Practice English Speaking&Listening with: YouTube: Manufacturing Authenticity (For Fun and Profit!)
the photographic chamber of the eye records bear painted walls while an
electric light lays the chromium nerves of plumbing raw such poverty assaults
the ego caught naked in the merely actual room the stranger in the lavatory
mirror puts on a public grin repeats our name but scrupulously reflects the usual
terror sylvia plath tale of a tub be sure to share this video and be sure
to give us a like and subscribe and hit the bell
let me know what you think in the comments maximum publish a new content
to make light can subscribe to make sure you subscribe
cultural milestones come and go but every now and then we are privileged
enough to experience something so profound and important it not only
defines a generation it changes the world and right now in the era of new
media created for streaming online video that is still beginning to define its
own identity we can clearly pinpoint the apotheosis of generation-defining web
series which intersects altruism accessibility technical skill and
philosophy I'm talking of course about the YouTube series how to kick it with
Yolanda Gump welcome back to how to kick it I'm Yolanda during the course of an
episode of how to take it Yolanda challenges herself with the
creation of a novelty cake usually in the shape of a real-life object often a
tie-in with a relevant pop culture artifact that she has obviously never
seen and usually draped in fondant the most disgusting foodstuff man has yet
cruelly devised I'm going to carefully lift up the remaining fondant hold it
and drape it over the banana a typical how to cake in episode goes as follows
first Yolanda bakes her cake usually double-digit pounds of it 21 pounds 18
pounds of cake then she soaks the cake in simple syrup from her tool which her
commenters have named sir squeeze a lot sir squeeze her short you can buy your
very own sir squeeze at her website then she begins to ice the cake before
promoting her paid service Camp cake I hope I see you at Camp cake where you
can bake and decorate a cake with Yolanda in real time then she carves the
cake into the right shape while asking a question for you to leave a comment
which will up engagement be more favorable to YouTube's algorithm then
she crumb coats and chills the cake it is time to crumb coat and chill it's
time to crumb coat and chilled through before mentioning her t-shirt club
asking for shares promoting her 2nd channel and then removing the chilled
cake to do the final icing then she mentions her month
sprinkle service which you can subscribe to then she drapes her cake in the
horrible horrible fondant before then reminding you to subscribe to the
channel if you have it then the decoration begins after which she
reminds you that you can buy more of her merchandise at her website and during
the hours of meticulous decorating she also reminds the viewer to buy her book
a tactic which only a sucker would fall for as of August 2018 how to cake it has
amassed 3.8 million subscribers in about 3 years and in that 3 years the show has
grown from one or two calls to action within a given episode toe on average 11
calls to action in an episode your average episode of how to cake it is
almost more call to action that it is cake making at this point for those of
you who are not help to the lingo or who have never had a social media manager of
some sort a call to action is wherein the content of a video the host asks the
viewer to do engagement with the content in a more active way than just sitting
on your ass for 11 to 17 minutes this can be as small as asking me for you to
smash that like button if you enjoyed this video today please don't forget to
give it a big thumbs up down below it's matchmaking or to ask for shares or
suggesting that you use my URL to go build your own beautiful Squarespace
website calls to action are somewhat unique to online media if you're hosting
a cooking show on Food Network you can't exactly ask someone to leave a comment
on their cable channel I mean I guess you can but but calls to action are not
completely unique to online media one key to the popularity of RuPaul's Drag
Race is their prevalence on social media which is not only encouraged by a RuPaul
soliciting calls to action I want to hear from you the fans who do you think
deserves the crown are you Team aquaria Team Asia but by the structure of its
show lending itself to easy sharing not today Satan
the secret to Yolanda success is not of course the calls to action
those gradually rose as her subscriber count' did if you look at earlier
episodes of how to take it you see that there are very few calls to action and
most of them are requests for likes and subscribes with subscription services
merchandise and camp cake being gradually added through the years and
months early episodes are actually very conventional and more in the vein of
your typical Food Network show but about five months after the channel launched
in the flower pot of Cake episode published on may 5th 2015 a new element
is introduced then I measure then I measure this do I look tired
no sir cumference the giggle you hear is the voice of producer Jocelyn Mercer and
her presence in the series interacting with Yolanda from off-screen only
increases from here to the point where now it's a feature of the show that's a
workout game this element proves engaging and in the following months
