Popularity markers on YouTube’s attention economy: the case of Bubzbeauty

Abstract

This article focuses on issues of attention and popularity development on YouTube's beauty community. I conceptualise the role of views and subscriptions as popularity markers, based on a broader ethnographic examination of 22 months of immersed fieldwork on the platform. I consider the case of Bubz, a British-Chinese beauty guru, through a purposeful sample of 80 videos. A content typology is introduced, presenting four distinctive video categories: content-oriented, market-oriented, motivational, and relational. Drawing from the concepts of 'attention economy' and 'metrics of popularity', I explore content characteristics and affordances for the creation and maintenance of viewers' attention. I argue that the guru's uploads lead to two types of audiences-casual viewers and loyal subscribers. Vlogs renew attention and help maintain the interest first generated by tutorials, leading to treasured subscribers-an essential commodity within YouTube's highly competitive environment.

Being an online celebrity: Norms and expectations of YouTube’s beauty community

“…In the case of YouTube's beauty community, the right to self-branding is awarded only to those considered "real", honest, hard-working, talented and inherently "deserving" gurus (see also García-Rapp, 2017). While YouTube expects gurus to perform a carefully monitored, businessoriented, online persona, the community of pairs and viewers expects them to always be reachable, trustworthy, honest, and authentic.…”

“…Situating platform developments in the current "attention economy" (Burgess and Green, 2009;Goldhaber, 1997;Marwick, 2013a;Senft, 2013), which "value[s] visibility in and of itself" (Gamson, 2011(Gamson, , p. 1063, it is relevant to consider the role of views and subscriptions as important commodities within the beauty community and on YouTube in general (García-Rapp, 2017). In this vein, Marwick argues that "the presence of an attentive audience may be the most potent status symbol of all" (2015a, p. 141).…”

“…Additionally, personal, connection-seeking vlogs can be seen as relational and motivational uploads that strengthen her social value within the community through an image of a friendly, everyday girl, who is close to her viewers (see also García-Rapp, 2017).…”

Fame and fortune, or just fun? A study on why people create content on video platforms

“…SDT is a prominent theoretical framework in social psychology and it has also been extensively utilised when examining digital media consumption and production on services such as Wikipedia (Arazy and Nov, 2010;Nov, 2007), YouTube (Cha et al, 2007;García-Rapp, 2017), Facebook ( Joinson, 2008) and Twitter (Chen, 2011) to name but a few.…”

‘Come join and let’s BOND’: authenticity and legitimacy building on YouTube’s beauty community

“…This is often seen as contradictory to their 'girl next door' vlogs, through which they establish affective ties and feelings of trust with their audiences, by regularly just 'hanging out' or with more 'heart-to-heart' videos disclosing their life experiences. The active processes of celebrification at play within YouTube's beauty community necessarily combine the social side of sharing personal information, footage of daily activities and building affective connections, with commercial aspects: namely self-branding, achieving high status and maintaining good reputations as professional, responsible and influential personalities (García-Rapp, 2017). This combination of two differing, and often opposing, societal spheres such as the commercial logic of self-promotion and the social creation of feelings of closeness and connection with the audience renders the topic a relevant research area.…”