Platform Economy and the Rise of Social Media Influencer: Critical Discourse Analysis of Mental Health Management on YouTube

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Platform Economy and the Rise of Social Media

Influencer: Critical Discourse Analysis of Mental

Health Management on YouTube

Photo: Shutterstock

Name: Anja Duričić

Student number: 12227129

Program: MA New Media and Digital Culture Date: 2 September 2019

Supervisor: Bogna Konior Second Reader: Niels van Doorn University of Amsterdam

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Acknowledgements

I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, dr. Bogna Konior, for her support throughout the process of writing this thesis. Her feedback and input were of an invaluable significance that contributed to the completion of my work. I would also like to express my thanks to Natalia Sánchez Querubín whose advice helped me shape my thoughts and give my ideas direction.

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Abstract

The rapid development of new digital technologies paired with the pervasive neoliberal economy have in the past couple of decades led to the shifts in the way people’s role in the society and on the market is understood. Internet technologies have allowed for the increased connectedness of institutions as well as individuals who have, as a result, gained an avenue for the displaying of their lives also in a virtual sphere. Especially in the past decade, this trend has gained prominence with the rise of YouTube that produced new kind of celebrities referred to as social media influencers or microcelebrities. Although popular discourse portrayed their lives as flawless and untroubling, the tolls that their work had on their mental health are only now becoming evident.

Since negative self-disclosure videos have been increasingly appearing on the YouTube, critical discourse analysis was adopted to examine their role in an environment fostering and promoting unrealistic and overly positivistic images of people’s daily existence. Additionally, the paper examines the causes of mental health difficulties such as anxiety, stress and burnout as discussed by YouTubers themselves as opposed to what is known from the mainstream media and academic literature. More specifically, this paper looks at the three prominent YouTubers, PewDiePie, El Rubius OMG and Elle Mills, and examines their videos in which they confess having mental health troubles. It concludes with obtained findings and suggestions for further examination.

Keywords: YouTube, social media influencers, neoliberalism, mental health, cultural production

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Introduction

Over the past decade, the society has witnessed a shift in labour structures and employment relationships with the rise of what has become known as ‘social media influencers’ and ‘microcelebrity’. The shift resulting primarily from 2008 global financial crisis, rise in student loan debt, and increase of social media usage has affected mainly millennials – people born between 1980 – 1995 – who, consequently, adopted less traditional ways of employment (Guarriello 1751). It now encompasses a number of newly established creative and freelance professions such as becoming famous fashion or gaming influencer whose emergence was facilitated by proliferating social media platforms such as YouTube or Instagram that offer attractive, yet unstable employment opportunities.

A career of social media influencer, and the possibility to become a microcelebrity, is in the popular narrative presented as an option that anyone can opt for with YouTube being one of the primary avenues for that (Ashton and Patel, chap.Abstract). On the surface, it offers freedom to individuals to be creative and do what they love while establishing financially beneficial relationships with companies whose products they agree to promote. The idea of being one’s own boss, have a full control over one’s life and be financially independent is ever-present and supposes that anyone who has access to technologies and is brave enough to display their lives publicly will inherently succeed. However, precarious working conditions dictated by neoliberal economy which favours only positivistic and unrealistic depictions of reality are never addressed. These conditions tend to build on various types of labour, myths of authenticity, meritocracy and entrepreneurship, and also commodify one’s personal life only to put it on public display in exchange for economic security. Thus, when looking at the images and videos of social media influencers, what one is able to see are only happy and cheerful individuals, distant from troubles of everyday life, and whose existence is depicted as perfect.

In the past years, however, the revelations about the ‘behind the scenes’ of this form of employment reached even mainstream media such as the Guardian or the Economist. Articles about the experiences of social media influencers that cause them stress, anxiety, and burnout started appearing unveiling some of the pervasive myths in the society. This coverage came as a result of youtubers themselves, primarily those who reached the status of a celebrity, confessing to their audiences their difficulties and taking a break from the platform. Some of the most popular youtubers including PewDiePie, El Rubius OMG and Elle Mills opened up about their mental health difficulties caused by their employment conditions. A confession that

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previously would have led to social stigmatization impinging one’s social identity and access to resources (Arboleda-Flórez and Stuart 458), however, created a wave of mixed reactions from the audiences.

Nowadays, social media influencers are considered workers in cultural industries who set standards for how the rest of economy should function (Neff et al. 307), and YouTube itself is seen as a repository of culture (Arthurs et al. 3). To stress the importance of YouTube as a platform, Nieborg and Poell use the term “platformization” to address the influence of economic, governmental and infrastructural extensions in cultural production (4276). Additionally, the spread of social and digital media have dramatically changed the way labour in general, and especially cultural labour, is understood (Duffy and Wissinger 4654). Internet is from a post-Fordist perspective seen as a “playground and factory” (Arthurs et al. 7) and has facilitated the intermingling of leisure and production (Gerlitz and Helmond 13) with YouTube being one of the primary players in the new form of production of cultural content through its aspirational narrative. Over the last decade, the interest in studying the workers in cultural industries has increased as opposed to the past when the attention was paid only to texts and consumers (Duffy 443). This comes as a result of millennials believing that “good looks, good living, and conspicuous consumption” will bring them adoration disregarding psychological consequences of this need for spectacle (Khamis et al. 199).

With the neoliberal ideology in the background, Abidin addresses the types of research that have been conducted in relation to the rise of social media influencers, their communicative practices and the nature of their labour. These include, among others, work on self-curation practices, follower-engagement, authenticity-related issues, and various forms of promotional practices in partnerships with brands (“Visibility Labour” 87). Also Hochschild, for instance, stresses the fact that communication practices have always ben analysed in relation to business strategies, however, to my knowledge, little research has focused on the relationships between the work of social media influencers in connection to their newly acquired status of microcelebrity within YouTube’s business model, and their mental health. Thus, in relation to the growing number of their disclosures discussed above, this paper asks how is YouTube’s business model affecting influencers communication practices with their followers as addressed by YouTubers themselves? More specifically, what is the role of negative self-disclosure about one’s mental health in relation to YouTube’s business model and the new celebrity culture?

In order to answer this research question, this paper adopts a critical discourse analysis framework to examine the relationships between YouTube and the work of the three popular

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social media influencers: PewDiePie, El Rubius OMG, and Elle Mills. It will look at their videos in which they address mental problems that they are experiencing, including stress, anxiety and burnout, in order to examine how they themselves, as YouTube’s contributors, frame the precarities, linguistically and visually, that are in the popular as well as academic literature known to be imposed by YouTube’s business model and their new celebrity status. Thus, this paper will be divided into two sections: theoretical and practical. Theoretical section will consist of three chapters, each addressing issues of the changing nature of labour and platform economy, new celebrity culture, and mental health respectively. The second section will introduce case studies using the three already mentioned YouTubers, and it will include the discussion of the findings followed by the concluding remarks.