there is a correlation of increased interaction between the production crew
and the host in effect Yolanda breaks down the facade that is production she
jokes with her producers she jokes with her cameraman our Americans gonna get
mad at this sometimes she even jokes with her editor who is not in the room
the series went from the occasional fourth wall breaks to fourth wall breaks
being a part of the show's identity
Yolanda and her producers have effectively figured out not only how to
market a curated version of her personality but with how she interacts
with her crew and the interactions with the crew make the show feel more
authentic you feel like you're just you know in the room hanging out laughing
about this elaborate cake that looks like a giant turkey now pop your turkey
cake in the fridge I'm don't wait too much of this this falls into line with
the appeal of YouTube in general that it strips away the polished facade of
television to give you something more real you should send every rapper a
newsletter without this info just now same word every sentence in the song
ends with the same where mm-hmm Yolanda can get away with her eleven
thousand calls to action per episode not in spite of this fourth wall breaking
format but because of it owning the fact that a a polish production like this is
in fact a group effort this isn't just a show you know we're just hanging out
laughing about this cake we're just having fun
you must chill this cake thy must chill
to be clear this is not a call out how to cake it has a clear and effective
business model and Yolanda Gump is both an engaging personality and a talented
artist with fondant I do find the calls to action distracting but I loyally
watch every episode of how to cake it and yes I own her goddamn book and no I
have not attempted to make a single one of these cakes but there is something
special innovative dare I say lucrative in the style and format Yolanda and her
colleagues have devised and other companies have begun to take notice
the medium is the message
YouTube was founded in 2005 by three former PayPal employees Chad Hurley
Steve Chen and jawed Karim the idea for YouTube in part was inspired by Jawad
Koreans difficulty in finding and watching videos online of Janet Jackson
having her tip exposed by Justin Timberlake during the Superbowl halftime
show based on a failed prior project a video dating site called TuneIn hookup
by February of 2005 the trio had agreed to set work on the YouTube project with
chin and Corrine taking technical duties and Hurley taking on a managerial /
administrative role in April of 2005 the very first video was uploaded to YouTube
a video of jawad hanging out at a zoo both hang what these guys explain is
that they have really really really long and no-one ever wanted for videos of
wardrobe malfunctions ever again and that's pretty much all today so what
does YouTube offer as a medium arguably YouTube offers anything you
want but the platform specializes in certain niches that flourish on this
platform more than they do elsewhere beauty blogs makeup tutorials video game
screamer at ers and DIY channels make up a huge percentage of successful channels
but the forum that both originated and flourished on the format and remains the
most popular are the slice of life vloggers to this day the biggest
channels on the platform with the likes of Logan Paul and PewDiePie even if they
specialize in a subcategory like video games are in effect slice-of-life
vloggers fundamentally YouTube lifts the barrier between the content creator and
the viewer decades prior television had come into people's homes
and given us the likes of news anchors and late-night talk-show hosts to
provide a friendly public figure a personality that people find
recognizable relatable and also a bridge to the world of celebrity but with
YouTube we strip away the artifice indeed even in the name of the platform
the person uploading the video controls what goes on on their channel YouTube is
the medium of authenticity one simply records a video at
so as they please and uploads it to their millions of subscribers no
middlemen YouTube is the response to the demand of a younger audience hungry for
what they consider authentic and because of this perceived authenticity audiences
give a great deal more latitude with the sale of certain things for instance
sprinkle services and t-shirt clubs this observation was brought to you by
Squarespace with Squarespace you can design a beautiful website designed by
professionals that know what they're doing not like me but even from the
beginning there are blurred lines between slice of life daily vlogs and
authentic fiction one of the earliest breakthrough channels was lonely girl 15
which launched in the summer of 2006 and was for a time
female subscribe channel on YouTube anyway so Daniel is really mad right now
and I know if he'll be allowed to come over anymore the series initially
presented as an authentic YouTube video diary but gained even more notoriety
when it was outed as being completely fictional in September of the same year
it is noteworthy that the big controversy around lonelygirl15 was the
revelation that lonelygirl15 was in fact an actress and that her daily vlogs were
fictional and completely fabricated part of the appeal of YouTube is its
perceived authenticity but even if there is no network or middleman everything
that is uploaded to YouTube is cultivated by the creator and is it fair
