided 73% of the videos, and the algorithms would help create the popularity of some videos based on how highly they would be displayed (Morreale 118). Because of the way the algorithm is constantly changing, it can unintentionally have negative consequences on certain types of videos: In 2017, videos around LGBT topics were hidden under YouTube’s restricted view because they were deemed to be “potentially offensive”, which caused an outrage among the LGBT community on the website (Hunt). Another instance of this also happened in 2017. When some major advertisers discovered that their ads were played before videos related to extremism, hate speech, and other offensive content, they pulled out their ads. This led YouTube to take a tougher stance on that type of content in order to keep their advertisers, but this had some unforeseen consequences: videos ranging from comedy and political commentary to gun experts and gamers, who did not present any offensive or extremist views, had ads pulled out, causing their creators to lose a steady income from their channels (Hess). The algorithm has also been at fault for technical issues like channels suddenly losing thousands or even millions of subscribers overnight, causing outrage among those affected (Cunningham, Craig and Silver 381).

There are numerous factors that decide video rankings through the search function of YouTube. The most important one appears to be watch time, while others are the total

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number of views, the title, the description, the number of likes and dislikes, the length of the description (ideally over 350 words), the inclusion of at least three or four keywords through the video title and tags, and less importantly the age of the video, the uploader’s channel’s number of total views and subscribers, its addition to any playlists, and its engagement with the community in the form of embeds, shares, etc. (Pietrobruno 6). Meanwhile, Bärtl (18) discovered that the factors with the largest impact on video popularity are the total number of previous views of that user and video age (with newer videos doing better), which only contributes to the “rich-get-richer phenomenon”. Older channels also have a higher probability of being in the top most viewed channels because it is easier for them to get new views as they already have plenty of content for other users to find, and that is how they build an audience, while it is harder to find videos from newer channels if the user is not even aware of the channel in question. YouTube’s algorithms (both the search and recommendation ones) also keep the focus on a few channels, helping them maintain their monopoly on the users. His entire study concludes that there is an overwhelming dominance of a few big and successful channels over the rest of channels and content on YouTube.

As YouTubers grow accustomed to how the algorithm works based on experience, they can find ways to make their videos fit better with advertisers’ needs. Videos that will be the most attractive to advertisers from the algorithm’s point of view will have a high audio and video quality, a topic that the brand can support, and will not include profanity or any other non-family-friendly content (Bishop 72). With all the user data at YouTube’s disposal, the algorithm can also easily target an audience based on their age, gender, location or the type of videos that they watch (Bishop) 72. Through the Creator Studio, YouTubers have access to various kinds of data about their views, subscriber count and how it changes, comments or the amount of money they have earned through the Partnership programme. They can see which of their videos were the most successful in all of these different categories, which can push them towards creating more commercially viable content in order to increase their visibility and earnings (Bishop 73). This hub also has directions that encourage users to ‘connect with fans’ or ‘build a business and get help to grow’, nudging users towards uploading videos with the purpose of attracting followers and turning their channel into a profitable venture (Hou 5).

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While YouTube has evolved into a commercial platform, built on both amateur and professional content, “the idea of it as an open platform for amateur expression is buried deep into the DNA of the brand” (Burgess, YouTube and the formalisation of amateur media 1). One of the most popular types of videos on YouTube is the vlog (video blog), a staple of user-created content that is “fundamental to YouTube’s sense of community” and an “emblematic form of YouTube participation” (Burgess and Green, The Entrepreneurial

Vlogger: Participatory Culture Beyond the Professional - Amateur Divide 94). This type of video

is easy to make, only requiring a video camera and basic editing skills, the vlogger simply talking to the camera about their chosen topic. It also establishes a direct connection with the audience, as the dialogue addresses the viewers themselves, who can respond, add to the conversation or give the vlogger feedback through the comments. Vloggers use these videos as a way to earn money, but they are a different type of YouTube user than companies that use the video platform as a space to host their professional content, they are active participants in the community that has grown around YouTube and with their subscribers, they create their own, smaller community, understanding the importance of that in YouTube’s ecology (Burgess and Green, The Entrepreneurial Vlogger: Participatory Culture

Beyond the Professional - Amateur Divide).