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I. Platforms

The development of digital technologies and the shift from informational Web 1.0 to participatory culture of Web 2.0 (Gerlitz and Helmond 4) has led to the creation of a number of fields and subfields of media studies. One of them is ‘platform studies’ that emerged in a response to the growing popularity of various platforms, and that combine political economy, software studies, and management studies (Plantin and Punathambekar 170). The term 'platform’ comes from French, indicating a physical surface on which people or things could be positioned to perform a particular activity (Gillespie, “The Politics of 'Platforms'” 349; Bratton 43). Later, corresponding with the development of new technology, it came to describe not only a physical surface but also the idea of platforms being a virtual space for various actions, events and conditions. The connotations that they evoke today work with the idea of spaces of opportunity (Gillespie, “The Politics of ‘Platforms” 350) where one is empowered to connect and express themselves.

However, as de Reuver et al. explain, studying platforms has gradually become a real challenge for media scholars (125), as they are increasingly digital and distributed in nature. The development of Google, Facebook, and other tech giants resulted in the impossibility to talk about only a few platforms with clear goals. Instead, they have proliferated into every part of people’s lives. There are now platforms for tracking one’s health, or finances, facilitating transportation, providing entertainment, and many more. This, in turn, has an influence on both businesses and society.

Nevertheless, platforms have been described from various perspectives based on their interconnectedness of organizational and technical forms (Bratton 41) which indicate what they do, and how people can interact with them. They are often seen as “hybrid entities” that encompass traditional business models of supply chains, serve as a marketplace where providers and buyers interact, and are networks connecting end-users to each other (Coyle 5). Additionally, Gillespie defines them based on their functions. One of them is their computational function which he sees as an “infrastructure that supports the design and use of particular applications, be they computer hardware, operating systems, gaming devices, mobile devices or digital disc formats” (“The Politics of Platforms” 349). Computational perspective is perhaps most used today as it indicates and determines how people can interact with a specific platform.

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Others, on the contrary, see an ideal platform as an “empty diagram” (Bratton 49) and a blank set of software codes through which the online ecosystem is created (de Reuver et al. 126). This ecosystem then becomes a result of third-party interventions such as developers. As a result, those who do intervene can mediate information that is accessible. Arguably, though, if platforms were empty diagrams, as Bratton suggests, they would also imply neutrality in their functioning. However, more often platforms, through their architecture, become “discursive resting point[s]” as they imply certain way of being resembling legal states (Gillespie, “The Politics of Platforms” 348). At the same time, platforms can, and increasingly do, resemble markets through their “global distribution of interfaces and users” and through centralization of control (Bratton 42) on one hand, and decentralization of users as resources on the other leading to platforms’ products being open for new meanings and manufacture (de Reuver et al. 126). One such platform mediating discourse while acting as a marketplace is nowadays YouTube, to which I will turn shortly.

What most scholars agree on, nevertheless, is the necessity to acknowledge the importance of digital platforms. Through their combination of socio-technical and business practices they have gained scale and indispensability (Plantin and Punathambekar 164) on which social, cultural, and economic lives increasingly rely. To characterize this relationship, Nieborg and Poell use the term ‘platformization’ through which they stress the influence of platforms’ economic, governmental and infrastructural extensions in cultural production (4276). However, for this relationship to be viable, the participation and active curation of connections is key in bringing various stakeholders together.

In the beginning of this chapter, the proposition that the development of media studies has led to the creation of a new sub-field focusing on platforms was introduced. Even though a relatively new area of research, it has been of great interest to scholars who attempted, and continue to try, to explain their functioning and role in the society from various perspectives. These include mainly technical and socio-technical viewpoints that are crucial for situating platforms in a larger sociological research. However, some scholars still believe that platforms remain under-researched (Bratton 41) or not researched from a right perspective (Couldry, chap.Preface). Bratton argues that their hybridity, the fact that they combine organizational forms and technical forms with organizational complexity, is what renders them insufficiently researched. Couldry, on the other hand, emphasizes the need to shift the focus from the technical perspective and what platforms do to what people do with platforms and the media content once produced. The second argument, although valid, remains challenging for conducting research

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as it is difficult to trace and generalize how people interact with platforms and their content that offers almost infinite possibilities for the engagement. Additionally, studying only what people can do with platforms would omit the importance of their affordances – technical and social properties that determine how something can be used (Davis and Chouinard 241–42) – in the way users can interact with them. Thus, it remains important to study all the aspects in the processes of content production, as they directly influence cultural outputs and what people are able to do with them.

I.I Rise of Neoliberalism

First shift in the way people understand their roles in the society and on the market can be traced back to the 18th century when political and economic ideology of liberalism started emerging (Read 6). Its main concern was the freedom of individual with the key emphasis on the market and social exchange. Using Foucault’s words, it is social contract that becomes fundamental, and that sees the nature of exchange in a willingness to give up certain freedoms in return for various rights and liberties (Read 4).

Along-side liberalism, libertarianism, influenced by scholastic thinkers and the growing absolutism in Europe, was gaining prominence in the Western societies. This set of political beliefs emphasizes individual freedoms and liberties, and, like liberalism, promotes people’s ‘ownership of themselves’ (“Libertarianism | Definition, Doctrines, History, & Facts”). Today, these beliefs are promoted as central premises for the design and use of platforms. However, when examining their implementation, what becomes visible is only the surface of the utopian Silicon Valley ideology which is promoted across the world through companies such as Google, Facebook or YouTube (Dahlberg 176).

In the 20th century, the liberal ideals were pushed even further paving a way for neoliberalism to evolve. Exchange is suddenly lost and what becomes central is the competition that penetrates all levels of society, including private lives (Read 4). Discourse, in neoliberalism, is created by governing individuals through their economic activity. In terms of platform economy, people using platforms as contributors or suppliers of services put their private lives at stake to gain economic advantage. The distinction between private and public life is thus disappearing making people work constantly as their work equals their life.

This new context of understanding socio-economic relationships led to the emergence of the term homo-ecomomicus. The term first used by Foucault describes a person who is on a

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constant quest for improving himself in order to become a competitive, free and rational subject (van Doorn 355). Neoliberal ideology produced also a new regime of truth that puts a ‘worker’ and a ‘capitalist’ into the opposition, in which the new subjectivity and rationality is produced and a worker “becomes a bearer of a capacity, of human capital” (Read 8). Brown further argues that the “model neoliberal citizen is the one who strategizes for her or himself among various social, political, and economic options, not the one who strives with others to alter or organize these options” (qtd. in Read 13).

