Kirsty Evers
MSc Inequality and Society
Please note that this essay was written for the BA (Hons) Media, Culture and Communication degree, however it contains significant social scientific theorising and so was published on this blog.
The use of social media has become a part of everybody’s everyday lives. They act as consistent outlets of entertainment and consumption and play their part in popular culture. A notable social media is YouTube, a video sharing platform created in 2004. YouTube boasts 30 million visitors per day with 5 billion videos being watched per day (Anon, 2018), this constant usage makes YouTube a worthy area of study in what role it plays in our society. As YouTube is “marked by dynamic change [and] a diversity of content” (Burgess & Green, 2009: 6) wherein “television, cinema, music and advertising, appear next to bedroom, boardroom, or backyard productions” (ibid :42), this essay will concentrate on the vlogging community, so the ‘bedroom’ or ‘backyard’ production side, rather than YouTube as a whole. This is a group where people speak “into the camera, sharing parts of their day, or their thoughts” (Nightingale, 2016) however, the reality they present to their audience is complicated and will be analysed alongside Jean Baudrillard’s thoughts on simulacra and hyper-reality. Analysing this community helps in understanding a small part of YouTube and what it means in popular culture.
To understand the cynicism and pessimism (King, 1998: 51) associated with Baudrillard’s thoughts we must first understand where post-modernism originated from. It all started when Modernism began to appear academically in the 1980’s, with the enlightenment era, this period was associated with the rise of early capitalism and industry but also had a focus on using science to explain the world, this coincides with the specific developments for science around this time. The enlightenment era saw scientific successes as progress, such an example is shown in the discovery of Uranus in 1781 by William Herschel which expanded “the known boundaries of the solar system for the first time in modern history.” (ETC, 2015: 7). The whole thought process of this period was that progression was good and was leading humanity forward. In 1759, Jean le Rond d’Alembert epitomises the thoughts at the time by writing “it is difficult not to perceive that in several respects a most remarkable change has taken place in our ideas, a change which, by its rapidity, seems to promise use a greater one yet.” (Alembert et al, 1995:24).
Modernism then moved into the art world and focused on art that challenged bourgeois assumptions. Modernist art was associated with shock value, for example; Picasso with his work on Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) which introduced a new artistic style of cubism. The second world war crushed modernist ideas, and this is where post-modernism emerged. The consistent number of wars after world war II and the rapid technological enhancement led to a critical response from post-modernists, it was a “reaction against the philosophical assumptions and values of the modern period of Western history” (Duignan, 2018). Post-modernists believe that popular culture and authentic culture are blurring, the lines between them are misplaced. For instance, audiences can now attend the cinema, an institution a part of popular culture known for perpetuating mass popular culture films, to watch higher cultural products such as Hamlet, Macbeth and even the royal ballet at a Vue cinema (Vue Cinemas, 2016).
Dominic Strinati states how “postmodernism tries to come to terms with and understand a media-saturated society.” (1992). He outlines a checklist of five crucial characteristics that make a text post-modern.
“1. The breakdown of the distinction between culture and society
2. An emphasis on style at the expense of substance and content
3. The breakdown of the distinction between high culture (art) and popular culture
4. Confusions over time and space
5. The decline of the ‘meta-narratives’” (Mcguigan, 2007: 6)
First, the vlogging community does focus on “qualities like artistic merit, integrity, seriousness, authenticity, realism, intellectual depth and strong narratives.” (ibid). Vlogging is debatably untruthful, unreal, and unauthentic according to Baudrillard’s thoughts, however, the multitude of vloggers mean that some do cover ‘strong narratives’ such as ‘Daily Bumps’ who document everyday family activities, which may seem like a weak narrative, however, this provides a document or archive every day of this family’s life as they grow up which is unattainable in other traditional media forms. This means vloggers roughly fit into Strinati’s second point. YouTube offers a breakdown between high culture and popular culture in the fact users can listen to any classical composition by Vivaldi, Mozart, or Beethoven and many more, but they can also listen to any pop song by Little Mix, Katy Perry, or Ariana Grande. This breakdown and fluidity means users can access a multitude of culture without restriction. Vloggers can do this as well, coming from a certain cultural background will affect the sort of vlogs they will produce. Someone like Andrea Balaban will visit the Opera in her vlog (Andrea Balaban, 2017: 34:00:00) and this provides an opportunity to see into the life of someone who participates higher culture.
Due to the rapidity and fluidity of uploading videos onto YouTube time becomes distorted and confused. Users can watch videos from 2014 to anything uploaded in the present, it becomes more unstable when YouTubers can postpone a video for a day, a week or even a month before it automatically uploads, vloggers usually stick to a day to day schedule however they can upload videos at a from a different time whenever they want. Lastly, “the vlog as a genre of communication invites critique, debate and discussion.” (Burgess & Green, 2009: 54) means that meta-narratives can be critiqued and broken down. However, people can also make videos in support of certain meta-narratives such as the channel Wretched that focuses on teaching about Christianity. The polysemic nature of YouTube as a platform means that not every section of it fits the idea of a post-modern text, however, quite a large quantity of it does.