In 2007, YouTube created the Partner Program in order to play ads before YouTubers’ videos while having an agreement with them over the advertising revenue coming from that, splitting it between the company and the creator. Their premium content creators used to have a split of 70/30 with the company, but now that has changed to a standardized 55/45 split for everyone in the program (Cunningham, Craig and Silver 381). Following the changes to the eligibility requirements announced in January 2018, a channel needs to have four thousand watch hours in the previous 12 months and at least one thousand subscribers to be considered for the Partner Program (Google Support). Google used the traditional algorithm in advertising that was based on cost per thousand views (CPMs). This system is more beneficial to advertisers than to creators (Hou). That same year, they added their AdSense technology to YouTube, so users could put up advertising on their channels, which was aided by the various types of data from Google Analytics. In 2008, Google purchased and put into use DoubleClick, an automated ad buying program. All of these things made advertising on YouTube easy (Cunningham, Craig and Silver 380). However, in the early days of the Partner

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Program, it was professional media companies and advertisers who benefited the most from it, as, in combination with the Video ID system, it let copyright owners monetize their content even if they were not the video’s uploader. This was an important moment in attracting advertisers to YouTube. In 2007, there were only 30 amateur creators who were signed into the Partner Program (Gerhards 3).

Because of YouTube’s growth in terms of content and highly subscribed channels, with more than a million channels signed into the Partner Program and over 1500 channels with at least one million subscribers, the revenue obtained through AdSense has gotten smaller and smaller, not being able to keep pace with the increasing amount of content available that is seeking advertising. This means that content creators could not make a living just off the revenue they receive through this program, and they started seeking other modes of advertising and using other platforms, such as Instagram, to make more money (Cunningham, Craig and Silver 381).

A multi-channel network (also referred to as MCN) is a “Google/YouTube approved intermediary aggregating, affiliated with, and/or managing YouTube channels by offering their assistance in diverse areas, ranging from production to monetisation, in exchange for a percentage of the ad revenue”, who hire both traditional and digital media managers (Cunningham, Craig and Silver 377). In a way, these networks are simply a modernized, aggregated extension of agents, advertising agencies, managers and media buyers in the traditional entertainment landscape, but they operate in very different ways from their older counterparts thanks to the “automated and scalable nature” of the companies, as well as the current lack of regulations surrounding them (Lobato 350; Hou). The rise of multi-channel networks reflects the increasingly commercialized nature of YouTube and its turn into a formalized marketplace (Lobato; Vonderau).

Any revenue that is made through an MCN (outside of the pre-roll ads that get monetized through AdSense) does not need to be split with YouTube, cutting the platform out of the equation completely, making other forms of monetization more enticing to both users and multi-channel networks (Gerhards 7). These companies have networks of creators putting up content across multiple channels and platforms, they can create their own production companies and studios in order to help professionalize amateur creators, and the

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managers look for ways to monetize all of their clients’ content through both digital and traditional means. However, there are different types of strategies among multi-channel networks. Some are horizontal aggregators, which are scale driven, some are vertical aggregators which focus on niche markets, which offer passionate and strong communities of fans, some use strategies that are commonly seen in traditional talent development agencies, and some are attempting to lead in technology (Cunningham, Craig and Silver 382). With the constant changes in YouTube’s ecology, MCNs need to be able to change and keep up at an even faster pace in order to stay on top. They do not, however, only work around YouTube; their clients will create a multi-platform presence using other social media sites like Instagram, Twitter, etc. in order to gain more fans, promote their content or hope that a post they make will attract the attention of a brand featured who will later on want to collaborate with them (Hou 16).