In connection to that, Gilles Deleuze presents the idea that the function of this new economic order to which people are exposed is to establish a new form of control (7). He also adds that societies have shifted from the disciplinary ones characterized by spaces of enclosure to the societies of control that are driven by corporations (3). Therefore, what becomes crucial for individual’s survival is the never-ending training and personal development which is often promoted by platforms that are driven by profit and operate as corporations.

In this regard, platforms also show us how power dynamics and inequalities become incorporated into its infrastructure. Power and control produced by them is characteristic for the neoliberal societies as their goal is two-fold. To coordinate the tasks of dispersed individuals and connect them on one hand and to isolate them through their infrastructure’s centralization on the other. There is a huge interdependency between platforms and economic forces that cannot be separated, and that equally influence further development of one another. As Srnicek argues, platforms have become a new economic model capable of extracting and controlling immense amounts of data (6) while at the same time the main drivers that shape their affordances are economic forces. On a cultural and societal level, possible communication flows are influenced in turn (Plantin and Punathambekar 171) and are mediated by the platform. Online communities that emerge on them change forms of communication and make the new horizontal and networked exchanges and interactions possible (Peticca-Harris et al. 2).

I.II YouTube

In order to understand how platforms “intervene deeply in the curation of culture and the organization of public communication” (Nieborg and Poell 4285) I will now turn to the introduction of YouTube and later its relationship with social media influencers who I position as workers in cultural industries (Neff et al. 307) highly dependent on YouTube’s affordances and business model. YouTube was initially founded by three PayPal employees in 2005

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(Arthurs et al. 3), and was purchased by Google Inc. in October 2006 for $1.65 billion (Arthurs et al. 3; Kim 55) at the time when the significance of sites with user-generated content was only becoming evident (Arthurs et al. 3). The significance of the deal that YouTube had reached with Google was confirmed in one of the issues of the Times magazine in 2006 which announced ‘You’ as the winner of the Person of the Year Award (ibid.). Today, YouTube is the second most visited website in the world which makes it, due to its infrastructure and affordances, the repository of popular culture (Arthurs et al. 3).

In his work, Kim demarcates two eras of YouTube characterized by the role of advertising in its functioning and the types of videos produced. The first one is what he calls pre-Google era which was dominated by “amateur-produced videos in an ad-free environment” (56). This amateur production was at the core of the platform as it built its value on “vernacular creativity” (Arthurs et al. 4) of contributors and consumers of the content before the internet TV and social media applications appeared. What made YouTube appealing to users at its initial stages of development was the fact that it provided a space of opportunity to upload everyday practices of users and offered an alternative to legacy media such as TV. Moreover, it offered an ‘insider perspective’ when discussing certain topics (Arthurs et al. 5) as the publishing of the content was not subject to gatekeeping practices. Thus, when one looks at YouTube’s slogan which supposedly gives everyone the chance to ‘broadcast themselves’, it becomes evident that it aligns with the initial purpose of the platform. However, nowadays, it could be argued that this ethos bares with itself a certain irony as it is used to hide exploitative business practices that govern the platform as will be further discussed.

What came after the acquisition of YouTube by Google is the so-called “post-Google era” which shifted the platform’s environment into ad-friendly as Google saw potential for monetization of the existing cultural goods that were produced on the platform. First monetization schemes were introduced already in 2006 and were conducted through advertising (Schwemmer and Ziewiecki 2). These resembled traditional TV formats as they were primarily in the form of display ads, skippable and non-skippable ads (ibid.). In the times when TV was a dominant medium (see, for instance, Ellingson) the distribution of ads was facilitated by human gatekeepers – people working in the mass media who had editorial control over the content. This gave also advertisers more control over the ways their promotions were distributed. In the case of YouTube, however, gatekeepers are algorithms on which advertisers have to rely.

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Soon after that, the company started researching new ways of monetization for which it garnered criticism by its users who saw in these practices the potential to negatively affect content production (ibid.). Their concerns were raised rightly as already a year later, YouTube started noticing emerging trend of YouTube celebrities as influencers for brands (the concept to which I will turn in more detail in the next sections). In combination with pervasive neoliberalism, the platform’s initial purpose soon shifted and started taking advantage of platform’s playfulness to target everyday people, mine their activities and exploit their human capital (Guarriello 1751).

Additionally, the production of content was changing from amateur to the increasingly professional which responded to the pressures from copyright holders (Kim 56 - 5). These were mainly major record companies such as Universal Music, Sony BMG and the Warner Music Group who agreed to cooperate with YouTube (Kim 56). In order to meet the needs of professional production companies and achieve the revenue goals, Google introduced in 2007 its content management tool which assigned each uploaded video its own ID, and established YouTube’s Partner Program for ad-revenue sharing (Gerhards 518). The main goal of this program was to attract more professionals to the site, and thus increase its attractiveness to potential advertisers (ibid.). What was becoming more apparent, however, was the increasing attention that amateur-produced content was nevertheless receiving which has forced the company to re-evaluate the importance they were placing upon those content produces. What was thus needed was the tactics that would offer greater incorporation of commercials into “vernacular” content as prior to that, advertiser were wary of pairing with amateur produced videos out of fear of being associated with inappropriate content (Cunningham and Craig 419). As a result, YouTube Creator Playbook was released aimed at native content creators providing them tips and best practices on how to incorporate their content into social media logic and build audiences (Cunningham and Craig 420). The playbook was, according to Cunningham and Craig considered to be a “bible” for content creators as it advised them to adopt TV production practices such as regular releases, timely publishing, audience engagement, etc. and pair them with affordances of social media (420).

