Baby, baby, baby ooh: The Bieber Fever

WEEK 9: Burgess and Green argue that: ordinary people who become celebrities through their own creative efforts “remain within the system of celebrity native to, and controlled by, the mass media” (Reader, page 269). Discuss this argument giving an example of a YouTube video.

 

YouTube is undeniably becoming a platform for a new kind of media influence. Burgess and Green agree that “YouTube has been mythologized as literally a way to ‘broadcast yourself’ into fame and fortune” (Burgess & Green 2009: 22). So much so that talent scouts are now looking at online mediums as a way of finding the ‘next big thing’ (Burgess & Green 2009: 22).

With growing access to sites like YouTube and many people displaying their talents online, how can we know the difference between an ‘ordinary person’ with talent and a ‘celebrity’?

This question can be answered by democracy. With choice to view what we wish on the Internet, we inevitably target stars that will be liked by the masses. But when your YouTube video goes viral, is that considered genuine success? Or are you restricted to your YouTube fame?
There is no denying that not just anyone who posts videos can skyrocket to celebrity status overnight. People not only require talent, but also must be aesthetic pleasing to some degree and have the ability to actively engage their audience.

YouTube’s biggest success story of all would have to be the 14-year-old boy that captured the nation with his voice… yep you guessed it Justin Bieber. Just as Burgess and Green state, large masses are necessary to promote these over night celebrities into the world of fame. Whilst starting off posting videos of himself singing he has definitely made it out of the realm of YouTube celebrity and has plunged into basically every form of media existing. But the real question is have you got Bieber Fever?

In Bieber’s case he has become a performer for the masses and like Burgess and Green infer, there is no going back. Justin Beiber’s recent Hollywood hit ‘Never say Never” authorizes the fact that even YouTube icons who carefully groomed, inevitably reaching out to the masses.

Yet YouTube also provides examples to the contrary. Chris Crocker hit stardom with his famous sobbing plea to “Leave Britney (Spears) alone”. This single video escalated him into fame, a status he could only possibly maintain via participation online in YouTube. Ultimately he was controlled by the masses as he provided one amusing video in relation to the recent meltdown of World renown celebrity Britney Spears. This is a prime example which portrays the ‘internal system’ of YouTube and how it perhaps isn’t always in sync with the more ‘dominant [forms of] media’ (Burgess and Green 2009:270).

Fundamentally, Mainstream media have relished in DIY amateur videos, consequently turning ‘ordinary people’ into the Justin Biebers of the world. Yet it is here where many reach their downfall. Once people are skyrocketed into stardom via mass media, many are unable to maintain their level of fame, restricting their celebrity to a series of YouTube videos. Ultimately, I confer with Burgess and Green and believe that mass media controls how famous you are.

 

REFERENCES:

http://www.womansday.com/Articles/Life/10-YouTube-Success-Stories.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQOFRZ1wNLw&feature=related

Jean Burgess and Joshua Green, YouTube and the Mainstream Media, in YouTube: Online and Participatory Culture, Cambridge: Polity press, 2009

Forever connected

“Never in history has distance meant less.”– Alvin Toffler

Some rights reserved by Rosaura Ochoa

Who puts the ‘You’ in YouTube?

WEEK 3: While discussing YouTube, José van Dijck argues that the site’s interface influences the popularity of videos through ranking tactics that promote popular favourites (Reader, page 94). How do ranking tactics impact on the formation online ‘communities’?

It’s YOU!

Attribution Some rights reserved by jonsson

Simply by using the Youtube webiste, you become a member of its online community, whether it is by actively contributing content in the form of videos and comments or by passively watching and increasing the views of the video. It is inevitable with any social community for a hierarchy to form; ranging from the most popular aspects to the less desirable or perhaps not as widely known about or accepted aspects, with YouTube being no exception. Whilst all YouTube Users are part of the greater online community, via the website, smaller groups form according to mutual interest and continue to flourish via related pages that are suggested. Yet YouTube’s homepage has obstructed this formation of online communities, by veering users toward certain content.

YouTube encourages you to freely “Broadcast Yourself”, promoting self expression and liberation, yet, as the theorist Van Dijick has forewarned, it could actually be that the creators and administrators of YouTube have a hidden agenda. On the homepage, there are ‘most viewed’ videos and ‘top favorite’ videos which naturally attract a larger proportion of viewers to watch videos simply out of curiosity. These ranking systems seen on the interface epitomize the concern Van Dijick has with YouTube’s supposed “participatory culture”. Users are automatically exposed to material that they otherwise may have never looked at or been interested in, subtly manipulating them to watch what is the most accessible. Whilst this does not necessarily negatively impact anyone, it can be seen as a way of changing the formation of that particular sub group, as people who may not have ever heard about a group or video are now involved in the group, just as I am now ever so fascinatedly watching “fail compliation March 2011” which appeared on the ‘most  viewed’ section of my YouTube homepage.

Another contributing factor to the impact of online communities is the ‘recommended for you’ section. as mine suggests I should watch ‘How to get Candle Wax out of your carpet?’ because yes, you guessed it, I recently spilt hot pink candle wax on my brand new carpet (which also happens to be my mother’s pride and joy). The very fact that my YouTube account can notify me of other fun and exciting candle wax removal ideas is testament to the fact that I have now joined the ever so dull sub-community of candle wax removalists, simply by viewing one of these delightful videos.

Ultimately, ‘ranking tactics’ inevitably create a domino effect on videos, where by the more popular become more readily viewed and increase their significance in search results, whilst those that don’t get as many views remain unnoticed. According to Van Dijck (2009), if we simply follow trends to feel included in an online community, then perhaps we aren’t really participating at all.
And just incase it ever happens to you, or if your mum can be just as terrifying as mine, here you go…

That video saves lives.

REFERENCES:

Van Dijck, José. ‘Users Like You? Theorizing Agency in User-Generated Content’, Media, Culture and Society 31 (2009): p41-58