As previously mentioned, multi-channel networks also assist YouTubers with monetization, as they look for brands that fit with the type of content a specific creator is putting out there. That fit is an important factor, especially in a medium where authenticity (or appeared authenticity) is key in the relationship with the audience. Some creators have walked away from very rich offers from advertisers if they felt like that brand did not work with the type of content they made, or if they did not agree with what that brand did. Through these means, there are different types of content that a YouTuber will produce in a deal with an advertiser. It can be something like traditional product placement in a video, a sponsored video, or a more organic integration of a brand, fitting seamlessly into a video (Cunningham, Craig and Silver 386). In brand integration videos, the advertiser is the one with control over the content of the video, even if the video itself might be that YouTuber’s usual style. In contrast with that, the YouTuber has control of videos that include paid-for product placement. Some of the more successful creators might also receive free products from companies in the hopes that they will talk about them in their videos or even post about them or simply include them in a post on a different social network. YouTubers can also integrate brands that they are affiliated with by adding links in their video description box sending their viewers to a page including a specific code from that YouTuber, where people can purchase that brand’s products and through that code, they could receive a discount on the products as well. The YouTuber then receives compensation for the amount of traffic or purchases they

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gave that company thanks to their unique link. This type of integration does not require the creator and the brand to partner for that particular video, instead the creator can become part of the brand’s affiliate programme (Gerhards; Hou). Some multi-channel networks can also have the function of a search-optimization service, as they develop systems that can offer users advice on the best titles, keywords, metadata and frequently searched-for terms related to the topic, in order to make those videos stand out and be attractive to YouTube’s algorithm (Lobato 356).

MCNs also help creators with other strategies for monetization: through sales and distribution strategies, they can repackage content from that creator for a different platform, such as television or an international platform, looking to expand their audience; and through windowing strategies, through which an MCN will offer a video on-demand platform either first look at content from a YouTuber, or additional content from their channel. Offline, fan conferences and live tours have become more and more popular, becoming highly profitable for creators with a good following, as well as developing and selling merchandise referring to a specific YouTuber, and last but not least, the books written by YouTubers in recent years have seen a good return, some becoming best sellers (Cunningham, Craig and Silver 386).

Some multi-channel networks have the necessary infrastructure and equipment to help their clients improve their production quality. This reinforces the idea of the professionalization of amateurs on YouTube (Cunningham, Craig and Silver 386). However, most MCNs prioritize their top-level clients, giving them most of the attention and their best services, in a personal manner, while their lower-level clients will only get help through impersonal services, with the company simply offering them online tutorials and other similar kinds of help (Hou 6).

Because MCNs tend to focus on their bigger clients and have a certain threshold for users to be signed, smaller channels can get paid for advertising and product placement through online marketplaces. These marketplaces provide users with smaller amounts of subscribers with brands that are interested in these types of collaborations and the two parties can work out a deal. Different marketplaces have different starting points in terms of subscribers, but it can be as low as one thousand. Importantly, the marketplace does not take any share of the revenue from the content creator. This concept can be seen as democratizing

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the advertising business on YouTube because it gives smaller channels who would be ignored by multi-channel networks a chance to earn some additional money (Gerhards 7-8).

Thanks to the emergence of social media and social media platforms’ participatory affordances celebrity culture has changed in recent years, allowing ordinary people to gain a certain level of celebrity through self-branding and DYI practices and gaining fans or followers. This type of celebrity is called ‘micro-celebrity’, defined by Turner as celebrities who “operate within a relatively limited and localized virtual space, drawing on small numbers of fans such as the followers of a particular subcultural practice” (Hou 2). Jerslev calls micro-celebrity a “particular online performance designed for self-branding” (5239). Marwick further sees it as “the presentation of oneself as a celebrity regardless of who is paying attention” and a “way of thinking of oneself as a celebrity, and treating others accordingly” (Marwick, in Jerslev, 5239).