Jean Baudrillard was an influential post-modernist thinker who concerned himself with ideas around reality, he was concerned with the increasing collapse of the distinction between reality and fiction. Baudrillard argued that “We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.” (1994: 79) In his book Simulacra and Simulation (Baudrillard, 1981) he draws attention to how society is moving further away from an objective reality and that contemporary society is replacing reality with symbols and signs. There is this blurring of the distinction between what is real and what is not, for Baudrillard “in a society of simulations the hyper-real comes to constitute the real” (Kellner, 1991).
The Simulacra is typified by the mass media industry and particularly their control of our understanding of the world. One user of Facebook stated how she was “supplementing my real, physical life as a human being with something superficial and untrue to myself.” (Haines, 2014) and therefore she had to leave the platform. Baudrillard suggests that when the simulation becomes so consistent it is increasingly hard to tell what is real. Vloggers suggest that they represent their reality in their daily vlogs. It is one of the easiest YouTube genres to be a part of as the only equipment necessary is a recording device, editing software and an internet connection. Every stage of the vlogging process pushes reality further from any form of objective truth.
A YouTuber by the name ‘DSLRguide’ uploaded a video titled ‘The Danger of Daily Vlogging’ wherein he states how “vlogs are fake […] It’s incredibly easy to edit out the bad parts or the boring parts.” (DSLRguide, 2016: 01:47-02:15). This claim is easily backed up by many vloggers including popular channel ‘BFvsGF’ stating how “A lot of stuff goes on that we don’t record.” (BFvsGf, 2016: 00:41). Another vlogger states how “We hiked for around 4 hours and shot tons of video, but cut this episode down into just 4 minutes for the vlog.” (EndlessAdventure, n.d). The highly edited nature of the vlogging community pushes their videos into the simulacra, this is created mostly through Baudrillard’s ideas on the stages of simulacra.
It is suggested that vloggers must be able to “create a compelling storyline out of seemingly ordinary events and […] provide engaging, improvised commentary as they film” (Anon, 2017), vloggers must entertain, and, in that process, they destroy any sort of truth and reality. This fits in with Strinati’s first characteristic of post-modern texts wherein the reflection of reality is distorted and broken down.
Baudrillard theories that there are stages of simulation, he states that representation begins, firstly, in a “good appearance – representation is of the sacramental order. In the second, it is an evil appearance – it is of the order of maleficence. In the third, it plays at being an appearance – it is of the order of sorcery. In the fourth, it is no longer of the order of appearances, but of simulation.” (Baudrillard, 1994:6). To simplify, reality is in the ‘pre-session’ this is the truest form, this would be the vlogger walking around with their camera during production, not recording, this turns into a copy during the recording process. The vlogger then editing this recorded reality creates a corrupted copy wherein they can tamper with reality, a vlogger can overlay sounds, edit out scenes they do not like, problems in the sound, apply a filter, use transitions to break down time and so on. This corrupted edited copy of reality the vlogger uploads to YouTube moves the audience and themselves further from the ‘real’. Vloggers can create an idealised impression of their reality for their audiences to look up to and aspire to, despite the fact their ‘lives’ they are presenting are now heavily compromised and transformed into something entertaining.
In events such as Vidcon and Playlist Live fans of vloggers can meet them, attend panels and many more activities. The event itself is not the issue, the issue comes with the fact these fans will leave the event and wait for a mediated version to be uploaded by the vlogger wherein they can watch it from their edited perspective, the event now becomes a part of this hyper-reality. Fans can also construct their own reality from this event wherein they take pictures or even their own videos to upload and edit, this perpetuates the reality the vlogger is trying to put across. A vlog about Playlist Live by ‘Evan Edinger Travel’ shows him, in a 7minute period meeting fans, attending a party with other vloggers, attending a concert during the event and then an after party. The reality of the event is now only understood in terms of this mediated image from the vlogger, those who did not attend the event only see it through this hyper-reality the vlogger created.
Since YouTube “functions in relation to a range of other social networks” (Burgess & Green, 2009: 275) it means corrupted copies of the event are also uploaded on Instagram, Facebook, and other social medias, All the time. Vloggers can update their followers 24/7 if they wanted too, this eases the idea of a hyper-reality as certain times edited out of the vlog could end up on their Instagram story instead, however, these images and videos on other social media sites still would have gone through the stages of simulation and are still a corrupted copy of reality. A day after Playlist Live 2018 ended about 7,150 videos have already been uploaded to YouTube about the event (Anon, 2018), so in critique there could be variety in these vlogs that show different aspects of reality that another one edited out, however all videos on this platform still go through the stages of simulacra, even un-edited videos still make it to the second stage, this copy of reality.