therefore to say that what lonely girl 15 is trying to sell you is any less
authentic and Logan Cole I guess what I what I wanted to ask you was why you
decided to be a youtuber I didn't decide to be a youtuber this is anyway I didn't
decide to be a youtuber just called to you there well there wasn't no there was
there like there were no youtubers it was 2007 there wasn't a such thing as a
youtuber so here here's a question do you okay so like the stuff you're
supposed to do like calls to action and do you ever do you ever consciously like
incorporate stuff like that like stuff that's supposed to improve metrics no I
mean the things that I do to improve metrics are like a good title and a good
thumbnail and I don't think beyond that like that the algorithm changes to too
much for my old man self to be trying to keep up with it but no I mean what I do
to action because I want when I want somebody to take an action ID calls to
action when PBS tells me what someone on Twitter actually like called me out on
that they were like it's weird hearing you do a call to action it's very not
on-brand and I'm like yeah yeah you're right you're right
yeah influencer culture yeah hey everything about it both of those words
are mean nothing I I think you can see a flash dear Hank no I ya know this this
video is gonna be sponsored by Squarespace if they clear okay this
video where I'm highly critical of influencer culture
I like if you're gonna influence people to do something like yeah you know if
you're gonna have a website you might as well use Squarespace oh that's their
that's their new motto don't try to be all fancy and shit you don't know what
you're doing good we're really good at this the medium is the message
see I forgot his first name Marshall the medium is the message
Marshall McLuhan 1961 what McLuhan yeah around one Yolanda
Gump started using the joshing with producers gimmick her sub started going
way way up and by mid-2016 she's well past two million subscribers and around
this time on July 26 2016 venture capital funded startup craftsy begin
publishing the first episode of their own cake show sometimes you need more
than just to know how to cake it sometimes you need um
about cake hey guys welcome to man about cake craftsy was a startup service that
specialized in hobby and lifestyle tutorials and craft education that was
launched in 2011 by a bunch of former eBay executives one of the contributors
who featured in content behind this paywall was pastry chef and sugar artist
Joshua John Russell pointer stencil resting against her cake board to help
make sure it doesn't shift around we begin starring in content for craft C in
2012 but in November of 2014 the company raised another 50 million in BC
financing and lo and behold they got their own fancy cake show starring
Joshua John Russell featuring drastically improved production values
and a whole new format one that seems strangely familiar by the way the
milkman came today and dropped this on my door I don't know why I find that
incredibly sexy it is sexy sword baby is about to be born
okay so if like me you're integrating a new
cake show into your cake tube diet one that admittedly does have more polished
production values than your old hat it may feel seamless at first and this sort
of thing is perfect for you to put on in the background of whatever it is that
you're doing and not really paying attention to but if you watch enough man
about cake you start to notice something what bird did that come out of it's like
a robin's egg no Robin's eggs are very very pale our birthday it's for the
viewers these guys are miked James who's that
guy that's Mike say hi Mike hello that's a lavalier mic and named the dragon go
ahead Brandon great okay like the sound cop from the producers on how to cake it
is either at the onboard mic or from your lung does lavalier mic but I made
about cake everyone on the set has a lavalier mic like these this is a
lavalier it's not it is a Thor joke and then you start to notice other things
like their use of props probably celebrate
that was the best thing that ever happened to me guys I didn't notice
there were balloons right above me balloons or their use of sound effects
I'm gonna kill these balloons that pop was at it in post
you all fired your fires there use of relationships within the show trim gets
cornered you better watch that night do you see this shirt that does not say
maybe I will cut you yeah you know just some guys joshing around just you know
being broke bros making some cake as you do a weird and unnatural dynamic that
Russell calls out in the very first episode of man about cake
joining me is my all-male crew which is not weird at all that four guys would
just be hanging out talking about cake but that's what we do and when you spend
hours watching this show as I have you start to realize that this wasn't just a
natural dynamic between the host and the crew that eventually got incorporated
into the show like in how to cake it this was part of the pitch the banner
for their YouTube show isn't just the hosts it's the host and these three guys
facing away from the camera you go into their website and there are like BIOS
for each of the camera guys you know camera guys but they don't have surnames
or any defining attributes and their eyes are blacked out like there ain't
goddamn witness protection so it's like this entire show was built around this