This is a big shift from the celebrity we can observe from traditional stars, who are known for their extraordinariness in a particular field, glamour, untouchable perfection, and who keep their personal life private, not allowing fans to know much about them outside of their work. In contrast with that, micro-celebrities are known for their ordinariness, intimacy, and often times a relationship of equals between them and their followers. This gives micro-celebrities a sense of authenticity (that does not mean it shows all the realities of someone’s life, but it is mediated as a way for these celebrities to represent themselves), which is something that advertisers are highly interested in for their brands’ promotion. Thanks to this authenticity and a closer relationship between micro-celebrities and their fans (as opposed to traditional celebrities), this type of people can be immensely valuable as a brand ambassador or collaborator (Hou 8). Another factor that makes micro-celebrities seem authentic and trustworthy is the idea that they are self-governed and are not part of the commercial system around celebrity culture (Jerslev). Thanks to the affordances of the platform and the way in which creators interact with their fans, they are able to keep them engaged both with the creators and, from advertisers’ point of view, the brands that they promote, which is another valuable factor in the connection between the two through partnerships (Morreale). This relationship between YouTubers and advertisers is mutually beneficial, as the creators who work with big brands not only earn money, but they can also increase their celebrity status through these types of deals.

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Hou calls this type of authenticity performed by social media celebrities ‘staged authenticity’ (15). Through unscripted vlogs (or at least perceived as unscripted), these celebrities perform the role of themselves in a staged version of their life. While it appears like the viewers are welcomed into all aspects of that person’s life, it is important to remember that not only are these videos edited by the vlogger, letting them choose what to include and what to leave out, but they also choose what to film or talk about to begin with. Additionally, everything else they post on other social media websites is curated in order for them to portray the image that they want in front of their followers (Khamis, Ang and Welling 196). Jerslev argues that “attention-creating performances of a private authentic self are the most valuable commodity in social media celebrification” (5240).

Celebrification through social media establishes a “temporality of permanent updating, of immediacy and of instantaneity” while also presupposing a quick response from the audience through likes, views, comments and subscriptions (Jerslev 5233).

YouTube fits into the neoliberal view for multiple reasons. First, it is a platform of competition, as all the users and all the videos on it are competing with each other for views, subscriptions and the attention of the public. Second, YouTubers are entrepreneurs of themselves, making (or attempting to make) their money as their own enterprise, through YouTube’s Partnership Program, sponsorships and any other opportunities that arise from their channels and how they present themselves. They are their own bosses, working to give themselves the most money and opportunities that they can. Lastly, these people can use YouTube to increase their human capital, by increasing their reputation and appeal to others, as well as investing in their own practical skills in terms of video editing and producing, and using a leading online space like YouTube. Because of all of this, YouTube can be called a neoliberal platform.

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Chapter 2: Case Studies

Methodology

This chapter will take a closer look at three case studies of YouTubers on different levels of success in terms of their subscriber count, all with unique types of content: Lilly Singh, a Canadian comedian and vlogger, Hannah Witton, a British vlogger who mostly focuses on sex education, relationship issues and lifestyle vlogging, and Alex Bertie, a British vlogger who has been documenting his transition from female to male, as well as giving advice and talking about issues surrounding the transgender community. Each case study will be based on content analysis of their YouTube channels, examining their evolution in terms of content, topics tackled and the look of the videos themselves. They will also include some data analysis, looking at the evolution of factors such as daily subscriptions gained, total subscribers, daily video views, total video views, average views per day per month and total views per month. This data is provided by the website Social Blade. However, there are limitations on this, as the data available only starts in August 2015, limiting the data set to less than three years. The available data only goes back three years because of EU privacy regulations, as the website had previously offered data from as far back as when the user was in their system (Social Blade, FAQ).

These three case studies were picked as they are all either part of minorities, tackling taboo subjects, or both, which tend to be underrepresented in the media. Their existence and success from YouTube is important in order to highlight their underrepresented experiences and bring awareness to certain things that are not usually in the spotlight.

Who They Are

Lilly Singh, also known by her YouTube username as IISuperwomanII is a Canadian comedian and vlogger who has over 13.3 million subscribers. Her main channel has over two billion total views, whereas her vlogging channel, SuperwomanVlogs, has over 2.3 million

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subscribers (Social Blade). At the moment, she is estimated to be making millions of dollars with $10.5 million in 2017 alone (Forbes). She is best known for her comedy skits, her impersonations of her parents, and her positive persona. Lilly Singh herself described her own humour as feel-good and relatable (Vogue), which is reflected in the type of videos that she does. Unlike many content creators of her calibre, Singh is not signed with a multi-channel network. Instead, she signed with Sarah Weichel Management, a company that calls itself a “full-service management company” (Sarah Weichel Management), which despite having a focus on digital talent, appears to still position itself in the more traditional category of talent management.