Hand in hand with these trends was coming also the development of multichannel networks (MCNs) which were external companies assigned to manage expanding and increasingly chaotic YouTube environment and advertising infrastructure (Lobato 349 - 51). As Lobato explains, “a common business model is for MCNs to sign up a large number of popular channels to their network, then, using YouTube’s content management system, to sell

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advertising and cross-promote their affiliated channels across this network, while also working with popular YouTube celebrities to develop them into fully fledged video brands” (Lobato 349). As a predecessor to its content ID system (Lobato 350), MCNs allured to content creators by making them stand out in the ocean of opportunities that the platform was beginning to offer, and thus helping them with promotional and advertising services that would be monetarily beneficial also for content creators themselves in exchange for a commission (Lobato 351). The rise in the popularity of native content creators was becoming exploited not only by YouTube itself, but also by MCNs which started creating a thickening managerial net around rising YouTube celebrities (Lobato 349). Although some see MCNs as controversial in that they are accused of exploitative tactics when splitting revenue (ibid.) (such warnings appear directly on YouTube in forms of videos which can in itself be found ironic considering YouTube’s main business objective and the role of content creators in that process) it could be argued that they only represent modern form of media agents and intermediaries that are trying to maximize their profit through the governmentality and infrastructure that is provided directly by YouTube. In relation to this, Lobato argues that MCNs can have consequences for the structure of the platform’s archive “by stimulating the production of certain kinds of content over others, and making some kinds of content ‘better looking’ than others. Producers of beauty, cooking, gamer and fashion videos will be increasingly targeted by MCNs because of the clear link to consumer markets” (357). However, arguably, when looking at the ways MCNs operate, the attention should be put also on the role of YouTube in providing space of opportunity for such practices to emerge.

Today, many scholars talk about the hybrid model of functioning that YouTube has adopted throughout its various development stages. It stems mainly from the efficient incorporation of monetization practices into user-generated production (Arthurs et al. 7) and the blend of professionally produced content with the user-generated one as well as with the content that combines the two such as user-created content which uses professionally created music in their background (Andrejevic 407). This hybrid model has led also to the development of various monetization schemes which include mainly ways to gain revenue from user-produced content, and promise the gain to contributors as well.

Perhaps most known ways to gain economic advantage out of the content that formerly-amateur users produce is by reviewing products in their videos and inserting affiliate links in the description box under the corresponding video as part of the affiliate program agreements between the producer and the advertiser. Once viewers click on the link they are redirected to

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the site of the manufacturer or the shop for the purchase of the product (Schwemmer and Ziewiecki 3). Another way of earning money from their videos is a practice known as product placement which is widely used in marketing strategies and is not limited to social media only. It requires content producers to place products within their videos in such a way that makes it appear as an organic part of the content (ibid.).

From the perspective of Google, there are various programs that they use and offer to advertisers, and that are beneficial for both sides. Apart from overlay and pre-roll ads that were introduced already in 2007 and 2008 (Gerhards 518), YouTube offers a Partnership programme which is targeted primarily to more prominent and active producers with the aim to further elevate their visibility through “generat[ing] revenue from your videos and access to YouTube’s specialized partner features and tools, including rentals, content management, and analytics” (Cunningham and Craig 420). Prominent and successful contributors also get noticed by Google’s AdSense advertising company which makes them more attractive for placement of ads next to their content (Cunningham and Craig 421).

Google Preferred is among other major tools that is used by the company to aggregate the platform’s top content creators into “easy-to-buy packages for brand advertisers” (Google Inc.). It allows advertisers to reach most prominent creators from various categories of content production such as Beauty & Fashion, Entertainment & Pop Culture, and others, and through them, get access to most wanted audiences comprising of young people in their 20s and 30s (ibid).

The evidence discussed so far shows that today, YouTube’s value is grounded mainly in the fact that it offers space of opportunity for multiple stakeholders which include advertisers, content producers, users, and many others. It’s promise of openness and participatory culture is what draws different users at one place. However, what remains obscured are the questions of selection of who gets the chance to participate in the communication exchange and cultural production on YouTube, and what circumstances are pre-requisite for as well as outcome of such selection?

Platform’s affordances are one of the possible ways to answer these questions as they influence what users are able to do with the platform on two levels: social and technological (Davis and Chouinard 241–42; Postigo 335). Social affordances are the structures that work under set technical features. Technological affordances are those that make specific use of technology possible through the way they are built (Postigo 335). When it comes to

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technological affordances, this section will conclude with a brief introduction of possibilities offered by YouTube which will help better understand this platform’s functionalities.

The main entities that comprise YouTube include channels, playlists and videos (Rieder, “YouTube Data Tools”). Channels are essentially producers of content on the platform, and can be managed by a company, or an individual user who is a content creator (YouTuber). Channels can be structured into a collection of playlists curated by the creator him or herself or displayed as a list of videos based on their upload date and time. Additionally, they can be categorized into genres based on their content. Today, there are 16 different genres that can be accessed on YouTube with Autos & Vehicles being the most popular one, followed by Comedy, Education & Entertainment (Track YouTube Analytics, Future Predictions, & Live Subscriber Counts -

Social Blade). Other categories include Gaming, How-To & Style, Non Profit & Activism, and

many others. Video, then, is a main component on the channel which allows participation among viewers and followers of the content with the creator within the comments space under each video or liking/disliking/sharing of the content through the click of a button. The success of the channel/YouTuber is measured by the number of views and followers which is displayed under each video and on each channel. Lastly, the curation of content is done also by YouTube’s algorithms in the form of videos that viewers are suggested to watch next in the right-side bar next to the video, and which is based on the viewing history of each viewer.

Identifying goals of platforms is crucial in understanding how they create sociality and target niche audiences. YouTube distinguishes itself as a platform of opportunity for everyone who is using it (Gillespie, “The Politics of ‘Platforms’” 354). To advertisers, they offer a ground from which they can “build brand awareness, a public campaign, a product launch” (Gillespie, “The Politics of ‘Platforms’” 355). Media producers are offered a place from which their content can be made more visible and promoted to audiences (ibid.). User-generated content, in which YouTube started investing in 2011 (Ellingsen 109), promises to support creativity, foreground cultural activity and promote spread of content (van Dijck 8). Combined with their rhetoric of ‘you’, the sense of egalitarianism and support becomes more than apparent (Gillespie, “The Politics of ‘Platforms’” 355).

Although YouTube was primarily established for generating creative content by users, nowadays, it can be also seen as a social networking site as communities that are created around certain videos or channels share specific postings (van Dijck 9). When it comes to its importance in today’s economy, the statement issued by YouTube on their own website in January 2017 claims that “the number of channels earning six figures per year on YouTube is

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up 50% y/y” (qtd. in Bärtl 16). YouTube is today the largest televisual platform on the Internet which can be a result of the variety of its operational modes as well as its global reach that is facilitated by the lesser degree of licensing restrictions compared to other platforms (Ellingsen 108).

I.II The role of algorithms and advertisers

When it comes to studying the effects that the affordances and governance of platforms have on the content production, it is crucial to address not only the role of advertisers but also algorithms. As mentioned earlier, while in the case of TV, available programmes are known to be chosen by human gatekeepers based on criteria which include, for instance, the outlet’s ideology, in case of YouTube there is what Pasquale describes as “black box” denoting a system that lacks transparency in its computational processes which renders the human examination of the system’s inner workings impossible (Paudyal and Wong 193; Rieder at al. 51; Diakopoulos 2). Since YouTube is almost entirely dependent on advertisers when it comes to generating revenue, it is essential to address the relationship between them and algorithms.

