The Youtubers Phenomenon: What Makes Youtube Stars so Popular for Young People?
Abstract This paper aims to explore and to analyse the channels and the five most viewed videos published in May 2017 by two YouTubers – the Portuguese Wuant and the Swede PewDiePie. These YouTube stars were highlighted by a sample of Portuguese teenagers during the fieldwork of the European research project Transmedia Literacy. Based on these two cases, the article intends to identify the main distinctive traits of their productions, focusing on contents, performances and aesthetics, seeking to understand what characteristics make these YouTubers so popular among the young generation. The video analysis reveals complex, hybrid characters whose merit of attracting millions of fans cannot be denied. Their eccentric body language, the preference for easy jokes, the recurrence of slang, and a certain civic apathy are some of the very distinguishing features of these YouTubers.
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Shirky, C. (2010). Cognitive Surplus. Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age. New York: Penguin Press.
Simonsen, T. M. (2013). The Mashups of YouTube. Nordicom Review, 34(2), 47-63.
Solon, O. (2017, March 21). 'I can’t trust YouTube any more': creators speak out in Google advertising row. The Guardian. Retrieved from
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/21/youtube-google-advertising-policies-controversial-content
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Turkle, S. (2011). Alone Together. Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. New York: Basic Books.
Turkle, S. (2015). Reclaiming Conversation. The Power of Talk in a Digital Age. New York: Penguin Press.
Van Dijck, J. (2009). Users like you? Theorizing agency in user-generated content. Media, Culture & Society, 31(1), 41-58.
Van Dijck, J. (2013). The Culture of Connectivity – A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.
Westenberg, W. (2016). The influence of YouTubers on teenagers – An overview of the influence Dutch YouTubers have on their teenage viewers and to what extent this influence is good or bad (Master Thesis). University of Twente, The Netherlands. Retrieved from
http://essay.utwente.nl/71094/1/Westenberg_MA_BMS.pdf
Winkler, R., Nicas, J., & Fritz, B. (2017, February 14). Disney Severs Ties With YouTube Star PewDiePie After Anti-Semitic Posts. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-severs-ties-with-youtube-star-pewdiepie-after-anti-semitic-posts-1487034533
YouTube. (2017). About YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/en-GB/index.html
YouTube. (2018). YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/intl/en-GB/yt/about/
Berzosa, M. I. (2017). Youtubers y otras especies. El fenómeno que ha cambiado la manera de entender los conteni-dos audiovisuales. Madrid: Fundación Telefónica.
Bloom, K. & Johnston, K. M. (2010). Digging into YouTube Videos: Using Media Literacy and Partic-ipatory Culture to Promote Cross-Cultural Understanding. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 2(2), 113-123.
Burgess, J. (2015). From ‘Broadcast yourself’ to ‘Follow your interests’: Making over social media. Inter-national Journal of Cultural Studies, 18(3), 281-285.
Burgess, J. & Green, J. (2009a). The Entrepreneurial Vlogger: Participatory Culture Beyond the Profes-sional-Amateur Divide. In P. Snickars P. Vonderau (Eds.), The YouTube Reader (pp. 89-107). Stockhol: National Library of Sweden.
Burgess, J. & Green, J. (2009b). YouTube - Online Video and Participatory Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Castillo, M. (2016, December 9). Why YouTube stars like PewDiePie may be losing views. CNBC. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/09/why-youtube-stars-like-pewdiepie-may-be-losing-views.html
Chen, C-P. (2016). Forming digital self and parasocial relationships on YouTube. Journal of Consumer Culture, 16(1), 232-254.
Deuze, M. (2007). Convergence culture in the creative industries. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 10(2), 243-263.
Eco, U. (1979). The Role of the Reader – Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts. Bloomington: Indiana Uni-versity Press.
Fägersten, K. B. (2017). The role of swearing in creating an online persona: The case of YouTuber PewDiePie. Discourse, Context & Media, 18: 1-10.
García Jiménez, A., Catalina García, B., & López de Ayala, M. C. (2016). Adolescents and YouTube: creation, participation and consumption. Prisma Social, Special Number(1), 60-89.