Hannah Witton is a British vlogger who focuses on issues such as sex education, sex positivity, feminism and literature. She has almost half a million subscribers and over 51 million views on her channel (Social Blade), and she is one of the most popular sex education YouTubers on the website. She is signed with FreeFocus Talent Management, a company which manages a variety of UK-based digital stars from all kinds of different backgrounds, who are all known for tackling different topics both online and offline (FreeFocus).

Alex Bertie is a British vlogger who discusses transgender and queer issues, as he has been documenting his own transition through YouTube. He currently has a little over 300,000 subscribers and over 11 million views on his YouTube channel (Socialblade). His first public video is from May 2013, and since then he has become one of the better known female to male transgender content creators on the website.

Video Evolution

Singh’s first YouTube video that is currently public was uploaded on the 9th_of December 2010, when she posted a tutorial called How to Tie a Side Turla Bhangra Pagh

(Turban) (Singh, 2010). The amateurship of the video is clear from the beginning and

reflective of the way YouTube videos looked at the time, before being a content creator became a genuine path to success. Some of the video is shot vertically, there is no additional audio or lighting equipment used, therefore the lighting and audio are not very good and there are very basic text graphics included. In the video description, Singh states that she

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created this video because she felt like there was a lack of tutorials on this particular topic on the Internet, and she was not looking to gain anything from posting it other than helping others out who might be looking for this kind of tutorial. That already changes with her second upload, an amateur music video of an original rap called I’m Ill (Singh, 2011), followed by

Official Guide to Brown Girls (Singh, 2011), a comedic video in the style that she will later

become known for. A lot of her early videos are related to her Indian heritage, but that slowly changed, with the topics becoming less about that, and more relatable to a larger audience.

Figure 1

Screenshots of How to Tie a Side Turla Bhangra Pagh (Turban)

A closer analysis of some of Singh’s earlier videos shows how she has maintained a similar style of video and comedy from 2011 to 2018, with the biggest change being the video quality itself. In Bollywood Movies Are Evil (Singh, 2011), from March 2011, she already exhibits the style of video that her viewers will grow accustomed to. The video is partly a rant directly to the camera, partly separate scenes exemplifying what she is talking about, cutting between the two numerous times. This is already a departure from just talking in front of the camera, perhaps seen as a way to make the video more engaging and entertaining, to give the viewer a better picture of what she is talking about, and a way to add comedy. The actual video is still not of good quality, making it obvious it is being filmed by an amateur. While the audio quality appears to have improved from her first efforts, the video still relies on natural lighting, diminishing its quality. Additionally, there is the framing of the images in the parts

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where Singh talks directly to the camera: she appears from the waist up, making herself look smaller, there are noticeable objects around her such as the light switch on the wall and a stand with an empty picture frame, and the green colour of the wall behind her is hard on the eyes, especially without proper lighting. At this point, plenty of her videos still focus on her Indian heritage and she appears to address the audience with the expectation that they are also of the same heritage or at least have some knowledge of Indian culture. All in all, at this early point in her YouTube career (not seen as a career at the time), Singh appears to be more interested in the content of her videos than the production value of them. This could be for a variety of reasons, including the fact that being a YouTube star was not a career path at the time, meaning that videos did not need to look as professional as they do right now, and making an investment in video and audio equipment was not particularly necessary; also, considering the topics of her videos, she gave more importance to putting up content that could give more representation to people of Indian heritage.

