Exciting News!: Just got done with my first interview with Beauty You Tuber user, Rebekka Victoria! She was super nice and very willing to help out with my project! So thank you to Rebekka if you are reading this :)
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At the beginning of my project, I decided to tweet out an announcement about my project and got a few responses. I started to contact my different followers and got a bunch of responses through those 'personal chats,' or 'DM's.' Although I am familiar with Twitter, I was not familiar with the 'DM' function and actually appreciated the fact, that I could message individuals privately, rather than making everything public on my twitter feed. This allowed me to coordinate times, emails, and questions, without divulging personal information to the public.
Moving on, after int
eracting with the various beauty bloggers/ V-loggers, I sent out series of 20 questions via email to each of them. This was a good test study, in order to get a handle on the type of information that I was able to receive from my study. However, I wish that I had obtained longer answers to my questions, but hopefully, with my shorter questionnaire (10 questions), this will allow for deeper answers.
Looking back at her answers, I feel that I anticipated many of her responses from my general research with watching other 'guru videos.' For the first question, I asked her the basic "Why did you start a beauty channel/join Youtube,' and she responded- "I wanted to do it for ages because I have watched videos for a long time and admired other people who had started channels. So one day I decided I could too :)" In her "New Beauty Guru tag" video on Youtube, she went into a bit more detail about her youtube channel, by adding that, she always wanted to make a Youtube channel, but that she was always a bit too scared to actually follow through with her plan. Thus, this leads to the point, that a 'visual medium' allows for a better sense of 'self expression' for individuals. As such, she explains, that she simply 'picked up a camera and filmed a video.' The accessibility of You Tube for V-loggers has redefined our definition of a conventional blogger. In comparison with her 'written' and 'oral' responses, she appears much more talkative and natural in front of camera, then she does in words. Furthermore, Ishould add, that she is strictly a You Tuber and does not have an additional fashion blog, as many You Tubers do. Furthermore, when I asked her about her first experience recording a video, she explained that it was- "A bit embarrassing at first but you get used to it :) it gets easier with time." Thus, like blogging, there appears to be a form of 'incentive' for You Tubers to continue putting up videos. Perhaps out of pure enjoyment, or even therapeutic reasons, all Beauty V
-loggers continue to make vide
os, in order to continue to build their following and keep doing what they love to do. As a fan of Beauty videos from the beginning, Rebekka is just making a dent within the community after just 2 years of creating her You Tube channel. Within all of the You Tube/ Beauty community, there is a mutual desire to be a part of this 'community' of Gurus. However, Rebekka does not classify her self, as this- "I would in a way [classify myself, as a 'guru'] but not all of my videos are beauty related." This is also true with another V-logger, that I have just watched named Kayla Lashee "I am not a Beauty Guru," who clearly states that she is a V-logger/lifestyle user. She makes a variety of videos, which are not just makeup and fashion related. Although I came into the project with the assumption, that all beauty v-loggers were 'beauty gurus,' this is not always the case. Thus, I have come to the belief, that, in order to expand a blog/ You Tube channel, once cannot contain oneself within a specific category. In order to achieve success on Youtube, your videos must appeal to a wide range of people. They must be able to relate and trust your personality, in
order to retain interest in your videos. As Kayla said, "That's what makes my channel my channel." This brings us back to the point of 'a blogger's voice.' It is their decision to blog for themselves AND their audiences, not just one or the other. Currently, she has a variety of different channels and playlists (lifestyle, cooking, fashion, makeup, decorating etc). As such, this is the reason why many Beauty V-loggers have secondary V-log channels, in addition to their Beauty Channels. However,Rebekka has not started one (but one day she thinks, that she will). The You Tube Beauty platform proves to be not only a 'community,' but also a personal branding 'system,' both on a personal and a professional level.
At the end of the interview, I asked Rebekka if she recognized a 'change' within her self-confidence and personality, since starting her channel and she responded with- "No, my channel is fairly new." This is interesting, because I would not consider a two-year-old channel to be 'very new,' (she always has over 100 channel subscribers). Moreover, this bears the question, "At what point on You Tube would you consider yourself 'an established user?" This question could pertain to a myriad of other social networking sites. Finally, I asked her if she had any future plans for her channel? She provided me with a very neutral, open-ended answer- “Hopefully my channel will keep growing over time, I plan to just keep doing what I've been doing so far lol! :)” Although very short and succinct, I think that it captures the feelings of many ‘new youtubers’ and ‘bloggers,’ who are just starting out. By having an optimistic attitude towards your channel, you are more open to the different routes and change, which may occur during the 'video making process.' Therefore, I am eager to see what other responses I will receive with this new survey!