scaffolding of bros joshan with each other while making a cake let's
that was the best thing that ever happened to me more like man about fake
the plain breeze just like we're done
but a youtube show can't be like the obvious way more fake genre of reality
shows it is that has to embrace this manufactured authenticity already
pioneered by shows like how to cake it but here's the thing how to cake it has
a really clear business model obtrusive at this point and honestly kind of
distracting but I get it I get why the show exists and what its business model
is and I can respect that but mad about cake has hardly any calls to action also
on occasion they'll do like q and A's they'll do Instagram based contests
they'll ask for comments but that's it the vast vast majority of the man about
cake calls to action are all about building engagement and here's the thing
mad about cakes Channel doesn't have that many more subscribers than I do and
I know what kind of money these numbers pull ad revenue alone cannot pay for a
show that looks this nice hmm starburst and in 50 yards I still don't
really understand what their business model is what are you trying to sell man
about cake
they're just gonna get a lot of footage of me looking sad I was hoping to get it
from different angles but it's genuine
literary critic marie-laure Ryan states that we are more likely to be affected
by what happens to people we know than by the fate of strangers and youtubers
who have shared their lives with their subscribers for several years and
hundreds or in some case thousands of videos can feel more familiar to some
audiences than real-life acquaintances as we see in reality shows there is a
viewer fascination with what Ryan calls higher cognitive emotions ie shame
excitement sadness embarrassment in 2007 vlogger Chris Crocker became one of the
first youtube stars with an emotional appeal defending pop singer Britney
Spears who was at the time going through a variety of personal crises and being
hounded by the paparazzi and press you're lucky she even performed for you
bastard part of the viral appeal to this video is in part that the emotions are
so extreme and sincere that they push the viewer to a place of discomfort and
the best way to deal with that discomfort is to make proper the target
of ridicule of parody but more to the point that the emotions over-the-top
that they may be read is sincere and in this new marketplace of YouTube
sincerity and authenticity are the valuable commodities reality TV was
hugely popular when YouTube came onto the scene and remains hugely popular
even in the world with YouTube but with reality TV there is more of an
understanding that there is little real in what the viewer is watching with the
medium of YouTube the rules that is to say the understanding between the
creator and the viewer are a little different the videos on your personal
channel were like I guess a little more stream-of-consciousness II yeah cuz I
yeah just like my day of VidCon and stuff like that whereas like I guess the
scishow and stuff is obviously like the most scripted and I think the
interesting thing with the stuff you do on the vlog where those channels you
have much you have a different cadence and the way that you speak
and I've noticed this like even when I was doing a QA I noticed myself slipping
into this like cadence that I I have developed I didn't even realize that I
had developed it over the course of how many years yeah I am I have lots of
friends who are youtubers and some of them I'm like you sound nothing like
your YouTube self and they're like I don't I don't hear I don't have any idea
what you're talking about it was just like you have a different voice when
you're narrating a video it's just different it's completely - in some but
some people sound exactly the same and they they are they they make the same
jokes they make the same facial expressions like nothing is different I
think usually when people meet me they're like surprised that I'm short
and that I compulsively apologize what you don't do in your videos yeah no no I
like kids because people kind of have like even my friends are like wow you
just seem like such a hard-ass yeah and in real life you are not I don't know I
don't think I am competitive in his videos I think it's just because I'm a
woman and it just speaking speaking with any kind of confidence feels aggressive
that's true yeah no you're not wrong the term emotional labor comes from Arlie
Hochschild in her book the managed heart and was her contribution to discussions
of effective and immaterial labor according to Hawks child emotional labor
requires one to induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward
countenance that produces the proper state of mind and others her research
found that in working with affect managing one's emotions can be
physically tiring in the same way that manual labor is and that the
commodification of emotions estranges workers from their own feelings more
attention has been paid in recent years to emotional labor in a context of
intimate relationship ie the idea that romantic relationships the onus falls
more on women to manage the emotions both of herself and us for partner but
Haas child was more interested in emotional labor as it pertains to a
capitalist commodity in hostiles analysis not only is seeming to love the
job part of the job but actually trying to love it