Grossman, L. (2006, December 25). You – Yes, You – Are TIME's Person of the Year. TIME. Re-trieved from http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1570810,00.html
Holland, M. (2017). How YouTube Developed into a Successful Platform for User-Generated Content. In I. Eleá & L. Mikos (Eds.), Young & Creative. Digital Technologies Empowering Children in Everyday Life (pp. 53-64).
Gothenburg: Nordicom.
Jarvis, J. (2011). Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live. New York: Simon&Shuster.
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York Universi-ty Press.
Kim, J. (2012). The institutionalization of YouTube: From user-generated content to professionally generated content. Media, Culture & Society, 34(1), 53-67.
Lange, P. G. (2014). Kids on YouTube: Technical Identities and Digital Literacies. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, Inc.
Livingstone, S., Haddon, L., Görzig, A., & Ólafsson, K. (2011). Risks and safety on the internet: the perspec-tive of European children: full findings and policy implications from the EU Kids Online survey of 9-16 year olds and their parents in 25 countries (Deliverable D4). London: London School of Economics and Politi-cal Science. Retrieved from http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/33731/
Márquez, I. & Ardèvol, E. (2018). Hegemonía y contrahegemonía en el fenómeno Youtuber. Desacatos, 56: 34-49.
McRoberts, S., Bonsignore, E., Peyton, T., & Yarosh, S. (2016). “Do It for the Viewers!” Audience Engagement Behaviors of Young YouTubers. In Proceedings of the The 15th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (pp. 334-343). Manchester. Retrieved from http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2930676
Mikos, L. (2013). Analysis of Film. In U. Flick (Ed.), The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Data Analysis (pp. 409-423). London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi & Singapore: SAGE Publications.
Pereira, S., Pinto, M., & Moura, P. (2015). Níveis de Literacia Mediática: Estudo Exploratório com Jovens do 12.º ano. Braga: CECS. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1822/40488
Ramos-Serrana, M. & Herrero Diz, P. (2016). Unboxing and brands: youtubers phenomenon through the case study of EvanTubeHD. Prisma Social, Special Number(1), 90-120.
Ruela, R. (2017, May 20). Bem-vindos a casa dos maiores youtubers portugueses. Visão. Retrieved from http://visao.sapo.pt/actualidade/sociedade/2017-05-20-Bem-vindos-a-casa-dos-maiores-youtubers-portugueses
Shirky, C. (2008). Here Comes Everybody. The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. New York: Pen-guin Press.
Shirky, C. (2010). Cognitive Surplus. Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age. New York: Penguin Press.
Simonsen, T. M. (2013). The Mashups of YouTube. Nordicom Review, 34(2), 47-63.
Solon, O. (2017, March 21). 'I can’t trust YouTube any more': creators speak out in Google advertising row. The Guardian. Retrieved from
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/21/youtube-google-advertising-policies-controversial-content
Tait, A. (2016, September 2). #YouTubeIsOverParty: Will YouTube’s latest change destroy the plat-form?. NewStatesman. Retrieved from http://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/internet/2016/09/youtubeisoverparty-will-youtube-s-latest-change-destroy-platform
Turkle, S. (2011). Alone Together. Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. New York: Basic Books.
Turkle, S. (2015). Reclaiming Conversation. The Power of Talk in a Digital Age. New York: Penguin Press.
Van Dijck, J. (2009). Users like you? Theorizing agency in user-generated content. Media, Culture & Society, 31(1), 41-58.
Van Dijck, J. (2013). The Culture of Connectivity – A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.
Westenberg, W. (2016). The influence of YouTubers on teenagers – An overview of the influence Dutch YouTubers have on their teenage viewers and to what extent this influence is good or bad (Master Thesis). University of Twente, The Netherlands. Retrieved from
http://essay.utwente.nl/71094/1/Westenberg_MA_BMS.pdf
Winkler, R., Nicas, J., & Fritz, B. (2017, February 14). Disney Severs Ties With YouTube Star PewDiePie After Anti-Semitic Posts. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-severs-ties-with-youtube-star-pewdiepie-after-anti-semitic-posts-1487034533
YouTube. (2017). About YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/en-GB/index.html
YouTube. (2018). YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/intl/en-GB/yt/about/
Pereira, S., Moura, P., & Fillol, J. (2018). The Youtubers Phenomenon: What Makes Youtube Stars so Popular for Young People?. Fonseca, Journal of Communication, (17), 107–123. https://doi.org/10.14201/fjc201817107123
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