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Before I write this I will say that beauty bloggers are very important; or at least, they represent an important element of female voices in today's media. Indeed, I myself have dabbled. Beauty bloggers celebrate stereotypical femininity as something that is not only professional and skilled but also interesting. It is OK to be a girly-girl. It's also OK to not be a girly-girl. We must celebrate femininity. Something that is traditionally female-dominated, or cultivated for a female audience, is often seen as shallow, unimportant and, frankly, a joke. The success of beauty bloggers, such as Zoella, not only show a prioritisation of a young female audience but also lets women be proud to be female. To summarise, beauty bloggers remove the shame of traditional femininity (which, obviously, not all women feel themselves in. I just mean that there's a stigma around being 'girly' and beauty bloggers help get rid of that).
Recently Zoella took a step away from her usual interests in beauty and fashion and released a novel. I myself have not read it. But I have seen bits from it. And it's not that good. And also she didn't even write it, or most of it. And we should have known, really, because she frequently vlogged during 2014 and never mentioned hours of writing, in contrast to other YouTubers like Fleur DeForce who often speaks about deadlines she has to meet for her writing in her vlogs. Obviously ghost writers aren't anything new and most celebrities who 'write books' use them, but as YouTube is often considered a breeding ground for 'normal' or 'home-grown' famous people it's understandable that some of Zoe's fans are a little peeved. Zoe said she wrote a book - she didn't.
This whole discussion led me to consider the thing about YouTubers and books these days. To date, I can name Shay Carl, Grace Helbig, Michelle Phan, Zoella, Tanya Burr, Mamrie Hart and Fleur DeForce as some of the many YouTubers who are becoming authors. It does remind me of the days where Disney actors would suddenly announce singing careers. However, I haven't read any of the books that YouTubers are putting out (I own Grace Helbig's, but I've been too busy to read it this semester), so I can't really say that they're probably all awful. But Zoella's has set a standard.
I think it's the mechanics of it all that I want to discuss. Essentially, book deals for YouTubers could spell an end to original, home-grown content. Of course YouTubers rely on advertising and brand deals to stay afloat, but only recently have they had to explicitly state when their content is sponsored (see Oreo debacle). This is where the insincerity begins - YouTubers sneakily including links to free Audible downloads that they know their followers will utilise. These companies that approach YouTubers assume (correctly) that the fan culture will guarantee them fast money. Zoella's book broke debut sales records - she has over 6 million YouTube subscribers and she only needed 80,000 of them to buy her book to do so. Companies like Penguin rely on devoted fanbases just like hers to get them their money.
And YouTubers let them.
There's a manipulation here, and in the case of
Girl Online there's a manipulation of teenage girls. Zoella's book is not well-written - it is quite literally a self-insert of differently named characters into Zoe's life with an added GBF and a best-friend-turned-mean-girl to boot. The book ticks every young adult fiction cliché box. With Zoe's very honest approach to her own anxiety and her eagerness to help others suffering with it (she works with charity Mind), I was disappointed to hear that the main character repeatedly calls herself 'demented' when she has an anxiety attack; if there was a fight to understand and improve her mental health, rather than the depressingly repetitive motif of teenage girls' lives revolving around the possibility of a boyfriend I wouldn't mind. To be fair - there's a sequel lined up. Maybe that's explored more there.
As someone who has considered the publishing industry a potential career, this whole thing is really quite tedious. I would hope that publishing companies would hope to make money via talented writers, rather than approaching famous people who may or may not be good writers to ensure high sales. It's all very deceptive and depressing.
I also think this is where the lines between celebrities and YouTubers blur. With book deals YouTubers stop being just YouTubers and they become famous individuals. The appeal of YouTube is innovative individuals who spend hours filming and editing original and creative content. Viewers associate them with their content - that's why they found them in the first place. If YouTubers really are talented writers - great! Of course many YouTubers are gifted singers and actors, and they get well-deserved record deals and cameos in films. But when they move into a field that they physically can't (and don't) navigate, there are problems.
Girl Online is not Zoe's content, but she's trying to present it as hers.
Is YouTube the same with brands? Is it just TV but on a smaller screen? Is this YouTubers' faults at all? Has old media found a way to jump on the back of new media like YouTube?
I do think that Zoe Sugg is a genuinely lovely lady, and up until now I never would have doubted her integrity. And this isn't meant to be hurtful towards her or attacking her personally. But this whole thing has made me a little wary of her and her content, and that makes me very sad.
