A Different Look at Ms. Marbles
Jenna Marbles is one of the most popular stars on YouTube with 14,888,052 subscribers. Starting her career in 2010 Marbles now has 1,720,214,870 views on her videos. Her fans adore her for several reasons, but the most prominent reason is her relatability. In the chapter ‘From Distant Heroes to Intimate Friends’ by Joshua Meyrowitz, he explains what he calls “media friends”. Media friends are the celebrities, politicians, musicians, or actors that we may admire and feel are important parts of our lives. Although we have never met them, we feel as if we know their lives and at times some media friends might be more significant to us than real relationships with people we physically know. Jenna Marbles is the ideal media friend because of her authenticity and willingness to let her viewers in. But when analyzing her video, you can find other reasons why Marbles is such a star.
Para-proxemics
Anthropologist Edward T. Hall coined the term proxemics to describe a person’s spatial behavior patterns (Television and Interpersonal Behavior: Codes or Perception and Response, Meyrowitz, 255). Hall believes that your distance between the person(s) that you are interacting with can define your relationship with them, “Hall has described the existence of four discrete and measurable spatial zones: intimate, personal, social and public” (255). When you are with a close friend or a family member you may sit close to each other on the couch while you talk. And your conversation may not be about important matters, it could just be to catch up on each other’s day. This instance according to hall would be intimate. But a public setting example would be how a professor who stands in the front of the lecture hall while his students sit in rows in front of him. The proximity to each other is further away and the conversation has a certain meaning to it. Relating this concept back to television, Meyrowitz has created the term para-proxemics to help analyze the camera angle and frame in which a film is shot. Meyrowitz claims that, “While a television lens distorts visual cues to some extent, any given shot of a person frames the individual in a certain way” (257). If the person is framed in a “close up” shot, they want the audience to have an intimate moment with that character, to understand their personal features.
Framing
All it takes is to watch one YouTube vlog to understand that the framing is much different than that of television. For the most part it is a tight close up of the chest up where the vlogger talks directly into the camera. Marble’s, who demographic is made up of mainly teen girls routinely creates a new video every Wednesday with titles topics that range from “How Girls Fall Asleep” to “What a Girls Makeup Means”. After reading through her YouTube channel library, it is not hard to see why teen girls make up a majority of her fans. In Jenna Marble’s video she typically has the camera set up so she is centered perfectly in the room that she is taping her video in. Unlike other YouTuber’s who may choose to use their bedroom or living room as the designated video space, Jenna has shot videos in multiple different rooms of her house. You can see from the torso to about an inch above her head. Jenna may move around in certain videos, but just within the framing of the camera. The camera never follows her around. I would describe Jenna Marble’s framing as a close up shot. There is a comfortable distance between you (watching on a computer screen) and Jenna but the camera distance suggests that Jenna is friends with her viewers. One could very easily imagine themselves sitting in a chair right across from Jenna and having these conversations about how caffeine makes her feel. Jenna’s videos would not have the same appeal if she used a medium or long shot because the topics she discusses in her videos are conversations you would only have with people you are intimate with, not authority figures (261). Long shots work well when you are trying to capture
One video series Jenna performs is “Things I Don’t Have Time For”. In her most recent “More Things I Don’t Have Time For” Jenna is sitting down in a blue and white chevron printed chair in the center of the frame. Sitting closer to the camera than normal making the very top of her head cut out of the frame and almost leaning in, Jenna rants on about her personal issues that she does not have time for, including making sure her house is tidied up before shooting a video. The backdrop is her light grey wall with two picture pieces of art work hanging above her head. Jenna consistently uses the same type of framing in order to have consistency throughout her videos because as mentioned before her style of video blogging is conversational.
Camera Angle
The camera angle level that Jenna Marble uses is eye level as if you are directly across from her. This angle is popular among vloggers who want that “social equal” feel with their viewers. Jenna’s demeanor is relaxed and confortable and she does a great job at keeping eye contact with the “viewers” as if this was a face-to-face conversation. Jenna’s camera angle has not always been so precise. If you compare her video “More Things I Don’t Have Time For” with her first YouTube video “How to Trick People Into Thinking You’re Good Looking” you will see a major improvements. “How to Trick People Into Thinking You’re Good Looking” was clearly recorded on a laptop webcam and Marbles is looking down at the viewer giving it more of an amateur feel.