Algorithms have become essential for the governance of platforms in general, and can influence everyday sociability, discrimination and power structures (Rieder et al. 51). They select, hierarchize, and suggest what users, who are increasingly becoming producers of the content at the same time, are able to access and do on the platform. The merging of the producer and a consumer has over the past decades became the main unit of the economy. Often referred to as “produser” or “prosumer” the term was coined already in 1980 by Alvin Toffler to indicate the changing nature of the mass media consumption and the society marked by interconnectedness and networks (Guerrero-Pico et al. 339). Algorithms often serve as facilitators and mediators of such practices, especially those of social media sites which have served the study of what algorithms can do as these platforms rely on them to steer the content flows (ibid.) by promoting certain content over other, as well as deleting and suspending some (Gillespie, “Platforms Intervene” 1). As Gillespie argues, “platforms pick and choose” through the implementation of algorithms rendering them more than just providers of the content (ibid.). Thus, examining more closely how algorithms work helps better understand how information on social media platforms is circulated and how advertisers can benefit from that.

Rieder explains that one of the principles that govern the algorithmic choices are the probability techniques. They decide “how information circulates, how people find and relate to

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each other, and how conduct is indeed conducted” (“Scrutinizing an Algorithmic Technique” 113). Another major component of YouTube’s content production is recommendation system which uses algorithms to suggest to viewers what content to consume, therefore determining which videos will become most successful (Arthurs et al. 10 – 11). This choice is made by the algorithm based on the principle of ‘collaborative filtering analysis’ which takes into account one’s viewing practices to choose content that is considered interesting or appropriate for each individual user (ibid.). Thus, one could argue that with the rise of social media platforms, algorithms have become content moderators which is what defines platforms as such. In terms of YouTube, success of videos is determined by the forecast performed by algorithms which can either rank it highly or downgrade it quickly if it does not perform as needed (Rieder et al. 53). What advertisers are interested in, then, are videos that have the potential to be favoured by the algorithm and reach as much audiences as possible. In order to fulfil their revenue goals, they pair with videos produced by reputable channels as in the era of proliferation of types of content, videos and contributors, they have become increasingly aware of the dangers that rashly produced user-generated content can have. This includes primarily potential negative audience responses which might lead to unfavourable associations that viewers might make with a company (Gillespie, “The Politics of ‘Platforms’” 353).

In order to secure the availability of appropriate content for attractive advertisers and avoid possible controversies which could affect the collaboration among the platform and other businesses, YouTube has created a reward system for those content creators who comply with the advertisers’ demands which led to the implementation of significant algorithmic changes in 2012 (Bishop 72). Videos featuring non-commercial content had suddenly lost visibility and what became favoured were quality-produced and lengthy videos that were not concerned with controversial topics and that could easily be used for partnerships with brands (ibid.).

As a result, in order to succeed in the increasingly competitive YouTube environment, content creators started adopting what Nieborg and Poell call algorithmic logic of production (4280). If one wants to be successful, the necessity to think like the algorithm often comes at cost of influencer’s creativity which becomes a subject to algorithmic governmentality. One of the ways to increase visibility is using trending tags and keywords to mark the video as these are one of the main components that algorithms examine when assessing the relevance and potential popularity of the video (Bishop 77). However, nowadays, YouTube is increasingly becoming aware of such practices, and is trying to remove the use of these as they are easily exploited (ibid). Instead, they allow youtubers’ access to online Creator Studio where they can

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get help and useful analytics software to track their success and maximize their social capital on the platform (Bishop 73).

Although such support might seem useful to aspiring youtubers, a research done by Bärtl illustrates that on YouTube, an average of 85% of all views goes only to 3% of existing channels (16). His study also showed that already established and known channels tend to be favoured and promoted by algorithms significantly more compared to aspiring channels which makes it more difficult for those creators to combat algorithmic logic and enter the upper echelon of successful YouTube stars. What becomes crucial for entrants to the YouTube scene is a wise choice of genre and content which has the potential to be sold.

Even though full understanding of the role of algorithms in content production remains impossible, their influence on flows of information and the mentality of rich-get-richer remains beyond questionable. Scholars have thus proposed various other ways to study them from ‘outside’ such as conducting scraping or reverse engineering in order to hold companies accountable (Rieder et al. 51; Diakopoulos 13). However, there are limitations to these techniques. Rieder et al. also propose to study rankings as they are “distributed and dynamic accomplishments” (53) barring outcomes for the assemblage of the “processes of creativity, conceptual innovation, and observation [that] can be used to mobilize novel insights” (Savage, 170 qtd. in Rieder et al. 53). What becomes seen as especially problematic is when algorithms base their calculations on user feedback. In such a case, “interpretability” of results becomes concerning as they no longer operate with a specific business model that wold render their work available for any further scrutiny or regulations (Rieder et al. 53). Moreover, from the perspective of social constructivism and Marxist criticism, Rieder argues that studying algorithms is not necessary. Algorithmic choices are seen only as consequences, not causes of struggle which remain elsewhere (103).

I.III Rise and nature of digital labour

YouTube’s operational model reveals that it is a platform that operates as a multi-sided market with the architecture that serves dual purpose: social and sometimes monetary reward for the content creator if he or she is followed enough, and monetary for the platform, and advertiser. This has been facilitated primarily by the rise of Web 2.0 technologies, development of organizational forms and neoliberal governmentality which have all had an influence on the way work is understood and conducted. The spread of Internet is believed to have removed all

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barriers when it comes to seeking jobs, and due to these circumstances, careers are now seen as boundaryless and post-corporate as opposed to having a linear trajectory (Braches and Elliott 537).

Boltanski and Chiapello refer to these new conditions as to the New Economy workplaces. Developed in the late 20th century (Ross 2) the notion of New Economy, which coincided with the development of the Internet technologies, paved a path for the establishment of online companies. These, as opposed to the brick-and-mortar companies of the ‘Old Economy’ became a synonym for the ways New Economy is supposed to function (Ross 9). However, what has been influenced the most were not so much the business practices or expectations of the companies themselves but people’s expectations of work (Ross 15). According to Boltanski and Chiapello, the New Economy is determined by the new spirit of capitalism which is based on people’s commitment to the ideology (Boltanski and Chiapello 162). It is marked by Internet and finance, fuzzy organizational structures, networks, permanent change, adaptability, project-based work and constant management of the self (Boltanski and Chiapello 166; Ross 9). It is also seen as “a set of discourses oriented around the participation and autonomy of labour” (Yeritsian 703) in which “the general standard is activity” (Boltanski and Chiapello 169). This new attitude towards work borrowed from two sets of discourses and ideologies. The first one resembles the utopian ideals about the need for constant self-development and the need to reinvent oneself in order to become valuable, whereas the second one has a basis in bohemian ethos that one can pursue democratic ideals of freedom and be spontaneous even within companies (Ross 18).