and to enjoy the customers helps the worker in this effort as they are not
simply faking it but they come to believe and internalize what they are
doing for the job critical to her analysis is when this is done for and
guided by capital it's it's kind of strategic you want someone to have a
reason to come back and watch your video I think a lot of content you actually
end up with it being a one-off viral video and I'm watching this because I
like the video like because it's a good funny video yeah and if you don't get
connected to a personality then like the chances that you're going to come back
for a second video is way way down so trying to figure out how to connect with
a personality without connecting your whole life experience without sharing
everything is a really tricky balance how has your approach to selling a
version of yourself changed since you started I that super addict no it's not
it's just like I'm trying to come to terms with the version of myself that I
am on the Internet I think that ultimately I think that
it's it's really hard to have that version of myself not also in fact the
real me and so there's the in this weird way like where I've been held
accountable to being like a better person on the Internet I also like just
find that it is more comfortable for me to be a better person in real life and
to like be really thoughtful and careful and like aware of the impacts I'm having
on other people but there is no doubt that like I am a different person on the
internet than I am in real life and then I am very careful and I don't think that
there's anything inauthentic about that I am the version of myself that I need
to be for my own mental health but also for like the impact that I'm going to
have on the people who are watching
every job to a certain extent requires maintaining a certain effect but there
are a number of jobs in which maintaining a certain effect is a
requirement of the position if you are a cast member who works at Disneyland a
requirement of the position is to maintain a friendly effect it is in your
job description to make the customer feel special and to induce a feeling of
happiness now anyone who interacts with a waitress or a Disneyland cast member
while they appreciate and expect to receive this effect don't actually
believe that this effect is genuine all of the time the bartender at the PF
Changs doesn't actually care about how you never see your husband and how
YouTube comments are scary and overwhelming and how you're pretty sure
that the guy who sends you these novel-length screeds about how feminist
throughing society and he's going to kill himself and you and probably 10
dozen other people is probably actually gonna kill you someday youtubers are
selling more than a service like the bartender or the cast member the product
that youtubers twitch streamers and other influencers sell is almost
exclusively affect and this is a form of emotional labor more and more discussion
has turned to create a burnout but most of that has focused on consistency
maintaining a schedule little of that discussion has focused on the emotional
burden of maintaining the effect associated with the creator's brand
overtime little tiny micro traumas can build up as a result of a person
behaving in a way that does not reflect their emotional truth but more
importantly that their livelihood depends on and on some level a part of
burnout is the desire to rebel against this one-sided picture of yourself that
you have painted in the interest of consistency some extreme examples of
this are high profile youtubers and streamers letting racial slurs slip into
their speech or going on to other people's streams to rant about how
immigrants are bad or maybe they got drunk in public and had a run-in with
the police it happens I don't mean to condone random acts of racial slurs that
occur during heated gaming moments but rather suggest that a part of the
burnout is a result not only of YouTube's algorithm placing priority on
creators who upload regularly and homogeneously but also on the emotional
labor of only showing the side of yourself that your audience wants to buy
we acknowledge that people working in the service industry don't always do it
for the love of the game a cast member a Disneyland probably works there in part
because they like being nice people but we also accept that the
effect is a part of their job not necessarily their inner lived truths but
there's very little sympathy for a high-profile creator who isn't 100%
grateful for their platform 100% of the time when the same basic idea for
youtubers comes up that they're sometimes they're afraid of their fans
that maintaining an on brand effect becomes draining and exhausting that the
expectation of constant availability can begin to do real harm well that becomes
a breach of trust that the Creator had with this community a part of the
platform of YouTube what some would call influencer culture is that it's
important for creators that their audience think they know you and that
your job depends on maintaining that sense of accessibility and authenticity
without going crazy the premium of authenticity is predicated on
maintaining that the effect is convincing the challenge for creators is
to maintain the illusion for their followers of feeling like they do know
this creator when reality they only know the effect the construct the site of the
Creator that the Creator most likely without they're making a good conscious
