YouTube, Young Viewers, and Ethics
Most forms of mass media, movies and television in particular, have their own codes of ethics and strict views of what is “right or wrong.”
But what about YouTube? There is no arguing that YouTube is now a huge media entity. YouTube stars are earning millions of dollars a year and last week won clean sweeps at the Teen Choice Awards. In fact, the TCAs have introduced a full “web” category for young fans to vote for their favourite YouTubers and bloggers. Let’s not forget that the TCAs are aired all over America and across the world — aimed at young, impressionable viewers.
YouTubers Tyler Oakley and Michelle Phan are household names these days. Michelle has her own makeup line, has starred in a variety of television commercials, and has over 6 million subscribers to date.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA2U_4mz3E4[/embed]
Other huge names — Smosh, BFvsGF, Superwoman, and FunForLouis, to name a few — also all recently took part in what’s known as the Contiki Roadtrip. For the past few years, Contiki has teamed up with famous YouTubers and paid them to embark on a week-long advertisement and with millions of views on the Roadtrip channel, it’s definitely a hit with fans. They’ve even already announced that the Roadtrip for 2015 is in the works.
Almost all of the huge “beauty gurus” on YouTube also get paid to discuss certain products. YouTube seems to have changed from a genuine form of communication to one huge ad campaign.
The question I want to pose is how ethical is all of this?
It all reminds me of product placement in movies and on television. The difference is that by now we are all so used to glaringly obvious promotional material that we have become aware of it. YouTube, however, is still relatively new to the promo game and we’re not quite as savvy on picking it up yet.
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What’s the difference? Traditional product placement VS YouTube sponsorships. Miss Glamorazzi has a deal with NuMe hair curling wands and advertises them every few videos.[/caption]
From sponsorships to advertisements, young girls are constantly being targeted. They’re told their idols “love this,” and “love that,” and are severely influenced to buy what YouTubers are selling. A YouTuber that I love, Essiebutton, is bombarded with fans sending photos of the “Essiebutton effect.” That is, fans going out to buy whatever Essie has mentioned in her videos.
Don’t get me wrong, I adore Essiebutton, but this is just one key example of product promotion going real-world.
All of this so far, of course, only affects the wallet. Contiki Tours, makeup, skincare, that’s all fine. But what about some deeper matters such as body image and health issues?
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“Chinmageddon” Michelle Phan cosmetic surgery speculation. Image from mishbunny.tumblr.com[/caption]
YouTube gurus like Miss Glamorazzi and Michelle Phan have recently come under fire over romanticizing plastic surgery. Miss Glamorazzi, though she has not had any work done herself, put out a video last month called “There’s Something Good In Every Day” where she discussed her own body images issues and her consideration of cosmetic surgery. She even linked viewers to the information of a plastic surgeon and encouraged her fans to ask him questions. YouTube gossip website, Guru Gossiper, have since created a petition for her to remove the video as they believe it subconsciously targets viewers to think positively about cosmetic surgery and body modification.
On the flipside, Michelle Phan has not publicly discussed plastic surgery, however there is a lot of conversation out there about the work she has potentially had done. Another blog, known as Mish Bunny, is filled with pages of before and after shots and have labeled her a hypocrite, as she advertises her channel as a body positive place and has said that she would never have plastic surgery.
Now, the problem with the things here are that girls between the ages of 10–15 are often the highest demographic watching these types of videos. Gurus such as Tanya Burr and Zoe “Zoella” Sugg are constantly reminding us that their viewers are young girls and often make “back to school” beauty looks. These young girls are being bombarded with product placement that they don’t know is product placement, and are targets of body image issues.
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Zoella: Back to school edition.[/caption]
To put this into perspective, Myers and Biocca found that watching even 30 minutes of media can negatively affect the way a woman thinks and feels about herself. There are 15 billion beauty and body related videos out there on YouTube… Ample opportunity for these types of issues to arise.
Of course there are already infinite articles and debates on body image in mass media, that is movies and television, but YouTube is something else entirely because it feels so personal. The girls watching the videos aren’t going to think “this is just TV, it doesn’t apply to me.” The YouTube experience is much more than that. Go to the comments section of anyone I’ve mentioned and have a read for yourself. It feels like a recommendation from a friend or a peer rather than a sponsored message coming from a celebrity.
The thing I’m left wondering is which way YouTube is going to go from here. I believe the most likely option is that we will see YouTube completely transform into a mass media similar to that of television and movies. Paid product placement, sponsorship, plastic surgery and image changes. It’s there already, and soon we’ll have a lot more statistical data to work with in regard to how much YouTube affects purchase decisions and body image. Perhaps all of the articles we see now about mass media affecting young girls will shift and become all about YouTube instead.