From the perspective of the businesses, technological development has led to the increase of global competition and the need of companies to reduce costs and increase productivity (Neff et al. 309). In the newly created technological and economic environment, using digital platforms becomes crucial for gaining competitive advantage as they decrease the costs of searching, contacting and contracting on the commercial markets (Henten and Windekilde 2). Additionally, the platforms allow for the capitalization of knowledge (Peticca-Harris et al. 2) for both potential employers and employees which does not require any substantial investment while at the same time increasing demand for workers’ flexibility (Neff et al. 308) and allowing for the frequent career transitions to be seen as influential events in one’s career path.

Muntaner in his work uses the term ‘gig economy’ to indicate the growing trend in unstable labour and unfavourable employment conditions (598). The terms he uses to describe

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the new career trends are “flexible,” “non-standard,” “temporary,” and especially “precarious” labour that grew in importance over the last four decades. Year 2009 is of a special importance in this context because it has witnessed a rising influence of YouTube stars and is labelled as a year of the establishment of this phenomenon as those contributors gained microcelebrity status and found ways of earning money that were up until that point, i.e. prior to the 2008 financial crisis (Guarriello 1751), considered alternative (Schwemmer and Ziewiecki 2).

Communication, cultural and Internet studies responded to these trends by introducing various notions of labour based on its properties. Some of the new ways to label emergent employment trends include “digital labour” (see for instance Fuchs or Postigo), “co-creative labour” (Banks and Deuze), “passionate labour” (Postigo), “affective labour” (Hochschild, Hardt), “aspirational labour” (Duffy), “visibility labour” (Neff et al., Abidin), “relational labour” (Baym), and many others. Although precarious conditions of these types of labour are often interrelated and considered “free labour” which build on the narrative “do what you love”, for the purpose of this paper, only those that are the most pertinent to the influencers’ communication practices and disclosure of mental health issues will be discussed as they themselves confessed in interviews for popular outlets and/or in their videos.

Starting by perhaps most used term digital labour it describes “a process undertaken by media consumers and configured in digital networks as ‘productive’ in its own right” (Postigo 334). Postigo’s notion is interesting to examine as it implies that the labour is produced not only by producers of the content, YouTubers, but also consumers who through their viewing practices provide media companies valuable data about their consuming habits. This offers media companies opportunity for further monetization of information that is available to them, thus exploiting not only creative labour of contributors, but also that of viewers. The exploitative practices in this regard could be considered even more obtrusive as viewers have very little possibilities to opt out from the kind of ‘labour’ that they perform for these companies, often without being aware of it. Postigo further argues that the practices that YouTube promotes are that of “selective seeing” which include ways to extract value while at the same time creating communities (336 – 37) all of which is done through the use of algorithms.

Visibility labour is another important type of work that is conducted by YouTubers as in order to gain not only social reward but also monetary from their production, they need to be seen by the algorithm. This type of labour includes self-presentation strategies which aim is to be noticed in a positive light among audiences (Abidin, “Visibility Labour” 90). Taken from

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this perspective, visibility labour has been around for years and has always been performed by people in their day-to-day interactions with others, including their employers. However, what could be argued in this regard is that the precarity and pressure that YouTubers experience is caused by inhuman forces of opaque algorithms which operate behind the scenes and influence the visibility that will be granted to content creators. Additionally, algorithms have been reported by YouTubers themselves to be a source of pressure and mental health difficulties when planning their communication and presentation strategies as I will discuss in detail in the third chapter.

Lastly, the type of labour that is positioned as central in relation to this paper is emotional and affective labour (Hochschield and Hardt) which in this work is treated as one as their main traits include working with immaterial goods that are increasingly becoming used in the current economic era as opposed to production of tangible products of industrial era. Emotional labour has first been introduced by Hochschild already in 1983 and applied primarily to women’s practices that were performed in their households, and which Hochschild identifies as work that they had not been paid for. Emotional labour in her view consists of commodification of emotions in order to perform self-management strategies and regulate one’s feelings which should consequently lead to elevation of one’s relationships (Mardon et al. 444). Like visibility labour, emotional labour is not anything new in working environment. The necessity to strategize with emotions and perform certain picture of oneself has existed and still exists also in traditional forms of employment. What is problematic, though, is the level to which emotions are becoming commodified and exploited in digital environments. Instead of elevating negative feelings, digital media, including YouTube, have created a space of opportunity for the negative emotions to be displayed publicly. This is not to say that people should hide them at all costs and thus further promote the bizarre logic of social media which requires everyone to be constantly happy but rather to address the loop that is created using negative affect. Portraying negative emotions on platforms that operate under the neoliberal logic which expects everyone to experience stress, anxiety and burnout throughout their lifetime may invite followers of YouTube stars to share compassionate comments and possibly like or share such videos. This increases the value of the content creator as the views serve as one of the main metrics for judging YouTubers’ success. Thus, the authenticity of such disclosures becomes questionable as one may doubt whether such contributions were made “just for show” and increased possibilities to be seen and thus monetized.

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When it comes to building relationships with their audiences through the use of negative affective labour, Berlant argues that even such labour can be productive as it creates intimate contact with publics (qtd. in Berryman and Kavka 90). However, Berryman and Kavka doubt the ability of such contributions to the platform to rise monetary income. According to them, such videos are at the opposition with YouTube’s Partner Policy from August 2016 which labels “sensitive subjects” as “not advertiser-friendly” as they do not comply with YouTube’s rising professionalization of aesthetics and appearance since such videos usually depict rawness of negative emotions and are shot outside professional settings (93). However, contrary to YouTube’s policy and Berryman and Kavka’s doubt, the question might be raised whether with the increasing trend to talk publicly about mental health difficulties there is a possibility to witness in the future the change in dominant advertisers and the increasing visibility of those offering other technological tools such as apps for improving one’s well-being?

When further expanding on the notion of emotional labour, it can be seen that Raun and Guarriello in their works talk about the adoption of formerly feminine values as it allows content creators to monetize their work. Such proposition stems from gender studies in which women’s knowledges were originally downgraded and shunned as the economy transitioned to capitalism (Guarriello 8). Conversely, what is possible to witness now is, according to Federici, re-birth of female practices such as collectivity and expressions of emotions which have, however, been re-tooled for the purposes of monetary extraction in the social media economy serving primarily white males in their professional careers and status acquisition (qtd. in Guarriello 8).