Figure 2

Screenshots of Bollywood Movies are Evil

Additionally, Singh already started her annual ’12 Collabs of Christmas’ series in December 2011. Most of the videos in this series, all the way up to 2017, are not actually about Christmas or the holidays, but are a way to set up collaborations with other people, mostly YouTubers but more recently, some bigger celebrities too. Special or more frequent videos in December have become a frequent occurrence among YouTubers, mostly through

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Vlogmas, a different type of series where YouTubers film their daily life throughout December, all the way up to Christmas, giving their viewers more content. As the name might suggest, this is most popular with vloggers, who are already posting this type of video but on this occasion, they might simply increase the frequency of their uploads, but other creators who do different types of videos might also post Vlogmas videos in order to give their fans more content, and a different kind of content than what they are used to. By starting ’12 Collabs of Christmas’, Singh manages to stand out with her content during that time of year, while staying true to the types of videos she was already putting out. The content itself could be mutually beneficial for her and her collaborators, attempting to familiarize their followers with each other. The structure of the series may have also helped add more subscribers, as they would await the next day of collaborations. Her posting these videos instead of Vlogmas ones could also be at least partly because, at least at the time, she did not want to put too much personal information online.

By January 2012, Singh’s regular uploads start looking less like amateur work. While most of them are still the same easy to film style, where she either just talks directly to the camera and the audience, or she dresses up as her parents, the quality is clearly improved: the video quality is good, the audio is clear and the lighting is enhanced. The types of videos she uploads at this point are still easy to produce and do not require any expert knowledge in video production, but there are clearly some investments being made in order to increase the quality of the videos. The content of her comedic rants and skits also starts shaping up more, with numerous videos having similar structures: describing annoying people in certain places (e.g. Annoying People at the Movies), things certain types of people do not understand (e.g.

Things Parents Don’t Understand), types of people in certain situations (e.g. Types of Kids at School), or how to’s (e.g. How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse) among other things. These

kinds of topics not only have plenty of comedic potential in this format, but they are accessible and relatable to a large number of people, and the regular uploading of videos in this mould could be a big reason for Singh’s increasing popularity, especially at a time when content creators on YouTube were experiencing perhaps an unexpected surge in popularity.

In April 2012, she started a monthly series called Ask Superwoman, where she would answer her viewers’ questions, mostly about relationships. This type of video can help make a more personal connection between her and her followers, as they would tell her about a

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personal story or situation in their question, to which she would give advice, even if some of it would be more comedy than actual useful advice. While the series has ended in this format, she has been doing regular Ask Superwoman live streams on her YouTube channel, usually lasting around an hour.

Some of Singh’s most viewed videos as of May 2018 come from 2013-2014, when her YouTube fame started growing. Her most viewed video is How Girls Get Ready… from March 2013, which currently has over 26 million views. It is a short comedic skit of around three minutes in which Singh (who could be seen as playing a more exaggerate version of herself for comedic effect) takes hours to get through the process of getting ready for a night out. There is no voiceover and no talking directly to the camera or ranting in this video, which has become a more common style for her in more recent times. An even earlier video is part of her top 10 most viewed videos, Types of Kids At School, from September 2012.This is more of the type of video she was making in this period: having a longer length, in this case of over nine minutes, talking to the camera, listing and describing types of people in a situation, in this case kids at school. As she states in the introduction, Singh made the video after a lot of her fans told her they were just about to start school again, so the timing of this video could have also helped propel it into her most viewed ones. Her second most viewed video, How To

Stop Parents from Comparing Kids (ft. Miranda Sings), is also from this time period, posted in

April 2014. In this case, the almost eight minute long video is also a comedic skit but features fellow YouTuber Miranda Sings who was also an emerging micro-celebrity at the time, and Singh’s fan favourite impressions of her parents. This particular video shows her growing understanding of filming and editing techniques, as it includes a scene of Singh, Miranda Sings, and Singh’s parents (both played by herself) having a conversation sitting at a dinner table. Being able to successfully film that, taking into account the framing of the scene, the camera angles and the editing required to put it all together shows her evolving knowledge in this area as someone who had not had any formal training on filming and editing video content.