decision to do so has decided it is most beneficial for you the audience to see
it is impossible to have a personal connection to a giant faceless mass of
people who are in effect your customers and when the deception becomes clear
fans can get angry but lucky for me I don't have to worry about you guys
you're the good ones
I remember this this very brief conversation you and I had at VidCon
where you you were talking about making this video where you asked youtubers
kind of random trivia questions and I was like oh man that was so sorry
I hate you know I hate that you had to do that while you're here and you're
like no I actually look forward to it like that's like my one creative outlet
and that kind of surprised me because I like I so see you too anything that I
put on YouTube is just work like sometimes it's gratifying work but at
the end of the day is work to me hmm yeah no I mean like making a video is
not I mean I don't know what work is I don't know what work is anymore I don't
know what relaxing is I don't know like I don't I don't I really don't know I
don't know how to do it really well like I have a hard time I sometimes have
a hard time like being like going to just like a gathering of friends and not
you know thinking about how could my time be better spent so I like I do have
that problem but I do really like making YouTube videos like I love to edit video
I love to I love to be on camera I love to write I love the whole process coming
together I love how fast it can happen i I'm very glad that I have this than that
I get to do every week yeah I know in a perfect world what would your positive
impact be I want people to smile and be happy and and like think that that was a
fun experience one I want people to like get excited about the universe in the
world and like how cool and weird and like thinking critically and hard about
stuff more and more like I want to foster some kind of better communication
and Milland am also more and more I feel like that that that needs to happen a
lot more off of the internet than is happening now I think that we need to
have more physical connection or else we will continue to become more
lonely and we need to occupy the same physical space as other human beings so
my hope is also that people find community and connection that can grow
outside of and be larger than just the Internet and I don't really know how I'm
trying to get that done right now but it's something I think about a lot no
Wendy am I going outside like Pokemon go it's like that except that I'm going to
MFI friendship yeah no no no we got a game of eyes friendship it's like the
Starbucks app that gamma Phi's coffee where it's like hit a star every day you
get coffee so maybe game if I get a star every time you like see a person in the
real save more than 10 words to them I like it the only the only problem I have
with this idea is but it's a non-profit we need to make money Lindsey we need to
get filthy rich
so obviously I'm coming at this discussion both from the angle of a
creator and as a viewer part of the reason I focused on cake-decorating
YouTube is not only because you know that's what I watch but because there's
something that happens in media where the scenes that are supposed to be
hidden once you see them it's kind of hard to unsee asking what Matt about
cake is selling is the wrong question Matt about cake isn't trying to sell
anything it is instead the product to be bought which it was after that influx of
VC financing in 2014 and the launch of mad about cake two years later that was
all made with an eye towards acquisition which they were by NBCUniversal earlier
the summer rebranding craftsy as blueprint on July 17th 2018 big
corporations see the value in authenticity even manufactured
authenticity like many about cake or this old companies will pay a lot of
money for brands that can successfully sell authenticity and entire newer
corporations have molded their marketing strategy around the faith viewers have
in the authenticity of their favorite youtuber or their favorite podcaster
companies like Casper audible and of course Squarespace now I
hope this doesn't come across that I'm trying to make a grand sweeping
statement about how thing bad even though that does tend to be the most
effective way to get popular on YouTube but rather thing exists and thing is a
part of a system that you may not even be conscious of but all content is
cultivated no one can portray a fully lived experience on this platform and to
paraphrase the great Dolly Parton it takes a lot of Labor to up here this
authentic this video was brought to you by Squarespace
URL squarespace.com slash lindsay ellis for a free trial and when you're ready
to launch use the offer code lindsay ellis i guess to save 10% off your first
purchase of a website or domain we bought this URL because we were having
problems with google adsense and my tax ID number for my new corporation and so
we were really angry about it so we just made a website where you just complain
about things we don't like like this dog my new neighbor
he's getting a blog entry free and secure hosting nothing to upgrade ever
you can promote your business announce events powerful ecommerce functionality
i should try that nothing about your neighbor's dog go easily create a
website make it stand out it's gonna be beautiful
the future is coming make it brighter with Squarespace
Squarespace is coming I'm coming for this dog