Turrow’s definition of emotional labour offers a view that intimate practices in which YouTubers engage serve the purpose of building intimate space between them and their viewers and followers which should ultimately lead to monetization of their life events (qtd. in Guarriello 1762). For Baym, emotional labour can be expanded and defined as relational labour which requires never-ending affective, material and cognitive interaction and communicative strategies in order to develop intimate relationships and create working structures with the audiences that would make their work possible over longer periods of time (qtd. in Guarriello 1763).

In light of the theories discussed above, YouTubers are model neoliberal citizens and workers of cultural industries who fight to create their own personas and sell themselves through engaging in free labour before they are able to reach certain level of visibility. Popular and aspirational narrative, a term coined by Duffy, omits the level of competition which puts

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enormous pressure on people who want to succeed in the online market (Peticca-Harris et al. 2) making it harder for them to exit the industry (Mole and Roper qtd. in Braches and Elliott 536) while making the entire production process seem effortless and coincidental (Abidin, “Visibility Labour” 90). Losing the sight of the precarities that people experience causes further fuelling of the existing myths surrounding the work of YouTubers. The myths are authenticity, meritocracy, and entrepreneurialism, all centred around the core principles of neoliberalism (Marwick 246).

The myth of authenticity believes that in order to gain audiences, one has to differentiate themselves from their peers. It incorporates blending of private and professional lives, and carefully orchestrating ways one presents him or herself on any occasion so that the image created around their persona is socially acceptable (Marwick 248). Meritocracy, on the other hand, can be seen as a concept particular to the US culture that has, together with the technologies originating often in Silicon Valley, spread across the world. It implies that everyone who works hard enough can succeed no matter their socio-economic background or education (Marwick 246).

The third and most popular myth is entrepreneurialism which builds on the principle of self-branding “as a conscious impression management strategy” which uses cultural cues such as visual codes to communicate one’s abilities and value (Duffy 451). YouTube’s affordances further fuel this myth through the employment of reputation-based dynamics in determining the visibility of a contributor (Arthurs et al. 10). Entrepreneurialism also aligns with neoliberal ideals of boundaryless career with the emphasis on mobility and one’s networking abilities (Braches and Elliott 536). It promotes opportunistic individualism (ibid.) and blends with the concept of meritocracy in that personal effort and persistence is enough to generate reward and social status. The lens through which people are evaluated becomes their degree of entrepreneurialism disregarding the levels of success. On YouTube particularly, the lens for evaluation of content creator’s success is a number of followers who are subscribed to the channel, and views.

I.IV Influencer marketing

As briefly mentioned above, YouTubers can transform their side hustle about which they are passionate into economically viable alternative to traditional employment relationships by gaining algorithmic visibility and partnering with advertisers. The collaborations that they

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establish are often referred to as campaigns and take place in various forms such as sharing sponsored content, documentation of brand-related event, appearing at such events, product placement, etc (Kemp et al. 142), and within specific time frames (Stoldt et al. 2). Old marketing practices are believed to be disrupted by the development of Internet technologies (Rohm et al. 47), with influencer marketing having its roots in the blogging era of the 1990s (Biggins).

Today, the rise of influence that YouTube and other social media stars have allows companies to promote their products “in a more organic, trust-affirming manner” as opposed to older advertising formats (Kemp et al. 141). This digital disruption has led many firms to adjust not only their marketing strategies in order to remain competitive, but also their budgets which have increasingly been allocated to influencers’ partnerships (ibid.). Such course of development has led YouTube to become the second leading influencer marketing platform, after Instagram (Schwemmer and Ziewiecki 2) with predictions for 2019 showing that the importance of content in form of a video will continue to grow (Influencer Marketing Hub, “10 Leading Influencer Marketing Trends for 2019 [+ INFOGRAPHIC]”).

However, when examining influencer marketing more closely, the parallels between what is now called ‘traditional’ marketing and this new form can be drawn. The main similarity is in the fact that marketers continue to use celebrity endorsements in order to promote their products (Influencer Marketing Hub, “10 Leading Influencer Marketing Trends for 2019 [+ INFOGRAPHIC]”) and spread the word of mouth. However, the difference is in the fact that audiences of the past were confronted with more traditional celebrities such as Hollywood stars that were, through their exposure in the media, able to reach wide, yet less diversified, audiences. Thus, influencer marketing can be defined as a blend of old and new marketing practices using celebrities where the main focus is put on the collaboration with social media content creators whose influence is perceived as decisive within a particular community (Schwemmer and Ziewiecki 1) rather than traditional celebrities (Influencer Marketing Hub, “What Is Influencer Marketing?”).

Over the last few years, the worth of the influencer marketing industry has skyrocketed from being $1.7 billion industry in 2016, to potentially reach $6.5 billion in 2019 (Influencer Marketing Hub, “The State of Influencer Marketing 2019”). Therefore, the tactics and forces that are governing and influencing YouTubers content production, such as collaborations with brands and professionalization of YouTube resulting in its distancing from being a platform where vernacular content is spread, cannot be ignored. A survey done by Influencer Marketing Hub also demonstrates that the pressures for production imposed by companies and the need to

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secure income have led 77% of respondents to increase their content output over the last two years (Influencer Marketing Hub, “The State of Influencer Marketing 2019”). When looking at these numbers, the avalanche of confessions about mental health struggles resulting from stress, anxiety and burnout that started appearing in the last year or so becomes perhaps less surprising. Even more recently, what is becoming popular and more beneficial for every stakeholder involved is the cultivation of relationships on a long-term basis. Such an approach is believed by brands to have higher value as it increases the credibility of influencer’s relationship and loyalty towards a brand (Influencer Marketing Hub, “The State of Influencer Marketing 2019”) as audiences are becoming increasingly aware of the doubtful authenticity of influencer marketing (see, for instance, The Akin). Arguably, this puts increased pressure on an influencer to manage his or her appearance with even greater sophistication and attentiveness. He or she is thus required to adopt visibility labour with greater care in order to be noticed by brands that could sponsor their content. Moreover, while it is relatively easy for established YouTubers to secure beneficial collaborations, those who suffer more in this visibility circle are smaller content creators who may not have the same followership, but who are nevertheless dependent on their production for monetary income.

More recently, what can be witnessed as a trend in influencer marketing is YouTubers themselves creating product lines within their area of influence, such as launching make-up lines, apparel collections, etc. Thus, more recently, what has been established to benefit primarily companies, has turned to benefit as a marketing tool for the YouTuber him or herself. Although this might alleviate their struggles with securing brand collaborations, they nevertheless have to manage their appearance in order to not lose favour of the audiences that they have.