In the summer of 2016, Singh started a series called Girl Love which she described as “dedicated to ending and reversing the culture of girl-on-girl hatred” (Goodbye Hate, Hello

#GirlLove, Singh, 2016). The videos in this series included collaborations with some well

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Hahn filmed during the press tour for their film Bad Moms in which the actresses answered questions about and discussed being mothers (Are You a Bad Mom? ft. Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell

& Kathryn Hahn | #GirlLove (Ep. 1)). In an instance that showed both the fact that Singh was

seen as a legitimate voice in the online world and someone invested in causes such as better education, and the fact that YouTube as a platform, and YouTubers as micro-celebrities, are something that people involved in ‘serious’ things such as politics can tap into, Singh interviewed Michelle Obama, at the time the First Lady of the United States of America for her series (Getting Schooled By Michelle Obama | #GirlLove (Ep.3)). The two discussed Obama’s education initiative Reach Higher to make college more accessible for people and inspire young people to get a college degree. They also play a game of Reach Higher-themed Heads Up alongside two Howard University students, where the interview was filmed, and a game Singh called Compliment Quick fire which is in tune with her Girl Love message. Combining an important conversation with a major American figure that is relevant and aimed at a lot of Singh’s audience with the typical style of YouTube videos involving games and a fun atmosphere is a great way to capture the attention of the YouTube audience.

By 2018, she has ended up making this type of honest, relatable and positive comedy her brand. She still posts mostly comedy skits but the production value has increased tremendously, as she has been keeping up with the demands of YouTube. Nowadays, many of them are full-on acting skits, instead of Singh just talking directly to the camera throughout, with short cuts to whatever she was describing. While that might be more impersonal now, she still includes moments of talking directly to the audience and thanking them, at least at the end of her videos. And while the vast majority of her videos now are not about her Indian heritage, she still posts videos of herself acting as her parents and sometimes collaborates with Indian artists, such as fellow YouTuber and spoken word artist Humble the Poet, or actress Priyanka Chopra.

An example of this new style of video from Singh is If Job Interviews Were Honest, from February 2018, a two and a half minute long video acting out a job interview (with both parts being played by Singh herself) where both the interviewer and interviewee are honest, saying things like “As you can see here, I made up six years of experience” and “Why do you want this job?/ I like money”. The quality of the video is high, it is on a topic that most people can relate to and it is short.

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Figure 3

Screenshots of If Job Interviews Were Honest

While most of her videos have a light atmosphere and fun or funny topics, Singh posted a more political video in June 2017 titled A Geography Class for Racist People. As Islamophobia and racism against brown people has been rampant this century particularly in the United States, with the political climate getting even more tense since the 2016 presidential election, it is sadly no surprise that Singh has also been a victim of racism through social media comments. In this video, she starts by reading an anonymous, grammatically incorrect, racist comment from one of her videos and jumps into a ‘lesson’ about brown people, some of the countries in South Asian and the Middle East and Americans’ irrational arguments for their racism and Islamophobia. While the topic of the video is a departure from her usual material, her tone is still light and fun, while highly sarcastic, appearing friendly as she takes down unfounded arguments and fears of racist people. At almost ten million views, this is another not only topical video in the current climate, but also one that can be appealing to people who do not make up Singh’s usual audience.

The first publicly available video on Witton’s channel dates back to June 2011 and is titled The Solution to a Bad Day. It is a short video portraying her as having a bad day, which only gets better once she eats some chocolate, the aforementioned solution to the bad day. It does not include any talking, it just shows her doing various activities around the house

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while an instrumental track plays in the background of the video. Her second video, Hannah

Dreams…SAVE THE BABY!, uploaded the day following her first one, is of a different style while

remaining comedic. In it, Witton tells the story of an odd dream of hers while re-enacting parts of it. She addresses the viewers directly and asks them if they know what her dream could mean at the end of the video. This video, like all of Witton’s early ones, is of amateur quality.

Figure 4

Screenshot of Hannah Dreams...SAVE THE BABY!

Witton’s tens of videos during 2011 are quite different from the types of videos that she has become known for. Her first video about sex education was posted in January 2012. Titled Sex Education 01 – Contraception, it is the beginning of a series of videos she made around this topic because she found that sex education in the United Kingdom was not very good and she wanted to put more information out. In this first episode, she and a male friend of hers discuss contraception. They list different methods of contraception, physically showing a few of the most common ones and telling the audience how they can get them (at least in the UK), and they also take down a few of the myths around the topic. In the video description Witton included links to websites from the UK, the United States and Australia with more information around contraception. The description also contains a disclaimer that the two of them are not professionals, but are passionate about teaching others about this

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topic. The series continued with videos on topics such as ‘virginity and the logistics of sex’, puberty and body image, sexual orientation and the anatomy of sexual organs.

