Month: August 2020

BCM241 / Week 2

My niche, as I stated in my last post was “Quirky Internet Teens”. Since this niche wasn’t truly a specific person or company I will not looking more into the theory of how these young influencers online effect the mental health of young adults the same age. I want to know what makes the personality famous rather than just a brand – how do they frame mental health – do they acknolwedge it or create a happiness trap.

The problem with this media niche, is how do they influencers show mental health, is it authetically or do the create toxic positivity? Will I eventually have to look at one specific influencer to track their progression on how they approach mental health or should I look into multiple? The reason I want to know this research is so I can track how much positive messages I personally am getting from these influencer and as well so that I may then use my findings and put their methods into my own company Cháe Media. As a multimedia company we operate on different platforms – much like influencers – we like to talk about wellness and self care but we’ve never really openly discussed mental health. Our company is our brand, our influencer – but I’m questioning whether discussing mental health would make us more successful and relatable to help our audience or be too confronting for an audience.

To narrow my field site I’m going to look at influencers online – for example Emma Chamberlain and Best Dressed (Ashley) – Two have distinct personalities and “branding” online as “Fashion Influencers”. My “field site” will be the influencers social media pages, but to do so im going ot have to research their analytics. There also may be ways for me to research their offline activites which in turn helps their online activity. As other ethnographers have resorted to this offline and online method aswell as tracking public reactions (Massimo, 2018) – so this would be these influencers fan base – specifically me. I’m going to view their actions online as what could be a blueprint for my own brand or the opposite what what I should do. In the map i’ve drawn, I’ve generalized these two influencers under “Young Influencer Fame”. The map shows all the elements interconnected because I believe one area will affect the other and viseversa.

Ashley (aka Best Dressed) has 3.45 Million YouTube subscribers, 1.5 Million Instagram followers and 95.7 Thousand Twitter followers. She operated mainly on Youtube and instagram as a “Fashion Influencer”. In addition to her mainly fashion focus content she also talks about taboo topics on her YouTube channel which shows her personality aside from just her image which I believe has heavily impacted her success. Her success online had lead to her being invited to Fashion Week aswell as having her own jewelry line. There isnt evidence online as to who manages Ashley.

Emma Chamberlain did not begin her YouTube success in fashion, but in vlogging and evolved since then. She has 9.28 Million Subscribers, 9.9 Million Instagram followers 3.6 Million Twitter followers. She has had collaborations with Louis Vuitton and also attended fashion week and recently bought a 4.5 million dollar home. She was signed by US Top talent agency UTA in 2018.

So, how did they go from young naive teenagers posting videos online to internet celebrities? Do they speak openly about the struggled it talk to get there and the toll its taken on their mental stability?

For my future career, these aspects interested me as I would like to go into the field of Social Media Management and for fashion brands or social media companies – and I want to know how to or how to not talk about mental health properly. I find the aspect of speaking openly about something so sensitive, brave and very interesting. We are alot more open in talking about mental health now a days but I want to look in a microscopic sense – are we really progressing in this mental health dicussion? I bring the perspective of a young social media consumer, I am being exposed to these messaged from influencers everyday. For more indepth research I may have to look into scholarly articles on Social Media and mental health and how it has impacted young people in general.

References
– bestdressed, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnQhwPVwcP-DnbUZtIMrupw

-Emma Chamblerlain, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC78cxCAcp7JfQPgKxYdyGrg

– Ward, T, 2018, Forbes, Don’t Sleep on YouTube Star Emma Chamberlain, https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomward/2018/09/25/dont-sleep-on-emma-chamberlain/#1e97bdc34e79

– Airoldi, Massimo (2018) ‘Ethnography and the digital fields of social media’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 21:6, 661 -673

My media niche to put it “simply” is :
“Quirky Internet Teens”
and their brand across all Social Media.

Now, what does that even mean? I would put a handful of internet influencers in this category of “Quirky Teen” (some may not even be teens but they share this same similar vibe) – like Emma Chamberlain, Best Dressed, Ur Mom Ashley, Avery Ovard etc. These are a mix of female personalities that only recently become popular online. The reason I believe its MY niche is because they’ve normalised alot of things for me. I grew up watching YouTubers who made life seem as if it always had a fun VSCO filter over it, that I had to aspire to this bubbly expectation. I want to do what they’ve done, in my DA – normalise things for young people and do it in a way that can positively influene them. And though i’ve mainly pointed out Youtubers I’m talking about their presence online as a whole: Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok etc.

If you look at these YouTubers videos, they seem like everyday people going through everyday things – but if you look at their instagram feeds they look like models. So where does the line of quirky come in? Through their personalities they seem like they could be the kind of person youd want to hang out with, but on their Instagrams they might seem less approachable because of their aesthetic and style.

These Quirky Internet Teens have established that its okay to have an aesthetic, a style, you’re own individual personality… and its also okay to normalise different things we all go through. Most “Quirky Internet Teens” have normalise anxiety and depression for me to understand today, which may sound like a negative thing. But it really isn’t. They’re helping future generations understand that it’s okay to be down, that it’s okay to be going through something. Other viewers might take it in a different way.. are these Infuencers “glamourising” mental health issues? Or do others see it the same as me, to bring attention to mental health and help other teeangers/young adults see that its perfectly normal.

Throughout creating and shaping my DA what I hope to investigate is how does this attention to mental health or other issues we go through as young adults, that these Quirky Teens bring impact their viewers. As ethnography requires me to carry this research out during a period of time with the goal of achieving an analytical desciption of this influencer culture I have to start to think about know how to carry out this research. (Daymon, C and Holloway, I, 2011) Do these influencers indeed glamourise and entice teenagers to create a facade or anxiety and depression or does it help educate and bring light to its viewers. Will my DA hinder important issues like mental health through its aesthetics or will it help other people? Through my interest of aesthetics and styles I want to focus on how and why can internet personalities or groups POSTIVIELY impact a demographic of young adults. These influencers are able to stay active on all platforms engageing their audiences across social media. What is it about them that makes people keep coming back? What makes their audience “aspire” to be them or look up to them instead of envying and cancelling them. I want to be able to know at the end of the semester how my Digital Artefact influences our audience. By following our engagemnt statistics that compliment the media I will be creating – How does a persona or personality change the way an audience interacts with an influencer/media team.

References:
– Daymon Christine and Holloway Immy (2011) ‘Ethnography’, Qualitative Research Methods in Public Relations and Marketing Communications. Routledge: New York.