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II. Celebrity Culture

The next chapter of this paper will focus on celebrity culture since YouTube content creators are often referred to as microcelebrities both by mainstream media outlets as well as academic community. This concept is important to address because of the significance and the role of platforms, business practices and labour conditions in the creation of microcelebrities and the shifting nature of celebrity culture as a whole. The institutionalization of platforms like YouTube and the declining production of amateurish content on the platform have created an opportunity for a new kind of celebrity manufacturing. Today, it is possible to witness an omnipresent ‘fame culture’ which is not connected exclusively to large-scale events or a few public figures of the film as used to be the case in the past but has shifted from traditional media also to the more modern ones, including YouTube platform. Today, contrary to the traditional celebrity personas, fame is unfolding also around more intimate practices of emotional revelations and investment (Couldry, chap.Media as Ritual and Social Form) in order to gain visibility and connect with audiences in the increasingly competitive environment.

Since the beginning of film, celebrity personas have been produced with the aim to exercise marketing strategies (ibid). In media rich societies, celebrities have come to dominate the public space as they are present not only in entertainment media such as reality TV or more recently YouTube but also news (Driessens 641). Celebrities can additionally be viewed as cultural and communicative practice as they also serve a semiotics of identity which is in most societies constantly promoted as a major socio-cultural and political issue. This came as a result of the rise of ‘entertainment cultures’ in which celebrities with their personalities overrule hero, leader or a holy-person, and in which the representation of individualism becomes more important than the representation of institutions (Hartley 26). A survey conducted in 2015 among 1,500 US teenagers revealed that prominent YouTube creators were, in the view of young people, more influential than traditional celebrities (Gerhards 4). The power of celebrities, in fact, lays in the formation of parasocial relationships as media viewers experience different kinds of parasocial responses with online figures (Chen 237). Parasocial interactions are based on the “interpersonal notions of attraction, perceived similarity or homophily, and empathy” (Rubin and Rubin, qtd. in Chen 236) which is why the propositions that celebrities distract from higher-value issues may be exaggerated as audiences tend to identify and assimilate with their role-models. The concept of parasocial relationships, was, however, developed much earlier than with the rise of digital media and online celebrity culture. Already

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in 1956, Richard Wohl and Donald Horton introduced the theory in which the interaction is believed to occur when media offer their audiences seemingly intimate, face-to-face communication with a performer (Chen 236).

This theory first came to light with the invention of TV which granted only one-sided communication (Rihl and Wegener 9). Nevertheless, viewers’ experiences revealed that the impressions that they were left with were as if the personalities from the screen were addressing them individually (Rihl and Wegener 2) which resulted in the illusion of having more friends and richer social life that stemmed from the creation of parasocial relationships (Kanazawa, qtd. in Chen 236). However, Madison et al. argue that the reasons for sticking to parasocial relationships have altered considerably. The main motivators for their establishment and maintenance seem to be the need to compensate for the lack of social interaction in the real life (262) which reveals the irony of social media as they first started operating with the aim to bring people closer together. On the contrary, another research studying parasocial relationships suggests that they do not serve the compensatory function but rather are an extension of our existing social lives into an imaginary arena (ibid.) making the reasons for the establishment of parasocial relationships opened to individual motives.

Today, the creation of parasocial relationships and the rise in fame culture is facilitated by the “decentralization of celebrity production” (Driessens 646) in which the public persona is not created by a handful of influential studios of entertainment industry but by Internet and social platforms such as YouTube or Instagram that have produced what Driessens calls a “do-it-yourself celebrity”. In the realm of social media platforms, the process of celebrification, i.e. becoming known, however, includes some of the same strategies used by traditional celebrities (Jerslev 5235–37). In their initial stages of celebrification, YouTube stars engage primarily in mediation of their self-presentation strategies. What has become different, on the other hand, is the disappearance of the demarcation line that was putting traditional celebrity in a distinct social position that was granted privilege and was disconnected from everyday practices (ibid.). Instead, the display of the private and mundane is what serves the purpose of celebrification on social media. Microcelebrities can thus be seen as a contemporary embodiment of celebrity culture enabled by Internet’s and platforms’ governmentality which gives its users an avenue to turn their hobbies into a (profitable) career.

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II.I Rise of Microcelebrities

Before going deeper into the practices that microcelebrities engage in, and strategies used to gain and/or maintain status, I will briefly situate their development in the academic literature. The microcelebrities’ field of study first emerged in early 2000s and was applied to the examination of webcam girls by Theresa Senft. Later, it was considerably elaborated on by Alice Marwick who applied her research on the study of microcelebrities among Silicon Valley start-ups (Raun 104; Abidin and Brown 2).

Microcelebrity studies have since then expanded across a number of disciplines including digital studies, labour studies, and many others. Consequently, a number of definitions of what a microcelebrity is have arisen among scholars, including the concept of social media influencer which is often used interchangeably with the first term. Senft herself defines microcelebrity as someone employing a new type of online performance which requires audience to increase and validate their popularity over the Web, on social media sites (qtd. in Guarriello 1755–56). According to Jerslev, this performance is designed primarily for self-branding which is done through communicative practices that require one to think about him or herself as about a celebrity and address others accordingly (5239). However, when examining the work of social media influencers, it could be argued that what microcelebrities are doing is exactly the opposite. Their success lays in the fact that they do not position themselves as traditional celebrities distant from the struggles of their audiences but rather use those as a means to connect to them. Instead, as Mavroudis and Milne, and Marwick and boyd (140) explain, micro-celebrities use a wide range of practices that include the performance of everyday life in which self-presentation is carefully orchestrated with the aim to be, ideally, monetized. The popularity is maintained through management of the audiences and followers are viewed as fans as opposed to friends and family in times when social media where less prominent (Marwick and boyd 144).

The term influencer, which I have already mentioned, is understood as one form of microcelebrity “who accumulate a following on blogs and social media through textual and visual narrations of their personal, everyday lives, upon which advertorials for products and services are premised” (Abidin, “Visibility Labour” 86) and who are seen as a “new type of independent third-party endorser” (Freberg et al. 90). Based on this definition, influencers can be seen as microcelebrities who have successfully managed the visibility labour through algorithms, and affective labour when addressing their audiences to later fully adopt the entrepreneurial spirit in the process of commodification of their lives. What the affordances of

Platform Economy and the Rise of Social Media Influencer: Critical Discourse Analysis of Mental Health Management on YouTube