Baudrillard’s thoughts on Disneyland can be applied to vlogging Youtubers who travel or live in different countries. Baudrillard argues that Disneyland is presented as imaginary, the fantasy is exaggerated “to make us believe that the rest is real” (Baudrillard, 1981:12). His idea here is that Disneyland acts an illusion, a pretend fantasy, to cover up the fact there is no distinction “Disneyland is so effective a simulacrum that its experiences rebound into the world we normally think of as real.” (Carel & Gamez, 2004: 26). Travel Vloggers, those who focus on travelling around the world and showing it off, aid in constructing certain ideas and images of these places. With about 21,200,000 vlogs on YouTube about Disney (Anon, 2018) with titles such as ‘Disney world really is the happiest place on earth’ (LucyandLydia, 2018) the exaggeration of Disneyland and the perpetual hyper-reality it suggests is furthered through vloggers, the lack of distinction is furthered by vloggers who create videos about the surrounding area, they offer more mediated and edited images of the surrounding places and continue to remove distinction from reality and fantasy.
When travel vlogger, ‘FunForLouis’ visited North Korea he created a ‘ten-episode’ playlist into what it was like to visit on a strictly guided tour, this received critique and backlash stating how he was “choosing […] to go for a light tone, oohing and ahhing over abundant food in a country ravaged by hunger.” (Lawson, 2016). Lawson makes another point in that “these videos are meant to capture a very carefully curated vision of a country” (ibid) these videos attempt to perpetuate the cultural myths and propaganda North Korea are trying to push they are a part of their wider simulacra. ‘FunForLouis’ argues how stating how “As much as we can be sceptical about how much was real and how much was staged, that is what I experienced, and I can only share with you guys what I experienced.” (ibid), regardless of this his experience is still filtered through the simulacra and is edited down so even the truth he states he was shown is still distorted.
Baudrillard suggests that the media provides a mediated image of reality, a stage-managed, clean, and detached image. YouTubers must provide this ‘perfect’ life in their vlogs to be enjoyed and liked by users on the platform, they also must fit into the guidelines of YouTube, so they can be monetised and create profit from their own videos, therefore their lives when vlogging or in the edit are managed by YouTube. Whilst on a trip in Japan vlogger Logan Paul visited the Aokigahara forest in Japan, known as the ‘suicide forest’, during this visit they found a dead body hanging from a tree. In his video he included close-ups of the body, Logan Paul’s intention was to “just do another fun vlog. Go camp for a night and make an entertaining piece of content in a forest,” (Griffin, 2018) his thought process can reflect how the hyper-reality is affecting people. Thinking about this with speculation, Logan Paul visited a forest well known for suicides in hopes of finding something shocking to record to get more views and attention, he could have easily visited another forest in Japan, but he chose this one as he knew it would garner the attention he wanted. To view this event in a different way, Logan Paul indirectly showed an unclean and accurate image of the reality of the suicide forest in Japan, despite his disrespectful nature, in doing so he provided a break in the simulacra and fantasy that YouTube as a platform thrives on and that many had become accustomed too.
Other Vloggers can do this when they discuss more serious issues that are not usually brought up in vlogs such as ‘doddlevloggle’s vlog titled ‘I am depressed today’ (doddlevloggle, 2017) this breaks the fantasy image that the vloggers have created of themselves for just one video, to show their darker more emotional sides, however, these vloggers tend to go straight back to creating happier content and continuing to pretend their lives are interesting and fun rather than the truth.
Vloggers and YouTubers receive a lot of criticism, the good thing about this is YouTube allows for them to fight back from this criticism with the fact they can make their own videos critiquing their critique. Despite YouTube embodying a lot of Baudrillard’s negative thoughts on reality, there is not much to suggest that vloggers are doing anything overly negative in our culture. Another video from ‘doddlevloggle’ titled ‘dear media – response to hate articles on YouTubers’ talks about how vlogs often support their viewers such as vloggers who film “themselves barefaced and laughing with friends, comfortable and beautiful in their spotty glory.” (00:11-00:22) making girls who suffer from acne more comfortable since they can see others the same way. The fake reality vlogs provide help people in their reality. Furthermore, there is not much alternative for Baudrillard’s points, vloggers could have a continual livestream of their lives with no breaks or editing, however, this is absurd, these small snippets are digestible and acceptable in the society we live in now. A Consistent reality is not good for entertainment purposes and that is what YouTube is, arguably, for. Audiences can choose how much they are involved in the detached reality social media and vloggers provide, as shown by Jessa Haines (2014) and the popularity of ‘quitting social media’, audience interpretation is forgotten in Baudrillard’s ideas.
In conclusion, vloggers on YouTube are affected by Baudrillard’s thoughts on hyper-reality. Every video any vlogger makes will be affected by the stages of simulation and therefore will not be an objective view of reality. The role this plays in our society and in popular culture is one that perpetuates specific cultural myths about places such as Disneyland and North Korea, falsehoods about their own lives and blurring the distinctions between what is real and what is not. However, this is only an analysis of a small part of YouTube. The polysemic nature of YouTube means that there may be other videos in different genres that break down hyper-realties and are un-corrupted copies of reality, such as livestreams which only enter the second stage of simulacra. Overall, Baudrillard’s ideas are too pessimistic, he offers no solution to the issue of a hyper-reality other than a regression to the past where people do not use social media.
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