Video Resolution
Another key difference in Jenna’s newer video’s compared to early ones like “How to Trick People Into Thinking You’re Good Looking” is the video resolution. YouTube’s early days, the video quality was grainy due to the low quality cameras its users were producing videos on. This is apparent in Marbles first YouTube videos up until late 2011 when it seems that she switched to a camera on a tripod. Although quality plays into the “realness”, I do not believe the graininess ever took away from Jenna’s authenticity.
In the videos that she makes now, Jenna is using a high-resolution (I’m assuming) DSLR camera set on a tripod. The image is rich and not in the slightest pixelated. This adds to the realness of the conversation you can almost believe you two are having with one another.
Video Editing
Jenna Marbles does all of her own editing which is another factor that adds to her authenticity. Although she is a great editor, her videos have the sense of amateurism. If you are a fan of Jenna or have just watched a handful of her videos you understand that she does not take herself too seriously. Her “amateur” style videos with minimal editing reflect who she is as a person. Jenna is also famous for her major use of jump cuts. Jump cuts are a great source to use to get rid of the lull parts of the videos and a quick way to delete your small mistakes. Again, I feel Jenna’s use of jump cuts reflect her fun, fast personality. In a land of comedic vloggers, your editing style is what can set you apart.
Audio
A former UNH student, Russell St. George had his paper “Music and Interpersonal Distance” published in UNH’s Comm-entary, the undergrad journal of Communication studies. In the paper George explains how to interpret audio in music using the concepts from Meyrowitz’s paper “Television and Interpersonal Behavior: Codes or Perception and Response”. Russell says that the voices in music need to be not too quiet or it is “ghostly” but not to loud so that it feels offensive to the listener (58). I believe that Jenna is using a microphone that is installed in her camera. The reason I believe this is because there are certain videos (not all) where she seems to be talking louder than she would need to be if she was sitting there so that the microphone picks up the sound. In these particular videos it ruins the idea that you and Jenna are having an intimate friendly conversation and you are reminded that you are watching a video online.
Para-Social Impressions
Erving Goffman created the theory of impression management. Goffman claimed that when a person enters a social interaction, they want to know information about the other participants (Television and Interpersonal Behavior: Codes or Perception and Response, p 263). Goffman believed that there was a front (onstage behavior) and back (off-stage behavior) region to everyone (264). Vlogger’s like Jenna Marbles put their whole life (back-stage) on camera for us to see. We have met Jenna’s two dogs, and even feel in love with her now ex boyfriend Max. We felt we had a special bond with her because of how much she let us into her life In Jenna’s “Draw My Life Video” her fans were introduced to even more back story of her childhood, how her YouTube career started, and she told us about some of the lowest moments in her life. But it is important to remember that even when we think we are seeing someone’s back stage, people like Jenna have the ability to edit what we see. We will never see the whole back stage of someone.
In Meyrowitz’s para-social impressions he talks about how the front plays a significant role in television scenes (266). The opening shot sets the mood for what is to come. The same goes for YouTube. Jenna’s opening credits are a few seconds of squeaky loud-pitched noise and a picture of her in a lingerie football uniform with words “Jenna Marbles Blogger and Entertainer” written next to it.
After, it immediately cuts to the close up shot frame of Jenna, sitting on her bed or in a chair, and she introduces you with the most humorous “hello!”. Because the frame is so tight it is hard to tell too much of what is surrounding her. Before Jenna was a YouTube star one part time job was a go-go dancer where she wore heavy make-up. Her false lashes and colorful lips have become a Jenna Marble’s staple. But as for attire, her clothes are very casual and also do not match the amount of makeup she wears.
Jenna never talks with a stern face, no matter the topic she is discussing she has a corky smile on her face. Her bright makeup and even brighter personality all relate back to why she is a media friend and relatable for so many people.
Work Cited
Joshua Meyrowitz, “From Distance Heros to Intimate Friend” Heroes in Global Worlds (Hampton Press, Inc, 2008) p. 101
Joshua Meyrowitz, “Television and Interpersonal Behavior,” Inter/Media (Oxford University Press, 1979)
Russell St. George, “Music and Interpersonal Distance” Comm-entary (1985) p.58
