The digital media phenomenon of YouTube beauty gurus: the case of Bubzbeauty

García-Rapp, Florencia

doi:10.1504/ijwbc.2016.080810

Cited by 30 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 26 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The direct link between algorithmic expertise and gaming skill fails to account for inequalities built into algorithmic design. It also does not capture the significance of other (feminized) content spheres such as beauty and fashion (Rapp, 2016), family vlogging (Abidin, 2017), and toy unboxing (Craig & Cunningham, 2017) on YouTube. Furthermore, we may ask whether gamers have skills that speak to the YouTube algorithm, or whether YouTube promotes gaming videos as they have the ability to draw invaluable "prime time," or privileged white, male, audiences, who often prove tricky for advertisers to access (Meehan, 2006, p. 318).…”

Section: Ties With Geek Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

Algorithmic Experts: Selling Algorithmic Lore on YouTube

Bishop

2020

Social Media + Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article considers the growing influence of self-styled algorithmic “experts.” Experts build valuable brands, accumulate notoriety, and piece together careers by selling theorizations of algorithmic visibility on YouTube to aspiring and established creators. They function as intermediaries between sanctioned YouTube industries and the agency of cultural producers. Expertise is developed through research, strategies, and theories to help content creators mitigate platform-specific risks, particularly the risk of algorithmic invisibility. Experts develop entrepreneurial self-brands and position themselves as YouTube’s adversaries, performing “experiments” ostensibly to reveal or translate hidden algorithmic signals or correct “misleading” information. However, ultimately, they teach creators to be complicit with YouTube’s organizational strategies and business models. Studying algorithmic experts reveals insights into how new media producers negotiate platform visibility, but also speaks to long-standing questions about how the management of risk in cultural industries shapes symbolic production. I draw on a 3-year ethnography of YouTube industries to illustrate how experts interpret and instruct in how to become algorithmically (and advertiser) compliant on YouTube. In addition, I highlight their broader role as de facto producers and gatekeepers for aspiring and existing content producers. Meritocratic logic flows through experts’ outputs—meaning expertise is limited to individualized and patchwork solutions that do not address the significant socio-economic inequalities that are still inherent on social media platforms.

show abstract

Section: Ties With Geek Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

Algorithmic Experts: Selling Algorithmic Lore on YouTube

Bishop

2020

Social Media + Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Influencers Lamia AlBardici, Samar Ahmed, Hoda Rashad all shared their experiences in using beauty products. In this they were similar to beauty and lifestyle vlogger Bubzbeauty who aimed to convey an authentic message when talking about her experiences with different beauty products (García-Rapp, 2016). Linked to developing original content was the practice of avoiding specific topics deliberately: sex, politics and religion, which are all taboo topics in Egypt.…”

Section: Displays Of Authenticitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The second trend in the studies focuses on specific named influencers and looks at their communities and examines this more closely. To a large extent these studies document influencers' activities and practices to create their online personas (Berryman & Kavka, 2017;Cocker & Cronin, 2017;García-Rapp, 2016;Hurley, 2019;Jerslev, 2016;Jorge, Marôpo, & Nunes, 2018;Marôpo, Jorge, & Tomaz, 2020;Martínez & Olsson, 2019). The third trend the in studies examines the relationship between influencers and their audiences (Aran-Ramspott, Fedele, & Tarragó, 2018;Pérez-Torres, Pastor-Ruiz, & Abarrou-Ben-Boubaker, 2018;Westenberg, 2016).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Making of an Egyptian Social Media Influencer

Ezzat¹

2020

IJICC

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This qualitative study, set against the backdrop of Egypt, examines how social media influencers construct their online identity and build their online persona. Social media, which have been primarily developed in the West, have infiltrated the Egyptian society; they have opened doors to different forms of personae and content such as social media influencers. In Egypt their numbers have increased, and they have become an important part of the social media scene. They aim to build their audiences and fan bases with the ultimate objective of monetising their presence. This study focuses on nine Egyptian social media influencers, through employing in-depth interviews, and seeks to explore how they construct their online identity and how they build their distinct personae. The analysis revealed that they build a distinct online person for themselves to impress their audiences and fans. Moreover, they perform authentically; they seek to be perceived as authentic and to display this authenticity they undertake a number of processes.

show abstract

“…Duffy has studied how these female content creators have built a discourse of selfempowerment and entrepreneurship (Duffy, 2017;Duffy & Hund, 2015). García-Rapp (2016, through a case study of beauty guru Bubzbeauty, studied how a creator uses different genres like tutorials or vlogs to build her reputation through the lens of celebrity studies. The third type of a successful YouTube channel is the personality vlog, exemplified by Hank and John Green who are known as "the Vlogbrothers."…”

Section: Youtube As a Platform For Creatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Negotiating Collaborations: BookTubers, The Publishing Industry, and YouTube’s Ecosystem

Tomasena

2019

Social Media + Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BookTubers (from the acronym book + YouTuber) have become key players for the publishing industry, given their influence on children and teens to promote reading and book consumption. Based on an 18-month digital ethnography that combines direct observation, digital interactions on YouTube channels, and other social media and semistructured interviews with 17 Spanish-speaking BookTubers, this study uses Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of field and capital to analyze how BookTubers negotiate their practices with other agents of the publishing world. This article characterizes the challenges the Spanish-language publishing industry is facing in the context of digitalization to attract readers; describes the position that BookTubers have within the YouTube ecosystem, and how they relate with the platform’s actors, politics, and affordances; and analyzes the exchanges that BookTubers establish with publishers—often referred as collaborations—and their implications for their autonomy. This case study helps to understand how platformization allows new agents to transfer capital gained in social media to other cultural industries.

show abstract

The digital media phenomenon of YouTube beauty gurus: the case of Bubzbeauty

Cited by 30 publications

References 26 publications

Algorithmic Experts: Selling Algorithmic Lore on YouTube

Algorithmic Experts: Selling Algorithmic Lore on YouTube

The Making of an Egyptian Social Media Influencer

Negotiating Collaborations: BookTubers, The Publishing Industry, and YouTube’s Ecosystem

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About