Due to her starting this educational series, Witton started receiving questions from her viewers about sex education topics, for which she started making specific videos independent of the series itself. In videos like Sexual opinions [sex before marriage & boobs] and Sexual opinions [friends with benefits & asexuality], she answers those questions, giving advice or simply her opinion on issues that her viewers might be experiencing.

While she continued making dozens of videos about other topics such as short vlogs, stories from her personal life, comedic skits and songs, she was still uploading the occasional video related to sex education or relationship advice, outside of the Sex Education series. In a video from October 2012 titled My Childhood Sex Ed, Witton talks about the sex education she received as a child, both at school and from her parents. She asks her viewers to respond either in the comments section or through a video response with stories of their childhood sex education, as she wanted to hear more stories from people with different experiences. In June 2013, she posted a video called Masturbation in which she talks about female masturbation in particular in a very open and positive fashion. Five years later, this video is still one of her most popular uploads, with over 600,000 views, much higher than any of her other videos around that time. That can be credited to the fact that it is a topic that is not usually talked about, and people looking for content on the topic will both be interested and have an easier time finding the video. With the increasing presence of sex education videos on the platform, the number of videos on this topic has certainly increased, but it is still an important video to note.

By the latter part of 2013, Witton’s videos became much more focused around the topics of sex education, body image, relationships and feminism, as well as generally looking more polished and of better overall quality. The videos around that time include Sexual

Fantasies, My First Time, Let’s Talk About Sex, The Kama Sutra, Can Women Have Hairy Legs?! | Hannah Witton and Old Fashioned Sex Advice. She also attempted to include

non-heteronormative content, like in her collaborations with lesbian YouTuber Arielle Scarcella titled What Is Lesbian Sex? Ft. Arielle Scarcella and Lesbian Stereotypes with Arielle | Hannah

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Being Trans and Testosterone | The Hormone Diaries Ep. 14 | Hannah Witton, which is the

type of content that is not only informative to heterosexual viewers, but also appeals to the minorities in question, in this case lesbian and bisexual women or transgender people. It can also be noted that for these videos, Witton did not just speak on the topics presented on her own, instead inviting others who are parts of the groups discussed to give the information. There, she is learning just as much as the viewers and she voices the point of view of people who might not be as familiar with such issues. However, she still posted videos related to other aspects of her life, public issues or pop culture items, such as Divergent Movie Review,

How to Cure a Hangover , Disney’s Frozen Elsa Makeup Tutorial or Gap Between the Rich and the Poor #SwingTheVote | Hannah Witton (a sponsored video encouraging young people to

go vote in the 2015 British general election).

In 2015, Witton started a series called Drunk Advice, in which she collaborates with other vloggers. In each episode, she and a fellow YouTuber get drunk and give advice to fans who send them questions. The questions are usually about sex and relationships, keeping in tune with most of her videos. Most of the other YouTubers who appear in this series appear to be part of Witton’s London-based group of friends, based on her social media posts, while other collaborations happen thanks to events like big YouTube conferences. Around the same time, she also started posting monthly ‘Favourites’ videos, in which she talks about her favourite things and objects for a certain month. Unlike other vloggers who usually make these videos focused on one area such as make-up, she brings up all different kind of objects or experiences, such as books, television shows and movies, beauty products and even travel spots.

Witton continued making videos about sensitive or taboo topics, some even sponsored by brands or campaigns attempting to bring awareness to those issues. Some examples of this are Period Taboos | Hannah Witton | ad, Inside a Sex Toy Warehouse |

Hannah Witton | ad, Let’s Talk About Relationship Abuse | Hannah Witton | ad and My Relationship with Religion | Hannah Witton. She also used occasions such as International

Women’s Day and Women’s History Month to promote other female YouTubers with smaller subscriber bases (10 Small Female YouTubers You Should Watch | Hannah Witton) and bring up other feminist issues in videos like The History of Women’s History + Giveaway | Hannah